Greek in the Delta

Having gone to a college with a strong focus on the Greek language, I am often inclined to tear apart words and look for their root meanings. This inclination has proven to be a good one for teaching. My students are interested for various reasons: they love recognizing Greek letters that have to do with their favorite fraternities and sororities (I try to discourage this association, though). Some of them also find that remembering the root is easier than remembering the English derivative and this can help on tests and quizzes. One of my favorite new websites for implementing the language connection is http://www.etymonline.com. This site is easy to navigate and so great for finding the origin and root meaning of most key vocabulary terms in my classroom. I teach both math and science, and have used this site for tons of different lessons in each class. My most successful lessons with it have been those involving polygons, measurement (centimeter, millimeter, etc.), biotic and abiotic factors, homeostasis, ecosystem, and others. It has gotten to the point in my seventh grade science class that I can put up a word on the board, and my students will begin to shout out their ideas of how the word might be broken up into roots. A similar scenario happened the other day in class: we already learned that the word homeostasis can be split into two roots: Homeo – meaning "the same", and stasis – meaning "to stand still." When I asked them to find other words which include either of these roots, one student suggested Homosexual, meaning the same sexual preference. I was so psyched at my students' ability to recognize words and meanings, and they brought up homosexuality in a mature context (of course, not all of my students responded in a mature manner). When it came time to take our unit test on homeostasis and I asked for an appropriate definition of the term, over half my class referred to the "ancient Greek roots" that we had learned. AWESOME! On a smaller, but perhaps more entertaining note, I have a story to share: One day I asked my students to try and recognize the root word that was shared in the following common terms: Biology, Biography, Bio-sphere, and Biotic. Most of them picked out the B-I-O immediately. I then proceeded to explain to them the Greek origin of the word (life), and the proper pronunciation (Bee-ose). After I had them try saying it a couple of times, I began laughing. I explained to my class that the reason I thought the word was so funny was because of how familiar it sounded to bi-atch. They roared with laughter, and for the rest of the week I could hear people running down the hallway yelling ancient Greek as slander. Although some may disagree, I consider it a great success if I can get my students to stop calling each other ignorant and profanities, and start using ancient Greek as an outlet for teasing and humor. I’m looking forward to what words we’ll be dissecting next week.