tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4134533972010981122.post747338928152627288..comments2024-03-28T17:46:07.937+00:00Comments on The Edithorial: AQA and the Slow Death of People's ClassicsEdith Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02518971064140009711noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4134533972010981122.post-11121216284120442612016-10-18T21:44:06.804+01:002016-10-18T21:44:06.804+01:00Why target AQA? Who created the conditions in scho...Why target AQA? Who created the conditions in schools that are squeezing the life out of these subjects? (He may have failed to become PM, but even he didn't dare propose the educational policy the present one is espousing.) And don't worry about OCR. They can even afford to scrap French, German, Spanish et al. Have you seen the size of the new building they're erecting in Cambridge? Who knows - maybe WJEC can build on their own real success with Latin and develop qualifications in other classical subjects that will widen access further in nonselective state schools. Festina lente.Eager beaverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06709315884578616873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4134533972010981122.post-58295148139314627462016-10-18T15:06:21.466+01:002016-10-18T15:06:21.466+01:00Surely one problem may be the survival of Classics...Surely one problem may be the survival of Classics at Oxbridge for comprehensive school pupils, without 'dumbing down' further the requirements of the syllabus, as well as on entry? My Grade As at A-level Latin and Greek, and Grade 1 at S-level Latin, were taken in my north-eastern comprehensive, an erstwhile grammar school, before a scholarship at Cambridge. At the time, A-levels were required in both Latin and Greek in order to be accepted for Oxbridge, so I did A-level Greek from scratch in two years in my comprehensive. Both Latin and Greek are long gone from my school and my younger Classics teacher turned to teaching IT, while the older one retired. I wonder if any pupils from my town have ever become classicists since then...?Mandaroohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08117074190991315659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4134533972010981122.post-9837512124554287442016-10-16T21:17:46.763+01:002016-10-16T21:17:46.763+01:00I've been negotiating my way through this batt...I've been negotiating my way through this battleground for more than a quarter of a century. In 1989 I had to move to London in order to study ancient Mesopotamian languages. It was hard enough at that time to study ancient Greek in Edinburgh, but there was an evening class (which later managed to survive as an introduction to New Testament Greek). The spirit of the time is against a widespread understanding of the ancient world. Not because such an understanding reveals our modern shallowness (which it does), but because neo-cons and neo-liberals want us to live in a world which entirely conforms to their understanding of what is important. Which of course is the power of the market. A dud religion if ever I saw one.<br /> Thomas Yaegerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12766740652942757039noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4134533972010981122.post-38008660286432252212016-10-16T18:54:03.609+01:002016-10-16T18:54:03.609+01:00Umm, possibly, yes, but not until I've cleared...Umm, possibly, yes, but not until I've cleared out a few other things that I'm committed to. (There's a couple of paras in <a href="http://tonykeen.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/does-catullus-sing-smokey-meditation-on.html" rel="nofollow">this piece</a> that show the way I'm thinking.)Tony Keenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4134533972010981122.post-69973071636889561752016-10-16T17:45:16.072+01:002016-10-16T17:45:16.072+01:00Oh Tony, thanks for this. Please please do write y...Oh Tony, thanks for this. Please please do write you rant!! Would you like to do a guest blog one week?<br />Edith Hallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02518971064140009711noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4134533972010981122.post-34456318462252938392016-10-16T12:32:11.287+01:002016-10-16T12:32:11.287+01:00I think I'm even angrier about Art History and...I think I'm even angrier about Art History and Archaeology, where, as you say, there are now no A-levels at all (and the blithe AQA statement of 'it's all right, they can be studied at university' ignores how the lack of an A-level weakens recruitment, and therefore provision, at university level). But I am angry about this, which leaves the subject dependent on the good grace of OCR, and however much they promise that they have no plans to get rid of it (and I believe them), such precarity is not good. It's the (temporary, I hope) triumph of the likes of Harry Mount, who believe that the philological approach is the only acceptable one to antiquity, and whilst asserting their desire to see more Classics in state schools, dismiss the prime instrument of achieving that. (One day I will actually write up my rant about why philology is not necessarily the best training for all Classicists, given its propensity to produce historians who don't understand historical process, writers on love poetry who seem out of touch with emotions, or writers on comedy who can't spot a joke.)Tony Keenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com