My son has the chance to drop Latin in Year 9 to study 'Classical Civilisation' instead. Is this dumbing down?

[tigermoth]

This is from my son, who is now sitting in front of the keyboard:

as my mum has already said,i could drop latin to study classical civilisation in year 9. i want to drop it because i find the language far too challenging and i love history and classical civilisation is more history orientated. and i think i can get better marks in classical civilisation if i put in as much effort as i do in latin(which is, yes, quite a lot)!
back to my mum:

me, tigermoth, again....
I did not study latin at school, so feel inexperienced in giving advice. However I am wary of the dumbing down element in this and feel ds1 is capable of studying latin if he put his mind to it. I am aware that not many state schools nowadays make children do latin - ds's grammar school is in a minority. Is this a good or bad thing?

My husband studied latin at school and is adament that ds should not give it up for at least another year so he gets a proper grounding in it.

The school's letter about this states 'If your child gained a satisfactory latin exam result in year 8 we would strongly encourge them to persue latin in year 9 to give them the option of taking latin as well as or instead of classical civilisation at O level'. Also it says latin is 'a valuable basis for other languages, a discipline for clear thinking and a subject of intrinsic interest in its own right'

Ds gained a satisfactory result in his exams with very moderate revision effort. DS has just seem me type this and his head is nodding in agreement. He did not work hard to pass the exam.

So I do feel he is capable of studying latin if he had to, but is it worthwhile making him do it for another year or more?

I did Latin to 'O' level(Cambridge , "Caecilius est in atrio, Caecilius in atrio sedet ...") and because I didn't want to study either German or Ancient Greek, took Classical Studies for 1, possibly 2, years (no qualification) which was actually really interesting. We read plays in translation (Aristophanes was a hoot!) and looked at architecture etc. However having the understanding of Latin and Roman culture was very beneficial so I'd say do another year , then opt out if needs be.

Most of the others in the group were politely not thought up to taking German or Greek, and I did have to argue that I wanted to take it, but actually in retrospect, {whispers} my teachers were right , the German would have been come in more handy - heigh ho !

"Latin lessons involve very little writing"
sorry, at the risk of sounding snotty, what kind of Latin is it taught if you don't write? I remember that all I did in 5 yrs at high school was writing, translation after translation after translation.

I think I know what she means, Franca - that there is quite a high ratio of thinking to the number of words written down on a page, compared to primarily essay subjects.
Eg. you might spend an hour on a Latin translation that took up half a page or the same amount of time on writing a three-page essay.

I'm guessing that in England we didn't get to quite such a high standard in Latin as you would have done in Italy so we probably translated a lot less material in total than you, as well.

I understand now, thanks kathy. No, I wouldn't expect it to be at the same standard, I think it's easier for Italian speakers to get started on Latin as well.

ClarkKent what country is the school in?
"In Law, Latin helps you to understand legal language and terminology, since our system of law is based on Roman models;
"
It isn't in England and Wales and since the Woolf reforms most of the remaining Latin terms used in English law have been changed into English.

I vote for Latin too. Did it to 'A' level and it helped enormously with French and Spanish (both of which I also did to 'A' level. It also helps with English grammar, which is based on the Latin system. Most Latin scholars speak and write beautiful English.

Thank you all. DS has been asking his friends at school about Latin and feels ok about continuing with it.

Thanks to this thread, I now know why some people feel Latin is really important. Though cod, I take your point. I am sure it is not the be all and end all of success in life (or languages).

