Lovett School issued the following announcement on Nov. 30.
“I want to make sure that when you study ancient languages, including Latin, you learn about the actual people that spoke it, and the people that created it and lived it.”
While Latin is one of four languages offered at Lovett, it’s the only one that hasn’t been spoken for many centuries. Many Lovett students choose Latin as their language, and many say that it is difficult to learn.
When I asked Gabrielle Tobin,10, why she chose Latin, she said, “I wanted to get better SAT and PSAT scores.” There are other benefits to learning Latin, according to Magistra Mellican (Magistra means teacher). “It helps with your reading comprehension, vocabulary knowledge, and even understanding English grammar,” Magistra Mellican told me.
Latin is considered to be a “dead” language, but in Magistra Mellican’s opinion, “Latin has evolved. It’s changed into English, Spanish, French, and all of the other romance languages.” Magistra Mellican says that teaching Latin has its challenges, such as translating something in Latin to present-day English. Gabrielle says that there are challenges learning it, as well, such as the fact that the syntax (the order of words in a sentence) is so different from English. Leah Cox, 10, explained that the order of words in a sentence in Latin is arranged very differently than it is in English and other languages. “The verb is at the end of the sentence,” she said.
In Magistra Mellican’s Honors Latin III, students are currently finishing up an Archaeology project. Magistra Mellican actually earned her degree in archeology, and she told me that she was “in the field” from 1997 to 2018. Her “digging days” sadly came to an end when she had to get back surgery due to all of her work in the field, but she still is involved with some projects from her time in the field. “I am hoping to someday get back!” she said.
When I asked her about the connection between archaeology and Latin, she said, “I want to make sure that when you study ancient languages, including Latin, you learn about the actual people that spoke it, and the people that created it and lived it.”
Students in Honors Latin III have been reading the myth of Hercules and his 12 labors. Magistra Mellican said that she wanted to connect the labors to actual places where they took place. “Hercules’s first labor is the capture of the Nemean Lion, and there is actually a town called Nemea,” Magistra Mellican explained.
Students had a list of sites that were connected to Hercules. Students had to research the site they chose, and look at what buildings, temples, and remains there are.
“We are also researching what made the specific archeology and structures different from now,” Gabrielle explained. Gabrielle told me that she and her partner chose the Eastern and Western pediments of the Temple of Zeus. “The eastern pediment is about a chariot race,” she explained.
Students also had to choose how to present their project. Gabrielle said that she and her partner chose a Prezi and then a Jeopardy game to present their project.
Looking to the future, Magistra Mellican is thinking about students having a project about the battles that created Rome. “Rome was just literally a city, but then it became a superpower. How? It fought a lot of wars and a lot of battles that are in real places,” she explained.
Clearly there are other ways to bring a language to life besides speaking it. And the fact that Latin isn’t spoken is what actually drove Magistra Mellican to take Latin in high school. “I was kind of shy,” she told me. “I do think that Latin provides an outlet and opportunity for students to learn a language without having the fear or pressure of speaking.”
Original source can be found here.
Source: Lovett School
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