Latin in the Campus Lisorius

[Dick Smith]

For those who only see the negative side of the UK there is a very encouraging story about teaching Latin to deprived kids in the UK and later the USA at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6570171.stm

[cooperlola]

Blimey Dick.  Looking back, I think the main thing that put me off Latin at school was the nature of the texts we were expected to read.  We never did anything as forward-thinking as this and maybe if we had, I would have learnt a bit more.  Everything was about war and battles which left me cold (and still does!) Good stuff.

[Dick Smith]

Cantab have been pushing Latin (and Classics in general) in schools for a few years now. They also have a distance learning version. It seems to work well as a challenge to able and not-so-able pupils.

[Le Petomane]

Sir Keith Joseph was keen on putting Latin on the school syllabus twenty years ago. I did Latin at school and enjoyed it and have never regretted learning it. But a lot of the claims made for Latin - that it is especially "good for the brain" or that it helps you understand English grammar - simply aren't true. Any intellectually challenging activity is good for the brain, and the grammars of English and Latin are quite different. Ideally one would like to be able to know everything, but any school curriculum has to be a choice of priorities, and it would be hard to justify the general inclusion of Latin in the modern school curriculum. If you take a group of children and subject them to special treatment, they will respond well to it whether the subject is Latin or go-karting. There was a famous experiment in an American factory - I can't remember the name of it - where they improved the lighting in a work area. The workers responded by improving output - they felt that the management cared about them. They kept up the improved output even when the old lighting was restored. Children in school will likewise respond favourably, but it's the singling out for special treatment, not the Latin.

[Dick Smith]

I'd never thought of that!

[Unknown]

My daughter has been learning Latin for the past school year.  She now finds it helps reading other languages as well.  I've taken an interest in learning Occitan and the connections between that, Latin, French and English are very interesting.

Whilst I agree its probably not the most useful subject to learn its worthwhile if you have a gift for lanuages.  Though Polish is probably worthwhile.

[cooperlola]

Does she have to read all that stuff about battles or has it changed, Dotty?  It bored the b*cks*de off me!

[Unknown]

I don't recall her talking about any battles, so I guess not.  I will have a shifty in her books tomorrow and let you know for sure. 

[Missy]

I was made to learn Latin for 4 years, had no choice in the matter my Father said so! and.... boy! was I a happy bunny when I was 'en seconde' at the Lycée Technique where such niceties as latin and greek was no longer on the curriculum! I swore never to afflict useless subjects/disciplines to my kids as and when I would have some....

When these kids arrived and started secondary school.... what did I do.... [8-)][Www] I send them to a school where they have to learn Latin, French, German and either Italian or Spanish. They muddled through, quickly dropped the last 3 languages when GCSE time came, carried on French (well... French Grandparents would have had a fit otherwise...) and Latin as an extra curricular subject. They found Latin quite uselful in getting their brain round the various rules of grammar in French as well as for vocabulary. 

Me?... [:$] I regret being very lazy in Latin class for 4 years and having wasted my time not to make the effort to learn it better as I often look/need the latin origin of a word when translating something just to be able to put the correct word in whatever context I need to translate at the time, especially when I read legal documents...  

So everything in the world has its purpose somewhat, somehow, somewhere, somewhen...  I know !! no such word as somewhen! but there should be. Na!  It says exactly what I want to say this very moment  [:D] .... 

[Motorhead]

Latin doesn't just help in learning other languages. My school latin helped me immensely when studying biology. It gives you a feel for a lot of the terminology eg anyone with a bit of latin can tell that something like "rostral to the caudal peduncle" is a load of mince.