<p>I'm not usually in the habit of blaming others for my own problems, but lately I've been having a recurring thought. I started taking Ancient Greek last year, and the professor I got normally teaches upper-level Latin. I had him for a different class before, though, and I liked him very much (he was the reason I changed to a Classics major) so I was optimistic. Unfortunately, we got hopelessly behind over the course of the next two semesters, and now I'm in my first 'real' Greek class trying to re-learn what I should already know while simultaneously trying to finish my elementary Greek textbook so I can start reading the New Testament. At first I blamed myself, but it's hard to resist the temptation to blame my elementary Greek professor, too.</p>
<p>The man would just tell us what to know for the test, and may God have mercy on us all. That's it. It's all in our hands. He would field questions and try to explain the trickier concepts, but he didn't make any concerted effort to 'force' us to learn. I know that's how college is supposed to be, but I was hoping for at least a bit more structure in the beginning stages of my experience. I'm sorry, but this free-wheeling format didn't work too well for me, at least not in a difficult language like Ancient Greek. Now I'm in a world of hurt, as far as Ancient Greek goes. I don't know so many different grammatical constructions, I don't know vocabulary, I don't know verb declensions, and I'm supposed to start reading the Acts of the Apostles in less than a month! </p>
<p>Contrast this to my Latin class. I started learning Latin about two weeks ago, and the professor teaching my class normally teaches upper-level Greek. However, he's head of the Classics department and has been teaching both Greek and Latin for 28 years at the same school. I love the class, I love the format, I love the professor. We have one chapter of reading per night (in the three-part Oxford Latin Course, if anyone is familiar with it) with vocabulary and grammar to go along with it. The day of class, we go over the previous night's homework assignment (vocabulary, reading, and grammar) and then we have a quiz at the end of class over the concepts featured in that same assignment. This way, we're forced to keep reviewing and keep learning. I like this process. It's a lot of work, and it's only going to get harder, but it's structured and I think it's an excellent format for teaching Latin. I only wish I had this experience last year when I was starting Greek. My elementary Greek professor rarely assigned homework, and when he did he didn't really use the opportunity as efficiently as he could have. But he told us at the beginning of the semester that he didn't like grading homework.</p>
<p>This saddens me, because I had two previous (non-language) courses with the professor in question and I enjoyed them very much. I think highly of him as a teacher, and I've heard great things about his upper-level Latin classes. I just don't think he was cut out to teach elementary Greek. That shouldn't surprise me, though. He wrote his doctoral thesis on Latin lyric poetry..... I don't know, this could have been his first time to teach Greek, but I doubt it. He's been a professor for over 20 years now....</p>
<p>Alright, I'm done complaining. I realize all too well that I need to just shut up and spend more time studying Greek and less time on CC, but I felt like I needed to air my grievance (real or imagined) in an anonymous forum. Thanks, any and all, for reading.</p>