Ray Danielson has been teaching here at Kinnelon High School for nine years. He plans to stay for many more, specifically teaching Latin.
Latin will help people to understand languages better especially English seeing that “over 60 percent is Latin and Greek-derived,” according to Dictionary.com. Also, cases and tenses that students do all day, every day will help them understand complex sentence structure to develop craft and accumulate knowledge.
“Latin provides a connection between languages,” says Danielson. In a world where situations of common ground are found, it is a welcomed change.
The conversation progressed into a discussion of more languages. Mr. Danielson said, “Those other ancient languages would be incredibly valuable, but that is not likely, as well, given the size of our districts.”
However, that would provide students with a significant boost in their studies of Latin if they start students out young. A middle school Latin program will allow more Latin, more knowledge and possibly higher test scores.
The final question was, “If Latin is dead, why study it?”
His response was, “Latin isn’t dead, it lives in the hearts and minds of its students.”
