LATIN: THE FIRST YEAR (1994-195

Philip William Hickey
Latina mortua non est-- Latin is not dead.
Teaching English and Latin was irrelevant to me as my father drove me to the airport. I had neglected to prepare myself for the grand move to the Gates Upper School Bldg. How could I have forgotten the seventy-one boxes Jimmy Harrell ‘91 and Steve Sullivan’ 91 had packed for my move? Panic Philip was my new name.

Yet, a Good Samaritan came to my rescue-- John Rice ‘94. With a nudge from his dear mother, John promised he would help me unpack the room as long as it did not interfere with football practice at Kent Denver.  And the kid did not disappoint. One weekend he helped me get the room together; he became the master poster-hanger, to name one of the numerous mundane tasks that would have easily exhausted Hercules. The room was finished before the opening meetings began.

I guess I was ready. Isn’t false optimism a blessing?

Amid memorizing vocabulary, declining nouns, conjugating verbs, and translating the sentences for the first fifteen chapters in the Preparatory Latin I, I had planned the Latin classes until Thanksgiving. Somehow, I shelved any thoughts of my seventh grade English classes. For many reasons, I was shaken by the thought of balancing the two disciplines and felt ill-prepared-- that was the closest to optimism I could muster. I felt like a sloth swimming against the raging seas. One sentence condensed my terrifying thoughts of failure-- Don’t ask me a question I could not answer.

The ninth grade Latin class was a motley crew of five. The boys in the class might be surprised to know I did enjoy the class, even though I stumbled at least three times every day. I was the epitome of embarrassment, yet ever determined to succeed. The daytime class was a small group as well. I began with a simple book, Phenomenon of Language, a book I had found in the closet mentioned in a previous posting. It was a good way -- so I thought-- to begin a study of Latin.

There were too many eighth-graders signed up for the morning class--thirty-five children had signed up for the class. One parent told me I was a victim of the DeAntoni cult. These kids loved Chris (rightfully, so) and thought he would be the Latin teacher. Many remained in the class, even though some of the drier aspects of the language did not engender leaps of joy. 

From time to time, we had fun. 

Year one came to a close.
 
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