Legacy of Latin
Friday, 06 May 2016 08:30
Gas was $1. Ronald Reagan was president, hairspray and break dancing were all the rage. While so much has changed since the mid-1980s, one thing has remained constant: Each year all the seniors in Latin IV decorate a chalkboard to broadcast where they are going to college.
The process of making the elaborate board starts in the beginning of the fourth marking period as students create a grid of boxes on the board in the back of room 254, followed by each student getting assigned to a box where they can fill in their college logo.
According to Latin Teacher Mr. James Rowan, the process of creating the board takes up very little class time, aside from the two students each period who are allowed to work on it in the back of classroom. However, while class is running as normal, senior Sarai Rosenberg said, “It’s super hard to focus on Mr. Rowan’s lesson and translating Caesar knowing that that’s going on behind us.”
The board is now an elaborate art project, initially it was nothing more than a list. However, that did not diminish its importance. Said Rowan, “We didn’t have social media back then, so this was your way of announcing to a lot of people where you were going to go.” For some, being in Latin all four years makes the process more special. Said Rosenberg, “I remember the first time I turned around and saw the Latin college board. I was a little freshman girl, and my goal right away was to make it up on that board.”
Rowan finds the activity very satisfying: “As a teacher, it’s nice to see that students are proud of what they have done, proud of what they have accomplished, literally in terms of the work they have done over four years.”
Gas was $1. Ronald Reagan was president, hairspray and break dancing were all the rage. While so much has changed since the mid-1980s, one thing has remained constant: Each year all the seniors in Latin IV decorate a chalkboard to broadcast where they are going to college.
The process of making the elaborate board starts in the beginning of the fourth marking period as students create a grid of boxes on the board in the back of room 254, followed by each student getting assigned to a box where they can fill in their college logo.
According to Latin Teacher Mr. James Rowan, the process of creating the board takes up very little class time, aside from the two students each period who are allowed to work on it in the back of classroom. However, while class is running as normal, senior Sarai Rosenberg said, “It’s super hard to focus on Mr. Rowan’s lesson and translating Caesar knowing that that’s going on behind us.”
The board is now an elaborate art project, initially it was nothing more than a list. However, that did not diminish its importance. Said Rowan, “We didn’t have social media back then, so this was your way of announcing to a lot of people where you were going to go.” For some, being in Latin all four years makes the process more special. Said Rosenberg, “I remember the first time I turned around and saw the Latin college board. I was a little freshman girl, and my goal right away was to make it up on that board.”
Rowan finds the activity very satisfying: “As a teacher, it’s nice to see that students are proud of what they have done, proud of what they have accomplished, literally in terms of the work they have done over four years.”
