Welcome back to another edition of Monday Night Musings, when I set the timer for 15 minutes and let ideas flow instead of trying to craft, construct, and edit.
The topic tonight is 'on-demand' professional development, or the really recent phenomenon of social media serving as learning communities. Like anything, there are positives and negatives, but I am here to focus on the positive in particular.
A few weeks ago I posed a 'Quomodo dicitur?' (How is it said?) question to one of the CI Latin teacher groups, in regards to using Expo brand markers in the classroom in Latin.
My question: "If you were to use 'Expo', like an Expo brand marker as a Latin noun, would you put it in the 2nd declension or 3rd? masculine or neuter? Leave it as indeclinable?"
As far as I can tell, none of us has formal training in how to handle questions like this. It's all feel. And of course, there's not really a wrong answer. If I want to discuss Expo markers in my classroom with students, I can do so with any of the options above and be just fine. But some of us want to feel like we are aligned with something, and even if you have colleagues in your school, teaching Latin with CI can feel pretty isolating at times.
So what happened after I asked the question? Did the internet expo-lode into a flame war? Not at all. I received quick, friendly, and thoughtful replies that affirmed my idea. One answer even made me laugh out loud! The consensus was to model it as a 3rd declension masculine noun with a dictionary entry expo, expōnis. The reasons for this choice were well-stated and multiple. I closed out of the internet feeling good.
In conclusion, I would encourage anyone with little questions like this one, and especially anyone feeling the need for affirmation, to use this new form of PD to its fullest. Sometimes it is easy to think of Quomodo dicitur? only as a fantastic podcast or a powerful weapon for our students in the classroom. As a community, we could use more ad hoc acknowledgement of our humanity and chances to have small, productive discussions. So let's take advantage of the best feature of social media PD and ask some more 'Quomodo dicitur?' questions.
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