Is this the end of Latin in state schools?

[Edmontine]

Depressing news:

The Guardian

There isn't a bottomless pit of money. You want an income tax increase for education. Others want a tax increase for the NHS. Others for elderly care. And so it goes on. Where does it end? A couple of percent here and there and you're soon increasing income tax by 10%. That would crash the economy.

It isn’t prioritising Latin, it is simply putting it on a level footing with the compulsory subjects where all children are forced to do it such as English/maths/sciences. A school will want to maximise the value for money it gets from its budget which means diverting the money into more popular subjects. This leads to the children who aren’t keen on those (often the artier/ more practical or linguistic) missing out.

So essentially no art/ music/languages - just maths and English?

The Latin I knew (or deduced) from modern languages has been so incredibly useful in Medicine. Anatomy and pathology especially. Helps you to just remember bits, make connections and puzzle out the body as it's so illustrative. Acetabulum, for instance, the vinegar cup, is one of my favourites (hip socket).

It's such an amazing subject and I would love to see it taught more.

My comp in the late 70s offered Latin (and computer studies). Sadly, I chose neither because none of my friends were choosing them and they were very niche back then. I've bitterly regretted not biting the bullet and taking them for many reasons!

Latin is not potentially as useful to children’s future careers as a lot of other subjects so it makes sense

Everyone should learn basic Latin, if only to KS3. I took it in years eight and nine but didn't take the GCSE.

Knowing that "etc" is short for "et cetera", meaning "and the rest", allows you to use it correctly to elide members of a list and, just as importantly, write it as "etc" and not "ect".

Likewise knowing the meanings of "e.g." (gratuitous examples), "i.e." (that is (to clarify a point)), "et al" (and others (more list elision)), "ibid" (the previous (as in previous reference)), and "qua" (in the sense of, or considered as a type of).

Contrived example use of qua follows, because I know it's a rare one:

"Whilst the biologist rightly considers the tomato to be fruit, the tomato qua foodstuff is treated as a vegetable because of its briny flavour. Kitchen staff should hence refrain from adding tomatoes to fruit salads."

I studied Latin in state school in the eighties, did the Scottish equivalent of A level and went on to study law and a modern language.

I can’t say that the in-depth studies gave me a massive advantage in my degree versus peers who had just read widely and picked up the basics. What I am trying to say is that I think that knowledge and awareness of Latin/classics is very important but I don’t think you need to do a GCSE to get that. It can be incorporated into other subjects- science, history, English etc
PS legal Latin has its place but is generally discouraged now due to a strong focus on plain English and making legal documents and concepts understandable to all.

Classical Civilisation is more useful than Latin. I learned loads doing Classics GCSE.

Do you enjoy putting words in people's mouths?

As a minimum I'd want science, single/double/triple as options for those who are academic and those that aren't. Single could cover the "life lessons" that I feel are important such as gravity, human anatomy, reproduction, basic chemistry etc.

I'd want maths, but maybe with the option of a more practical subject such as functional skills offers. Managing money, basic tax, basic mental arithmetic, basic algebra.

English, one or both.

Art, music, drama etc. Something creative.

PE, with options for something like dance.

Languages for all students, full GCSEs are great but maybe also a basic course with one language a term, for conversational purposes.

More vocational courses such as construction, electronics, woodwork, graphics, food technology.

Computer based courses, ICT for example. For students who aren't taking it as a GCSE I'd also have a compulsory short course where you learn the basics of excel, word, email, internet safety.

Citizenship: learning about healthy relationships, sex education, contributing to society etc.

All of these, in my opinion, give a better life grounding than learning Latin at GCSE. I'd say the same about plenty of other subjects that can be picked up at A Level for those students that choose to enter higher education.

DD is doing both and whilst she loves (obsessed) Classics, she has found Latin more transferable to other subjects

Well of course it’s a good grounding for life - you need only read this thread to note the numerous ways in which it’s proved foundational for posters.

But! A lot of other subjects are more useful in life

Incredibly depressing. The government has also had recommendations from some educationalist who thinks schools should restrict trips to things that are relevant and accessible to working class children, e.g. football clubs and graffiti workshops, rather than theatres, art galleries and museums. Generations ago we used to regard education as a wonderful gift to those who could get it, one of the key reasons being because in the process of acquiring knowledge people's horizons widened. I'm so glad I was educated back then.

Latin is not a useless subject, by the way. Some of the world's greatest literature is written in Latin and reading in translation isn't the same. The Romans shaped European and Middle Eastern history for many centuries. A knowledge of any language is a wonderful gift. I could go on, but what's the point. We live in an age of philistines.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-shouldnt-schools-encourage-middle-class-aspirations/

I literally couldn’t bring myself to care about this. Having been forced to study Latin at school I can safely say that it has never been of any relevance to my life in any way shape or form and I firmly believe it’s not something which is needed in any school, state or private as a priortity

It's really offensive to working-class people to suggest that galleries etc aren't relevant or accessible to them. Have these snobs never heard of the Pitman Painters or colliery brass bands?

Because sadly we are rapidly moving away from learning for the sake of learning, to a position of only learning what we think will help us in 10 year's time. Incredibly depressing and reductive

Where? Those who say they went on to do classics degrees or whatever?

It most certainly is offensive. I remember reading about 25 years ago about a primary school head in SE London who said his children would never be taken on a trip to the Dulwich Picture Gallery because it wasn't relevant to their lives and they wouldn't be able to understand the paintings. This was mentioned, I think, in an article about the excellent education department the Gallery ran, which encouraged children from all sorts of backgrounds and all local schools to come in. That head's children were missing out and it was limiting their life chances.

My DS in primary school went to evening Latin classes at a local private school

He picked it up really quickly but they didn't do it at his secondary school and he was more interested in learning MFL and carried that on as an A level

My son's state school does Latin to GCSE and IB, when the school requires two languages to GCSE it was one he enjoyed as it wasn't just learning the language but the culture and history and application into modern languages which is common in many others.

Agree, the way the world is changing, especially with AI, children need to learn subjects that are going to be more beneficial to them in life than Latin

I use Latin every day one way or another.
It always astounds me that people think that there's little point in learning languages [and there's no better grounding for languages than Latin] and yet you never, ever hear people say that nobody needs to bother learning Maths because we all have access to calculators. How often do the vast majority of us use Maths beyond fairly basic mental arithmetic? In 40 years since my Maths 'O' level I've never, ever needed to demonstrate my knowledge of trignometry or Pythagoras's theorem or simultaneous equations. It's not only pernicious to advocate subjects in terms of perceived utility - it's also inconsistent. We should advocate for the learning of Latin because it improves an understanding of English, of MFL and because it's a vital part of our culture.

I didn't like it, so nobody else should be able to study it. Got it.

<wanders off screaming>

It is sad that studying Latin is measured by it's "usefulness". What has happened to rigorous academic study for its own sake? I loved learning it at my state school, it is so relevant to other languages, history and general knowledge.

One of the 20-somethings in my wider family uses Latin on an almost daily basis at work.