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We all know about the Success Academies, New York City Charter Schools whose pupils excel at learning. At a time when more than a few products of the nation’s school system are out on the streets rioting, looting and pillaging it is not frivolous to look at programs that work. That is, programs that ensure minority children a good education and open the door to a better life. One understands that the skills acquired at rioting and even protesting are not marketable.
And now we have another crazy educational experiment, being performed in a Bronx Charter School. This school is emphasizing an education in the classics, beginning with Latin. The children are invariably minorities and poor.
In today’s cultural environment, we anxiously await the moment when the thought police come for this school, because the classical authors studied there were all white.
It used to be the case that high school students were encouraged to study Latin, the better to gain an understanding of the English language and of other Romance languages. Nowadays, such an education barely exists even at America’s best universities. If you want a classical education in college you will need to look at Hillsdale College or St. John's College.
Anyway, the experiment in classical education seems to be working well, for the students involved.
The New York Post reports:
A dead language is bringing these Bronx kids to life.
Students at Classical Charter Schools are all taught Latin – and more than a quarter of the network’s kids scored at the highest tier on a recent national exam on the ancient tongue.
“When we were founded nearly 15 years ago, we set out to offer children in the South Bronx something they never had before,” said the network’s founder Lester Long.
“We wanted to offer Latin, giving them a world-class education rooted in the classics. As these exceptional national scores show, we are accomplishing that goal.”
Results from the National Latin Exam, released in May, showed that 34 out of the 120 Bronx Classical students in the 6th, 7th and 8th grade who took the test were recognized for having received a top score.
Eleven in the 6th and 7th grade got a certificate of outstanding achievement, for receiving a score of 36 to 40 out of a possible 40.
In addition to Latin, Bronx Classical kids – who number 1,000 across four schools – are also immersed in subjects that are quickly vanishing from American education, including debate, philosophy, and rhetoric.
While they initially question the devotion of time to a bygone language, network teachers said students soon become absorbed in the distant worlds of Aristotle and Plato.
These children are being given the chance to compete against their peers. And they are doing very well at it. Tell me which part of that offends you.
3 comments:
One of the catchiest songs from Square One TV (my favorite show when I was in grade school) was rock anthem celebrating Archimedes' achievements. I guess it wouldn't go over well today, seeing how an African-American lady was celebrating a Dead White Male™.
St. John’s May offer a classical education, but it is to no avail. The place was/ is infected with leftist SJW snowflakes just like everyplace else. There is a great irony to this, being immersed in the great tradition and then unwittingly rejecting it. Why? Because that is what academe produces, that’s all it can produce. It’s generation after generation of pale, spineless, enervated Brahmins.
As an unreconstructed White supremacist (just keep repeating “it is beyond my control.”) it’s none of my business what happens to minority children. In fact, it is in my interest, perhaps even as a matter of self-preservation, to stay out of it. Sorry, I reached the end of my tether and it feels like...freedom. Let Oprah figure it out, she’s got plenty of money.
Race is a bore. It’s been a bore for decades.
"These children are being given the chance to compete against their peers. And they are doing very well at it. Tell me which part of that offends you." None; nada; zip; zilch.
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