Latin...Who teaches this?

[Beth in SW WA]

Must my younger dds learn Latin?

 

I just watched Little Man Tate this weekend (yay, mommy-alone time) and noticed at Fred's gifted school they were chanting Latin forms. It got me thinking -- if some (not all) elite east coast prep schools still teach Latin AND they manage to find time for excellent STEM teaching -- should I budget time for Latin in our schedule?

 

This is my only :confused: at this stage of the game. Latin and STEM. Can we have our cake and eat it too? What is the cost/benefit analysis?

 

Thinking out loud here. Thanks for indulging. :)

[jenbrdsly]

I have some thoughts on learning Latin here on my blog. It also includes the views of two of my friends who took Latin with me in middle school and high school. Ari and Amber both became teachers too. I think learning Latin is a waste of time, they disagree.

In terms of the SAT, Spanish helped me just as much. But yes, in terms of learning grammar, Latin is really helpful. Still, I’d rather spend the extra time in STEM.

[8filltheheart]

My math loving ds absolutely loves Latin. He is actually the one to insist on learning it. He will finish French 3 this yr (as well as Latin 2) and he can completely drop foreign language from this pt forward. He, however, refuses to! He wants to take Latin through graduation and wants to add Greek next yr as well (though he is more than willing to drop French.....not a fav for him!)

 

I will be completely honest and say he is as out of my league in Latin as he is in math these days! Latin 1 and 2 have not been difficult to have him pretty much learning on his own from textbooks. I am still trying to decide what to do for next yr though.

[Kathy in Richmond]

I let my kids choose which foreign language to study. My STEM-oriented dd and ds both chose Latin, and they took it all the way through high school. In fact, my dd loved it so much that she's double majoring in a STEM field and Latin/classics in college. They both noticed that several of their science & math friends came to college with Latin backgrounds.

 

I also studied Latin and learned it along with my kids. There's something about it that satisfies me - the logical structure, the beauty of the poetry, the fun of tackling a difficult puzzle...I think that I use the same part of my brain for math and Latin translations.:)

 

Btw, we didn't study Latin for the purpose of doing well on the SAT. There are plenty of other roads to gaining vocabulary for a test. Rather, we absolutely loved the language, the challenge, the complexity, the history and culture of ancient Rome, and the fun thrill of finally being able to read literature in Latin. I'd encourage you to give it a try!

[Beth in SW WA]

Thanks, ladies. We did Prima Latina last year and started LFC A this year but then life took over and I got lazy. Hmmmmm....

 

:bigear:

[Dmmetler]

I think it depends on what your DC want to learn. My DD wanted to learn Latin because of scientific terminology (and Greek because it has a neat alphabet and because of history), and it's still one of her favorite parts of the day, although I've discovered that part-whole works better for her than whole-part. I figure one benefit of her being accelerated is that it gives her a little extra time to explore-it simply takes her less repetition to learn a new concept than it does most other kids, so she can dedicate some of that extra time to Latin or Greek-or learning how to do a back walk-over, which is more important to DD right now than just about any academic subject, I think :).

[Halcyon]

I think of our homeschool as quite Latin-centered, yet we still manage to get in a good amount of science. As for math, it's probably our top priority. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, however, I do think it means you need to have motivated students who are willing to work hard. Latin is hard, and higher level math is challenging, and just finding the time to do science is difficult (we do about 4 hours or more a week here).

 

I sometimes imagine our homeschool without Latin; we'd have a lot more time! But my kids have learned so much grammar, vocabulary and logical thinking through Latin...not to mention patience and care, that I don't think we can give it up. Plus, we all love it and are determined to read the classics in their original language.

 

I say go for it, if you're motivated. If you're not, don't beat yourself up over it.

[Halcyon]

 

Btw, we didn't study Latin for the purpose of doing well on the SAT. There are plenty of other roads to gaining vocabulary for a test. Rather, we absolutely loved the language, the challenge, the complexity, the history and culture of ancient Rome, and the fun thrill of finally being able to read literature in Latin. I'd encourage you to give it a try!

 

:iagree:

[angela in ohio]

Latin and STEM intersect beautifully here. Many students who love math also have a mind for languages (check out the National Computational Linguistics Olympiad.)

 

The value of Latin, like so many other subjects, can only really be appreciated by those who already know it. That makes it hard to make a decision about it if you don't know it and have a personal view of the benefits. I think Latin was the single most valuable thing I learned in school, for example. :001_smile:

 

My dd is in her second year of Wheelock's, yet she manages to be a leader on her FIRST robotics team, program, etc. It's the usual story: if you want something done, give it to the busy person. :D The same students who are in AP Calculus are also often in AP Latin.