Lilymaid, it is in England. I remember I principal of land law, for example. You own a property "usque ad coelum et ad infernos" (except for all the exceptions about mining and aerial photographs). But I learned that in the 1970's. Possibly the person who wrote the appreciation of Latin is also behind the times.

sorry haven't read all thread

i can see it's finished anyway and you have made decision

but just to say, i did a history degree, and with poor latin my options for what I could study were reduced

latin and german are extreeeeeemely useful for any part of european history

obviously there are plenty of other places that have had history to study

I didn't find Latin difficult at all. I enjoyed it but we had a fantastic teacher (which is the A and O for any subject I suppose) and we learnt a lot about the classics/ancient history generally from him. What I found difficult was GREEK which is why I didn't enjoy it. Nowadays, many years later, I wouldn't be able to read anything much in Greek. Since I enjoyed Latin, I thought I'd enjoy Greek too but I didn't.

At present, the plan is that dd will have Latin from year 4 (if we stay in the German school system) but unless she's desperate to do it, I plan on her doing some other language instead of Greek (all assuming we're still here when the time comes and not living in Japan or something).

Does your son read those Asterix comics in Latin?

Just stumbled across this chat while browsing instead of washing up!

I'm a Classics teacher, though only teach Latin at the (state) school I work at. Haven't read whole thread but I would say:

if your son does find it difficult, and thinks he really won't get much more out of it switch to Class Civ, which I think is a wonderful subject. Latin does get difficult. As he has one year of Latin behind him it would probably be worth continuing to the end of year 9, if nothing else the grammar will help his English which will be useful for SATS, and then of course he can choose not to continue. By then he will probably be hooked and want to continue.

At GCSE there is a module on Roman life which can be taken as an exam or as coursework depending on how the school runs the course.

It goes without saying that you couldn't take A/s and A level Latin without the GCSE behind you, however, Classical Civilisation can be studied then without any prior knowledge, though GCSE History is often considered useful. Class Civ at this level copvers a wide range of topics and probably in more depth than a stint in year 9 would.

I am assuming your son is bright and interested in the ancient world, so this would be a perfectly reasonable option if he didn't or couldn't take the other options at GCSE.

Sorry, this is a bit rambly, but hope it's of some use!

Jetgirl - glad to hear they teach Latin at some state schools still - none of the schools in our area teach it now - even the private ones.
My DD who is in year 5 wants to learn it (very keen on the Roman mysteries) and I was thinking of offering to set up a Year 6 Latin club (after school) using the Minimus Mouse stuff. I have A-level Latin myself although a long time ago and I was thinking of picking it up again as part of my OU History degree.
Do you think it would be feasible, if she likes it, to carry on teaching her at home to GCSE level? I loved Latin at school and I find it very disappointing that my children won't get the opportunity to learn to love it too.

Minimus is the way to go! I teach it in years 7 and 8, though it is suitable for primary school, before moving on to Cambridge Latin Course in year 9. Many teachers who use Minimus don't even have any Latin, so you will have no problem with it. It's such fun, I read the Mini books to my 21 month old, she loves the pictures!
There is massive support for Minimus clubs from the Primary Latin Project, who will give grants to schools who want to set up clubs. Where are you? There are 'Mouseholes' all over the country who are basically people who support Minimus clubs in their region.

Thanks Jetgirl. I will go for it I think. I'm a parent governor and the head is now used to me pouncing on him to announce - I've had a brilliant idea, why don't we.... which usually ends with me landing myself with a ton of work. So we'll see how he reacts to this one! He may think not enough children will be interested.
I'm really keen to do the OU Latin course for my own benefit too - I feel I've forgotten everything I knew.

I enjoyed doing Classical Civilisation probabably more than any other subject at O level, so I'd go for that (I was very glad to drop Latin). Went on to do International Politics at university and the only language that would have come in handy was Arabic (don't think many schools teach that!). dh dropped Latin to do computer studies which was very frowned upon because obviously computers are for thickies (about equivalent to typing courses then) now he is a computer programmer I think he might beg to differ! However he says that all his knowledge about how language works comes from doing Latin (have to say all I really picked up was how to get the Latin teacher to cry - he did get ever so soppy about his texts!). My sister did Latin to A level and found it useful for her Botany degree. I think it depends on the rest of the subjects and the direction you want to go in.