My daughter Joanna recently taught an online class for Veritas Press entitled “Latin in a Week.” She crammed an entire introductory Latin course, using the classic Wheelock text, into a single week of intensive instruction. And yes, it is possible. Blogger Tim Nichols at Full Contact Christianity took her class and reports on the experience. Please excuse me as I quote his praise of his teacher:

Speaking of our teacher, she put in a stunning performance. Folks, I teach Greek for a living, and on a couple of occasions I’ve taught concentrated modules as well as the regular, year-long courses. I know a few things about teaching a language, and let me tell you, crashing through a year’s worth of grammar in a week is quite a feat. It takes a well-designed curriculum, which we had, but it takes more than that: specifically, it takes a fearless and skillful teacher. Joanna Hensley filled that role magnificently. Unfailingly upbeat, uniformly encouraging and at times very funny, Joanna cheerfully escorted us where angels fear to tread.

In order to understand what a job that was, there are a few things you need to know about language classes.

(1) It’s possible to get through a year’s worth of grammar in a week, but there’s no way normal adults with spouses and kids will memorize a year’s worth of vocabulary in a week.
In order to do translation exercises, students have to understand both the grammar and the vocabulary.

(2) One of the most important considerations in a first-year language course is that the students must see success. If they don’t, they become discouraged, and in that state they get overwhelmed by the slightest difficulty.

(3) Bring those three things together, and it causes a huge problem for a concentrated course like this. The teacher has to find a way to let the students do as much of the heavy lifting as they can and slip them the necessary help to get them the rest of the way, preferably without them really noticing. Done right, the net result is that the student finishes the translation exercise and thinks, “Hey! I just translated Cicero!” while only dimly aware that the teacher provided a little help. This takes a very deft touch.

On the other hand, there comes a time, especially late in the week, that the vocabulary deficit is just too much, and the teacher must respectfully and firmly shove the students through the translations, as if dragging them face-first down a buffet table. A good teacher has to be able to do both. Joanna did, and made it look easy. Ave, magistra!

When Rick Warren asked Barack Obama when a baby is entitled to human rights (a very well-crafted question, for which I give Rev. Warren credit), the presidential candidate said that the answer was “above my pay grade.” That answer–flippant, condescending, and disingenuous–irritates me greatly.

Obama is running for the highest office in the land, so the figure of speech is especially inept. So he doesn’t have an opinion on the matter? He certainly has other opinions that he wants us to accept. He has made plenty of votes on abortion that suggest he has views on the subject. At any rate, if you don’t know when life begins, doesn’t that mean that you need to safeguard the fetus at all stages just to be safe? The fact is, there is no real uncertainty among scientific experts, who recognize the unbroken continuum from conception through childhood. The only arguments that a fetus is not a baby hinge on unverifiable philosophical assertions (such as, a fetus becomes a child only when the mother wants it).

I hope someone asks Obama what other issues are above his pay grade, that he will not venture an opinion about, preferring to defer to experts. War? The economy? More deference to people with more knowledge and experience on various issues would indeed show humility and a willingness to learn. But I don’t see him actually doing that when it comes to abortion.

Can any of you Obama supporters defend that “above my pay grade” response?

Michael Gerson says that John McCain’s performance at Saddleback may be a turning point for the candidate, who showed that he just does better at unscripted, town-hall type events than Barack Obama:

What took place instead under Warren’s precise and revealing questioning was the most important event so far of the 2008 campaign — a performance every voter should seek out on the Internet and watch.

First, the forum previewed the stylistic battle lines of the contest ahead, and it should give Democrats pause. Obama was fluent, cool and cerebral — the qualities that made Adlai Stevenson interesting but did not make him president. Obama took care to point out that he had once been a professor at the University of Chicago, but that bit of biography was unnecessary. His whole manner smacks of chalkboards and campus ivy. Issues from stem cell research to the nature of evil are weighed, analyzed and explained instead of confronted.

This approach has a genuine appeal to some voters, especially of a more liberal bent, who believe there is a nuance shortage in American life. But on Saturday night it did not compare well with McCain, who was decisive, passionate and surprisingly personal. The candidate who once seemed incapable of the confessional style of politics talked at length of Vietnam experiences and his adopted daughter from Bangladesh. Asked by Warren about his greatest moral failure, McCain’s response — “the failure of my first marriage” — had an abrupt and disarming authenticity. The account of his hardest decision — refusing release from captivity during the Vietnam War ahead of others who had been imprisoned longer — remains shocking in its valor. And McCain’s habit of understatement — he described the excruciating rope torture he experienced in Vietnam as “very uncomfortable” — makes his stories even more effective. . . .

Obama’s response on abortion — the issue that remains his largest obstacle to evangelical support — bordered on a gaffe. Asked by Warren at what point in its development a baby gains “human rights,” Obama said that such determinations were “above my pay grade” — a silly answer to a sophisticated question. If Obama is genuinely unsure about this matter, he (and the law) should err in favor of protecting innocent life. If Obama believes that a baby in the womb lacks human rights, he should say so — pro-choice men and women must affirm (as many sincerely do) that developing life has a lesser status. Here the professor failed the test of logic.

For many evangelicals, the theoretical Obama — the Obama of hope and unity — is intriguing, even appealing. But this opinion is not likely to improve upon closer inspection of his policy views. Obama is one of those rare political figures who seems to grow smaller the closer we approach him.