[acurtis75]

I think the discipline required for Latin carries over in to other studies. It's one of dd's favorite subjects so far (we've done Song School Latin, Prima Latina, and are now working on LFC A).

 

Also, if your children end up pursuing a career in Science Latin gives them an advantage in some fields.

[Hadassah]

I do believe Latin is an excellent foreign language choice for STEM-minded kids.

[boscopup]

I've gone back and forth on this one... At one point I was thinking of starting in 3rd grade, then I talked to a high school friend who took Latin... She's a neurologist now and says that Latin didn't help her at all in medical school and that she wishes she'd taken more Spanish instead (she practices in California). She really thinks Latin was a waste of her time. :confused: So that made me waffle a bit, but now I'm leaning towards trying out GSWL next year, as it looks like something we could handle easily, and I think we would enjoy it. If we find it useful, we'll continue. If we don't, we'll drop it without regret.

 

I don't know any Latin at all. I took Spanish and German in high school. Learning one language made learning another easier.

[acurtis75]

I've gone back and forth on this one... At one point I was thinking of starting in 3rd grade, then I talked to a high school friend who took Latin... She's a neurologist now and says that Latin didn't help her at all in medical school and that she wishes she'd taken more Spanish instead (she practices in California). She really thinks Latin was a waste of her time. :confused: So that made me waffle a bit, but now I'm leaning towards trying out GSWL next year, as it looks like something we could handle easily, and I think we would enjoy it. If we find it useful, we'll continue. If we don't, we'll drop it without regret.

 

I don't know any Latin at all. I took Spanish and German in high school. Learning one language made learning another easier.

 

I'm wondering how rigorous your friend's Latin education in high school was compared to what's suggested in the WTM or other classical education materials. I have never heard anyone way their Latin wasn't helpful. If nothing ese, once you know Latin learning Romance languages including Spanish should be easier. We're only about 2 years in to our Latin studies but I already find it quite useful and practical.

[boscopup]

I'm wondering how rigorous your friend's Latin education in high school was compared to what's suggested in the WTM or other classical education materials. I have never heard anyone way their Latin wasn't helpful. If nothing ese, once you know Latin learning Romance languages including Spanish should be easier. We're only about 2 years in to our Latin studies but I already find it quite useful and practical.

 

It was public school Latin. I think she took 3 years of it, then took a year of Spanish.

 

Learning Spanish was easy for me even without Latin, and then Learning German was even easier, despite being a Germanic language. I took German 1 my senior year, and they bumped me up to German 2 for second semester. I still got A's. :) I think learning any language helps in learning other languages. My friend wishes she had spent her Latin learning time on Spanish, as that would have been useful in her daily life as a doctor in California.

[Beth in SW WA]

My friend wishes she had spent her Latin learning time on Spanish, as that would have been useful in her daily life as a doctor in California.

 

Ds regrets his 2 years in Latin. Dd knows it opened the door to her passion for Spanish. She will max out at Spanish 4 next year as a sophomore and then take classes at cc. She plans to start French 1 next year also. Latin got the ball rolling for her. Although Lingua Latin about killed us all. Not sure I would take that route again.

 

Dd8 did enjoy PL when we did it last year. She finds the LFC videos interesting. She is learning the Greek alphabet with the Bluedorn book.

 

Thank you all for chiming in. I'll resurrect LFC and plug in Visual Latin. We'll see where it goes. :)

[lewelma]

I have never heard anyone say their Latin wasn't helpful.

 

I took Latin for 6 years and my senior project was to translate the Aeneid, so my studies must have been reasonably rigorous. I agree with the pp friend -- I do think that my time could have been better used learning a modern language and studying English grammar and vocabulary directly. Although, my son has done a year of Latin in elementary school, as soon as he developed a passion for learning Mandarin, we quit Latin.

 

Ruth in NZ

[angela in ohio]

I'm wondering how rigorous your friend's Latin education in high school was compared to what's suggested in the WTM or other classical education materials. I have never heard anyone way their Latin wasn't helpful. If nothing ese, once you know Latin learning Romance languages including Spanish should be easier. We're only about 2 years in to our Latin studies but I already find it quite useful and practical.

 

I think learning Latin is like learning grammar. Many people say they don't use the grammar they learned, but they use it every day without thinking about it. :001_smile:

[boscopup]

I think learning Latin is like learning grammar. Many people say they don't use the grammar they learned, but they use it every day without thinking about it. :001_smile:

 

And that is one thing I thought about with my friend. Hard to tell whether something has helped if you don't know what the outcome would have been if you'd not done it.

 

Anyway, I do think we'll give it a try. If my son likes it, we'll continue it. If he doesn't, no biggie. I don't think it's an essential part of his education.

