Comment by zehaeva | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zehaeva | Hacker News Reader

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What does teaching Latin in schools have to do with schools, ostensibly, failing?

Are you saying that Latin is something that is useful to everyday life and because we don't teach it to our children we're depriving them of this wonderous tool?

I personally do not know Latin, but I have never run into a situation where I needed to know it.

And to analyze the idea that, "Well, it's not Latin in specific, but that we are not teaching our children to think for themselves", this too has been bayed about for the last forever, Plato complained that "children today are not learning the things that they should"

I don't know which pedagogy is the "correct" one, stuff children with, seemingly, random knowledge and watch them "blossom" or to stuff them with narrowly focused learning so that they will flourish at whatever work they are funneled into.

But I do know that teaching a dead language isn't the bellwether you think it is, unless you're trying to start a jobs program for all those unemployeed Latin tutors.

Well, you would be surprised how much historical writing you are locked out of by not being able to read Latin. Not from antiquity, but from the fall of rome up until the turn of the previous century, Latin was the language. A tiny fraction of what's been written in Latin is available in any vernacular. By not reading Latin, you're locked out almost all western pre-modern writing.

> Plato complained that "children today are not learning the things that they should"

Where does he say this? This seems an incredibly uncharacteristic sentiment coming from Plato. If nothing else because his mentor Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth, and almost all extant writing from Plato deals with Socrates' legacy. When Socratres isn't harassing rulers and generals, he's typically portrayed hanging out with the youth in Plato's writing.

Closest thing I'm aware is a section of The Republic. The section, a hypothetical aside really, deals with the horrors of Athenian democracy (the same that killed Socrates), where fathers fear their sons and children are said to think themselves equals to their parents.

I assure you that I am not surprised with how much historical writing I am locked out of by not being able to read Latin. Honestly I would be willing to bet that it as much as I am locked out of from not being able to read Chinese, Sanskrit, Greek, Japanese, Arabic, etc. You can't think that's a serious argument for teaching Latin in primary or secondary school? If I were a western historian, sure, you should probably learn Latin, probably some flavor of ancient Greek as well.

I am referencing a Guardian article that I read nearly a decade ago[0] but he wasn't the only one to have bemoaned the "youth".

With Socrates, him being sentenced to death while for "corrupting the youth" that's a pretty naive, and incomplete, explanation, if you were to dig a little deeper you'll find that the, probably, true reasons for Socrates' trial was political[1]. You forget that the "corruption of the youth" was bound with the accusation that Socrates was denying the gods and introducing new gods[2], not, as you imply, that he was a champion of the youths themselves. For me it's difficult to take everything we know about Socrates as true given the posthumous glow up that Plato gives us. This is partly Socrates' own fault for his, as we're told, ideas that writing things down would lead to forgetfulness. Ironic honestly.

I am tempted to discuss further about Socrates' trial, how most thought that he was going to going to get off due to his ability in rhetoric and hi, basically, not defending himself was pretty shocking in and of itself.

[0]https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/mar/17/ephebiphob.... [1]https://www.mcgill.ca/classics/files/classics/2006-7-03.pdf [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates

All of Plato's extant works are available in English (and it's not a particularly large amount of text), and I assure you this is not something he's ever said. The quote is entirely apocryphal, and there is no evidence of it prior to 1967[1].

I'm omitting the other charge, because I'm focusing on the charge of corrupting the youth, and the fact that he (according to Plato) associated with the youth much more frequently than he did with the adults. The youths of Athens make appearances in almost every platonic dialogue, and they're almost always shown in a neutral to positive light (unlike the leaders, generals, politicians, poets, etc.) He's portrayed as the opposite of a stodgy old man opposed to new ideas; if any thing he's spearheading an ideological assault on the status quo of Athens!

[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/12/13/riot/

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