{photo credit: Alexander the Great by Joanne via flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0}
Here’s another “Wonder” sent in by one of our teachers – Sarah Weinschenk, our middle school and high school Latin teacher, had a noteworthy experience in her class recently:
I was really impressed with how a discussion developed last week in one of my 8th grade (Latin 2A) classes. We were just beginning the section of the book that is set in ancient Alexandria, Egypt under Roman control, around A.D. 81. One of the characters in our stories, Quintus, referred to the fact that the founder of Alexandria, Alexander the Great, had had an empire even greater than that of the Romans. I asked the students to think about how this may or may not be an accurate statement. Two of the students immediately homed in on the issues at hand, stating with confidence that, while Alexander's empire covered a greater geographical area than the Roman empire, due to his untimely death, the empire was soon split up among his generals. As a result, one student explained, it never was really consolidated and did not last long enough to have the tremendous effect on language, arts, architecture, technology, law, government, et al. that the Roman empire had. The discussion among the students revealed such a deep understanding of ancient history and the critical thinking/logical skills necessary to articulate that understanding.
Thank you for sharing this, Sarah! As parents, we love getting these peeks into the classroom and hearing about the rich and meaningful discussions that take place. This is another reminder that the hard work and effort of the SLOCA life is well worth it – middle schoolers discussing ancient history, thinking critically, and reasoning logically…!?! Yes, it’s happening.
