Latin
At our school, Latin is taught as an elective. Over a period of four years, students have three lessons a week, usually in the afternoon, in which they learn about ancient times, language and culture. The study of Latin meshes well with many other subjects, and the students are therefore better able to deal with foreign languages, their mother tongue, or the natural sciences.
Good academic performance and the willingness to study at home are requirements for participating. At the end of the course, the students take part in an external exam that consists of an oral and a written part. This qualification in Latin is required as a basis for many different university courses.
A language for everyone
Latin may have a reputation as a deadly boring dead language, with impossibly hard grammar. Nonsense! Once one has immersed themselves in this language, one sees it again and again: from old museums to Harry Potter, not to mention all the various sciences. The grammar is something for mathematicians, as it is logically constructed. And because of the constant parallels to so many languages, Latin is anything but boring. Besides this, one also learns a lot about the life, history, and mythology of the ancient world.
We successfully passed out Latin examination “Latinum” in the summer of 2014. Of course, we could not have done this without the support of our great teachers, Frau Scharf and Frau Haupt. The path was long and hard, but we had the courage to follow it through. It was indeed stressful towards the end and though sometimes it may have seemed tempting to give up, we were a good cohort and stuck it out till the end.
By Luise Andreas, Josephine Hartmann, and Simon Nürnberger
Picture of the Glorious Seven in togas at our graduation celebration