What’s it like learning Latin in the USA?

To the perennial amusement of my British colleagues, I learned Latin at school from a series of textbooks called Latin for Americans – as if we in the United States needed specially-designed teaching methods to get the ancient language through our heads. Though the books did follow that infamous American custom of listing the genitive before the accusative, they weren’t otherwise particularly different from the textbooks I teach with at Winchester College: lots of grammatical tables to memorise, accompanied by translations of increasing difficulty.

But there are aspects of Latin pedagogy in America which do provide interesting points of comparison with the British system. Of course, America is an incredibly diverse country with a huge variety of educational approaches. Still, I think the phenomena I discuss below could be observed in most American schools.

1. Examinations

Perhaps the biggest difference between studying Latin in the UK and in the States is not specific to Classics: the examination structure. In the UK, public exams like the GCSE and A-level are of the utmost importance. They are the evidence of academic success for university entrance and some job applications. In America, however, marks awarded by classroom teachers feed into an overall “grade” for each course. Together, these grades make up a “grade point average” which is the primary indicator of academic performance for universities.

This doesn’t mean that American schools have carte blanche to teach Latin however they like. Often there are detailed district, state, or even national curriculum standards for state schools like the one I attended, and the public examinations that do exist, like the Advanced Placement exam, can inform much of the teaching for older students.

Still, I liked that for the first three years of my high school career, I was just trying to learn Latin to a good standard (and to impress my Latin teacher, whom I loved). I didn’t have to worry about tricky question types or “style points” or complex marking schemes. Since my Latin teacher’s tests were a common-sense reflection of the work we’d been doing in lessons, I could focus on the language itself, and the good grades resulting from that focus would contribute directly to my permanent academic record. The American system lacks the nationally-normed objectivity of the British framework, but I think it also fosters a real investment in day-to-day learning.

2. Relevance

One thing that is particularly special about studying Latin in the UK is its obvious relevance to the history of this country. Roman structures and artefacts can be found in nearly every town or city. Older buildings are often crammed with Latin inscriptions. By contrast, I can’t remember looking at a Latin inscription until I went to university!

In America, Latin can feel more like an esoteric puzzle than a language that anyone ever spoke. Because of the historical continuity that exists in the UK, I find it easier to convince my students here that the reality of ancient Rome matters. 

3.  The Junior Classical League

Every year, Latin students at my school piled into a van and drove to the Latin convention organised by our state’s branch of the National Junior Classical League. Here, we participated in state-wide competitions that ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous: from Latin poetry-reading prizes to gladiatorial dodgeball fights.

There was also a costume competition (I made finals one year as a ghostly Clytemnestra by the side of a fake-blood-bespattered Agamemnon) and a grand, nerve-wracking Classics trivia battle called Certamen. Nearly every school in the state where Latin was offered sent delegates to this gathering. So even in my home state of Kansas, where Latin teaching was comparatively rare, the total number of participating students always reached well into the hundreds. Both the competition and the sense of community were intense. We took home colourful silk ribbons to commemorate our achievements.

In the UK, I have been impressed by the number and level of Classics competitions on offer. But I have yet to see anything which matches the joyous, all-encompassing nerdiness of the Kansas Junior Classical League conventions.

If America and Britain are, as Churchill had it, two nations divided by a common language, that language isn’t Latin. We share a great deal. But in Latin teaching as in all things, it can be both amusing and perhaps enlightening to glance across the pond.