If you saw the movie Monuments Men, you may remember that it tells the story of art historians, curators, and museum directors during World War II who set out to rescue and preserve works of art and cultural artifacts stolen by the Nazis. They were in a race against Hitler’s “Nero Decree” that ordered the destruction of anything of value to prevent it from falling into Allied hands. This collection of civilians from 13 different countries, generally not trained as soldiers, worked side-by-side with the military to locate, protect, and recover the looted treasures. We knew that the film was based on true events but we had no idea that our own local Fine Arts museum was connected with the restoration and repatriation effort.

Do you remember paint-by-number kits growing up? It was always a fun gift to receive because year to year you would get a few more colors and a more complex “work of art” to create. You might begin with 7 mini-pots of paint for a simple rainbow, move on to a dozen colors for a landscape or birds in flight, graduating to twice that many choices for a spring garden scene. Now I see that you can even design, print, and paint your own canvas with 60 colors. While those were fun, creative activities, the end result always seemed to be the same: it looked like a paint-by-number masterpiece; that is, you achieved your goal but it remained unpolished. What if you applied a similar principle to learning French?