“My school colleagues tell me that it’s not about balancing anymore, it’s about rebalancing,” says Arlene Holmes-Henderson, a. University of Durham professional “I think it’s just a matter of doing it.”
Holmes-Henderson talks about her mission to help raise a question many people don’t know or think about, even though she thinks they should. The people want to care about the classics, and for all children in the UK to have equal access to a classical education, whether they were gladiators of the Roman people or your scholars. pretty ones from your chiasmus.
To this end, last month Holmes-Henderson opened the world’s firstA department dedicated to classical research in learning and teaching at Dunelm
In the past year, he has been instrumental in training an all-parliamentary party group exploring all things classics about MPs and noblemen, by Peter Swallow, new Labor MP for Bracknell and former Durham classics research colleague.
Great progress has been made but it cannot be done properly, Holmes-Henderson argues that students in private schools in the UK 7% of the total – access to a classical curriculum, while the rest is different. “It certainly happens that there are fantastic state-maintained schools that have a vibrant classical curriculum. But it’s a postcode lottery and it’s not fair,” he said.
Pupils in the north-east of England have the worst access to classical subjects, while London and the south-east have more time to have classical subjects in their curriculum than in other parts of the country.
Holmes-Henderson is a former high school teacher who was passionate about the value of teaching the classics to students. “It’s a classic thing that comes with a lot of obstacles,” he says. “Some of the obstacles” are that “only Latin” and Latin is really boring because the language “dead” and “dead” have no importance or value in the 21st century. I say: don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
“We also need to move away from the idea that classical is a bunch of stones in a field.
His experience, based on years of research, initially doubts teachers, parents and children but is soon won over when they use the Latin language, for example, because so much of the vocabulary of the English language comes from Latin.
“The young people immediately see the connection. They seemed to live it. They see it as a language that has a legacy and supports spelling, understanding syntax and grammar and its links to other areas of the curriculum.
Holmes-Henderson spent seven years studying the ancient language in schools and the results were eye-witnesses, especially among students on free school lunches, those with special educational needs and those who spoke the Latin language.
Traditionally, Latin was taught to the major convallis to push and stretch them. “This study shows that we have taught people the wrong things,” says Holmes-Henderson.
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Progress has been made but many hurdles lie ahead. The day before Christmas; Schools Week revealed that the government is cutting back on public school English programs The mid-year decision to cut costs “undermines the excellent work that has been done up to date,” Holmes-Henderson said.
Ancient history has had a big year in popular culture, whether it’s Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II in a movie or Netflix’s modern story TV comedy drama Chaosat Jeff Goldblum’s Prometheus.
Some classic writers were sniffy. They even suggested it was one I’m a little shy about doing the classics wrong. Some complained about the negligence in Gladiator II, such as the newspaper of the Roman nobleman, or the sharks in the Colosseum.
Holmes-Henderson loves all things and wants to work with writers, TV and film for the new center, which is named Ceres after the Roman goddess of grain and harvest, often depicted with a cornucopia full of fruit and grain. The idea is today the green grass of classical education, but it must be “full and superfluous to all,” he said.
Ceres also stands for the Center for Research and Engagements in Classics Education; Holmes-Henderson emphasizes the last s as long sssss. “It took about a year to get the name,” he said. “There were some horrible names. I will not tell you what they were.