The autumn of 2020 was eerie. The middle school where I had taught for over a decade had returned to in-person learning, but school did not feel like a safe place anymore. We spent enormous amounts of energy attempting to keep middle schoolers not only from touching each other (a perennial middle school challenge) but even from coming within three feet of others. For the first time in my career, I was told that it was forbidden to stay late at school. Staff members were discouraged from socializing in person. It was a lonely time.
Cambridge Latin Course
While I was at home in the spring of 2020, the pandemic had led me to make a momentous decision: to adopt the Cambridge Latin Course. My classes had been untextbooked for the previous four years, but I wanted more structure for my students during that unpredictable time. I wanted them, if they were ill, to be able to understand where in the learning their class was. I wanted to make sure that if I became ill, my replacement would be able to make sense of what the Latin students knew.
The timing of my delving into the world of the Cambridge Latin Course was serendipitous. As I was beginning my relationship with the text, and simultaneously beginning to read criticism of the way Latin textbooks depicted enslavement, the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in the Latin Classroom series debuted.
Here an entire community of thoughtful and empowered Latin teachers were exploring this and other difficult topics. They provided blogs, interviews, videos, and even a poster to support making the Latin classroom a more equitable place. I read the blogs avidly, bookmarked them in my browser, and discussed them with others on social media. As I review the 2020 offerings, I marvel again at how these resources were designed not to chide or judge, but to uplift and to speak honestly about both challenges and possibilities for the Latin classroom.
Bringing it into the classroom
The ideas presented in the series infused my relationship with the Cambridge Latin Course during that first pandemic year. They helped me to focus my classroom around my students and their needs rather than the external expectations a textbook may appear to impose. When I was asked to contribute in 2021, I was flattered to be included and excited to share how restorative circles had become an essential community-building resource for me. When I saw the rest of the content, especially the platform given to organizations like Pharos and CripAntiquity and the contributions on neurodiversity, mental health, and grading equity, I was humbled as well.
For me, however, the biggest takeaway of 2021 was the work by Jenn Jarnigan and Maureen Lamb on the use of gendered Latin words in the classroom setting. Not only did they explain their thinking, they created a great poster for immediate use in the classroom! Changing my greeting from “Salvete, discipuli et discipulae” to “Salvete, scholares” was easier because of the resources they provided. It took a while for me to shift the way I speak Latin with students, but making that change forced me to think about how gendered language had been creating invisible barriers in my classroom.
Action
The most recent iteration of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in the Latin Classroom series added a robust collection of lesson plans to the collection of resources. Lesson plans are where theory and intention hit the reality of the classroom. Those in the series use Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards and provide activities and resources that connect students’ lives to the ancient world, rather than connecting the ancient world to students’ lives. The most impactful component of the Social Justice Standards for me is their “Action” domain, in which students apply their learning to their lives. After writing a lesson plan using that framework, I realized that all of my units, to truly be meaningful, need an “Action” component.
These three years’ worth of resources virtually constitute a course in “Teaching Latin Equitably in the 21st Century” and are essential reading in our field. They have changed my teaching in ways big and small, but more importantly, they have changed my thinking.
I am:
- creating and implementing lessons for students with a wider breadth of experiences and contexts
- remembering that not all students’ needs or assets are immediately visible to me
- challenging myself to listen more and talk less
- giving myself permission to be vulnerable.
About the author
Katy Ganino Reddick teaches Latin in Connecticut. She holds a BA in Art History and Classics from Williams College, an MAT in Latin and Classical Humanities from Boston University, and an MS in TESOL from Southern Connecticut State University. Currently she serves as the recent president of the Classical Association of Connecticut and the program chair for Excellence Through Classics, a part of the American Classical League. A lifelong learner, she nourishes her passion for language, culture, and pedagogy through museum visits, professional reading, and professional organizations.
