Extra Early Post Because I am Annoyed

Compare two scenes.

1. Cristina Odone, Telegraph blogger, no stranger to affluence, sits with her ten-year-old daughter Izzy and her stepson Johnny in a luxurious home and skypes with a reactionary 71-year-old Latin tutor from Ireland. He has recently published a traditional grammar textbook which Odone seems keen to promote.

2. A group of largely under-privileged children age 9-11 are introduced by the inspirational Bob Lister (teacher trainer) and Liz Lloyd (teacher) to the Iliad Project at the William Ford Junior School in Dagenham. They listen, spellbound, as they collectively harness the power of storytelling, perform scenes from the epic and demonstrably improve their  listening and speaking skills to the magical rhythms of the ancient poem.

QUESTION: Would you rather be in Odone’s sitting room or that hushed state school in Essex? I have no doubts myself, having been reduced to tears by a video of the Iliad project shown at a conference run by Classics in Communities, an initiative devoted to bringing the Greeks and Romans to children across wider social strata, and hosted with delicious sandwiches at Oxford University last Saturday.

I would be able better to tolerate Odone’s domestic narcissism, even her ignorance about  what is at stake in pedagogy, if she didn’t launch such moronic attacks on teacher training colleges: “Don’t go near them!” we are told, approvingly, her Irishman “thundered over Skype”, since “they teach only the worst habits and will psychologically scar you forever.”

Oh dear. I have seen personally the inspirational effect of committed and thoughtful teaching of great ancient literature to disadvantaged children. This requires skills Odone seems unable to bear contemplating. Her intervention is so disheartening for the tiny handful of people still helping others to learn how best to energise such children through Classics. There are only two institutions left in Britain where you can qualify to teach Classics in State Schools, Cambridge and King's College London.

Steve Hunt Brings Classics Teaching Skills to the Nation's Teachers

More particularly, Odone is attacking the extraordinary band of teacher trainers at these two institutions now running ‘crash’ courses to other teachers on how to get Latin or Classical Civilisation up and running outside the private sector in Britain. These teacher-trainers are heroes. With grants from e.g. the Roman Society, they are training (sorry if that is a dirty word, Cristina) even teachers inexperienced in Classics to introduce ancient thought and language to ALL the nation’s children. Not just to Izzy and Johnny.

So sneer away, Cristina, about how delightfully one eccentric communicates with your children. Most of the children reached by ‘Classics in Communities’ are not given private skype coaching by Latin teachers when (or if) they finish their official homework. Some have no computer, broadband, or mother. It is one thing to enjoy class privilege. It is quite another to gloat about in print, publicly.

Rebranding Psychotherapy as Classical Stoic Philosophy

M. Aurelius. Roman Emperor as Emotional Role Model?

This week I faced attacks by social media from some (un-Stoically angry) self- styled Stoics. I was invited by the producer of Radio 3’s Nightwaves to consider whether the practices advocated by the organisers of ‘Stoic Week 2013’ had anything to do with what I, as a classicist, understand by ‘Stoicism.’ Also present were the Stoic Week ‘team member’ Jules Evans, who has written a book he was keen to promote, and the unfailingly sensible philosophy journalist Mark Vernon.

I dutifully read the ‘Stoic Week Handbook’, which recommends a programme of meditation and mindfulness exercises requiring me-time which, frankly, is the stuff of dreams for any working mother. I also read many other texts by the ‘Team,’ which is dominated by psychotherapists but also includes two reputable experts in ancient philosophy and their PhD students. Most of the reflective practices they recommend, including cognitive behavioural therapy, would benefit any stressed-out individual in the 21st century, were she or he child- and work-free enough to find the time (the elite Stoics Marcus Aurelius and Seneca enjoyed leisure). But they simply are not Stoic philosophy.

The brilliant translator of Epictetus, Elizabeth Carter, was very concerned that some Stoic ideas were too harsh to be of much use to her 18th-century audience. I believe the Stoic Week team have not addressed the contradictions involved in transposing into modern experience the ideology favoured by the ruling class of the ancient Roman Empire, a slaveholding, patriarchal, centralized dictatorship. I said so.

 I do think that authentic ancient Stoicism still has one crucial idea to offer: some anxiety is constructive, because it energises you to change things, and some anxiety is unconstructive, because it concerns things over which you have no control.

But most of ancient Stoicism was addressed to suppressing animal instincts and emotions, rather than addressing and dealing with them without shame. This hasn’t been acknowledged by our neo-Stoic brethren. 

I am myself involved in researching the ways that

ancient Greek and Roman ideas have really inspired people to improve their emotional, social and political positions in my Classics & Class project. I therefore feel queasy when radically distorted information about antiquity is put into the market-place.  I was funded by British taxpayers to become an expert on ancient Greece and Rome. I would be betraying them if I didn’t honestly say what my acquired knowledge leads me to think about any ancient topic, including Stoicism. Neither retreat nor surrender, just yet.

Classics & Poverty in the Furthest North

Aberdeen, Land of the Ancient Taezali

The Alexandrian scientist Claudius Ptolemy mentioned Aberdeen (which he called 'Devonia,' from its River Dee) in about 146 BC. He said Aberdeen was inhabited by a people named the Taezalians. This week I visited their descendants. The Aberdeen University Department of Classics, founded in 1495, was abolished in 1989, just before its 500th anniversary. But enthusiasm for ancient Greece remains in The Granite City. 

This was proved by the many members of Aberdeen Scottish Hellenic Society who turned out last Tuesday, despite their first winter snowfall, to hear me lecture on Ancient Greek Minds and The Sea.

Central Court, Aberdeen Art Gallery, in 1905

The Aberdonians have always liked Greece. In 1905 the new central court hall of the public Art Gallery was opened to display casts of ancient statues. Its inner walls were (and remain) adorned by a splendid reproduction of the Parthenon frieze, around which the building was designed. The frieze was paid for by a local philanthropist, Sir George Reid. He had made his fortune by his paintings, despite being born poor and receiving little formal education. An intellectual Leveller, he wanted everyone in Aberdeen to have access to classical sculpture.

George Reid, Beauty for Everyone

The new court was opened at a magnificent reception in April 1905. A special train arrived from Euston containing 62 guests. Among them was the writer Thomas Hardy, who, unable to attend university, had studied Greek and mythology as an apprentice stonemason. He was delighted to receive from Aberdeen University, at last, an honorary degree.

Granite Meets the North Sea in the Land of Taezalians

But Aberdeen sends out conflicting messages. In the Maritime Museum, I was appalled to learn from a display that, in 1961, 39% of Aberdonians still had no access to a household toilet. The display is intended to prove how much progress has been made, since it is paired with the news that there are now more multimillionaires in Aberdeen per head of population even than in London (it must be the oil).

Lies & Damned Statistics. There are more Poor in Aberdeen than in 1905.

Struck by these facts, by the homeless on the streets, and endless 'Pound Stores' and charity shops, I checked out the poverty statistics. The official child poverty rate in Aberdeen is today a disgraceful 23%. In 1905-6 fewer children were being raised in acute poverty--18%. 

George Reid, 'Buchanhaven Fisherman'

I don’t regard this as progress, notwithstanding the oil tycoons among the modern Taezalians. I don’t even like to speculate what the Victorian philanthropist George Reid, or Thomas Hardy, would have made of the widening gap between the rich and poor of Aberdeen in the 21st century.