I want to speak about bodies changed into new forms…
I’ve just begun my seventh consecutive year of teaching students how to translate Ovid at A Level. In a year of flux, it’s fairly fitting to translate – as we always do in our first Year 13 lesson – the opening of the Metamorphoses.
So my theme is change: unexpected changes to the world, rapid changes to our profession, and some changes too for Quinquennium.
To introduce myself: my name is Ollie and I will be temporarily taking over as the editor of Quinquennium for the coming year. I’ve bounced between Monmouth, Oxford, Buckingham and Brighton, and I’m now in my seventh year of teaching, which (I hope!) makes me qualified to guide the blog.
We trust that we will continue Quinquennium’s superb work from the past year, and that we ensure that we are asking and answering the important questions that early career Classics teachers face. With this in mind, there are a few key areas that I intend to emphasise and promote over the coming period.
- ‘Hands-on’ pedagogy. While nobody enjoys theorising as much as me, we want to position Quinquennium as a site where one can turn for insightful, practical ideas that can influence and enhance our everyday teaching. Given all the invention currently required of teachers worldwide, it seems appropriate to lend a special focus upon this angle of pedagogy; the support of the classics-teaching community has probably never been more important.
- Student involvement. One of the best parts of our profession is the constant communication between us and our students; the fact that they offer us real-time feedback on our jobs is something that few other careers allow for. We want to encourage students to engage with Quinquennium just as we do; by supplying a platform to offer criticism and alternative perspectives, we hope that we can create a further channel of dialogue between those who teach and those who are taught. With this in mind, please ask your Sixth Formers / undergraduates to send Quinquennium a piece!
- Subject-criticism. My students are always surprised when I reveal that I’m not a fan of every single thing from the ancient world; we’re sure you too can relate, especially if (like me) you’ve been asked if you worship the Greek gods! There is definitely scope to interrogate our broad subject; we shouldn’t shy away from critically evaluating the problematic areas of our discipline, which can so often be a minefield of ingrained elitism, racism and sexism. We’re sure that you would agree that, more than ever, we need to be including such criticism into our classrooms and curricula, so I invite you to write on these more troubling areas of classics.
This blog will continue to pose the key questions and seek out the problems, challenges and opportunities we face as early career Classics teachers. In guest posts, reviews, interviews, in the comment sections on every page, we are setting out to crowdsource some of the solutions and reinvigorate ourselves for the next quinquennium of our careers.
Please involve yourselves in whatever way you can: write for us, subscribe, and let’s see what’s next.