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

This is my dd's second year of Latin study and I already see it carrying over to her English studies. Even Minimus, which many people say is just for fun and their kids don't really learn anything from it, is helping her Latin and English studies. Latin isn't optional here, though it's also not a dead language for us. My 5yo already sings the Salve Regina and parts of the Sanctus and ...

[Ester Maria]

Not everyone teaches Latin for what might be called "pragmatic" reasons. The real reason why we teach it is because it is of utmost cultural importance to us, period. If it were the least significant language in the world, with obscure vocabulary, completely absent from scientific jargon, if it were still a language of a tantamount cultural importance for us, we would study it. In addition to more "useful" languages - it is not an either / or situation.

 

Personally, we have always aimed at a balance between philological education, scientific education, and general humanities education. Just like a child with a philological bent cannot "opt out" of math and sciences, the child with a math and sciences bent cannot "opt out" of languages, and Latin is a non-negotiable one for us. We can negotiable about the intensity and we can modify goals accordingly, but we cannot rule it out because it is simply too important to us to rule it out. We view education as primarily a transmission of culture, and want our children to partake in the dialogue of generations and continue a certain intellectual tradition. So, the whole literary and philosophical "canon", with a literacy in several relevant languages, is as non-negotiable as is math. Asking us why do we teach Latin "because the kids will never need it unless they go into related fields" is like asking us why do we teach math past fifth grade "because the kids will never need it unless they go into related fields" - for us, there is more to education than convenience and utilitarianism. Children's interests are taken into account, but they cannot reshape the framework which we find important. YMMV. In our case, with our science-minded daughter, Latin has been an aid in her general intellectual development and making connections with some of her interests, rather than a hindrance. :001_smile:

[higginszoo]

when they were 5-6 we did Vocabulary Vine and Rummy Roots -- Greek and Latin roots, but not full language -- to help with decoding. My oldest chose Latin as his foreign language, the others have chosen other languages, and will likely not have much formal Latin (the one who chose Italian sometimes dabbles in Latin, but calls it 'Ancient Italian').

[Ohdanigirl]

My math loving ds absolutely loves Latin. He is actually the one to insist on learning it.

 

 

Same goes for my Math loving boy. My book loving History buff only tolerates it, but loves all the History and Myth stuff that we learn with it.

 

Danielle

[Bloggermom]

We do Latin with EVERY child. It is just as important as math for us.

[Beth in SW WA]

Thank you all so much for responding.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Beth in SW WA

[Nan in Mass]

Some STEM students have trouble meeting the foreign language requirements, but can manage Latin. My bil was like this in college. He tried several languages before an advisor told him that if he was failing modern language to try Latin.

 

For us, Latin was an efficient way to teach grammar and spelling and how a language works. My Roman/Greek myth children particularly liked it.

 

Nan

[NittanyJen]

Anybody in STEM will be learning some Latin whether they like it or not... Where do they think all those technical terms come from? Might as well learn it while they're young :)

 

We are finding it is a great reinforcement for grammar, and cuts down the time needed on our grammar lessons.

 

Then they encounter a concept in their modern foreign language, and they 'get it' because they have already applied it to two different languages and see how it fits.

[kristinannie]

Have you read Climbing Parnassus? I cannot recommend this book highly enough. You can read his ideas on why Greek and Latin are vital and then make an informed decision for your children. Do I think your child won't succeed if you forego Latin? No! I didn't have Latin and I am just fine! :lol: Will I teach my children Latin? Yes! I am actually teaching myself Latin now (using First Form Latin) and I absolutely love it. I am a mathy type of person and love the order of the language. I do enjoy learning languages though. I truly think that it is just a personal decision from family to family and child to child. I will not force a child to continue with Latin if they truly detest it!

[Jill]

We're not exactly teaching Latin but we are doing Caesar's English which is an MCT property. My son enjoys memorizing the Latin roots, the English vocabulary words that are often related, and the sentences given. I don't know if we'll delve into studying it as a language or just keep this up. That may depend what materials are available when we're done with the MCT.

[Beth in SW WA]

A quick update...

 

Dds are enjoying Visual Latin this week -- as well as LFC A on a very light basis. Dd8 started Word Roots A-1 cd-rom (Critical Thinking Co) and will continue reading her MCT vocab materials. I was afraid Latin would suck too much time away from our other main subjects (as it did w/ older dc) -- but 20 min/3x week is doable. Since we are a bit ahead, I am taking a break from formal grammar currently (except in the context of writing) so we do have a bit of extra time in our week.

 

The teacher on VL is a hoot. The girls love him. They enjoy Dr. Perrin also.

 

Thank you!