My most-hated question

"Why do Latin?"

A recent chat with a fellow ex-teacher reminded me of the many Parents’ Evenings I spent listening to people condemn the subject I taught their child.

An actor wearing a comic mask, laughing at the idea that anyone might want to study Latin

Mostly they did not intend to be rude so I just trotted out the pre-prepared answers about how Latin did this, that and the other, pointing at the “Why do Latin?” poster on the wall. Sometimes I would mention that Tom Hiddleston did Classics at Cambridge, to which the fathers would invariably say “Who?” and the mothers, “Oooooh.”

But at some point, someone would say that Latin wasn’t useful, “like Physics is”, and they would move on to the next teacher. They were wrong, as it happens, and you might find this article on the usefulness of Latin interesting. (I must also agree that Physics is useful)

Having fun exploring Pompeii

A Physics teacher told me that he was always having to endure the same thing but I didn’t believe him. Did parents really sit down and say, “Now Mr Smith, explain to me the point of a dead subject like Physics…”? Or tell him how much they had hated Physics when they were at school (“though mind you, if I’d been taught by a nice young lady like yourself…”)?

On an Open Day, one visitor said, “Latin? Oh I’m not sending my child to a school that does Latin!” and I did wonder why they had bothered giving up their Saturday morning to tour a school that taught every pupil at least one year of Latin. I should have asked about this rejection, maybe even suggested that they read the school’s curriculum before wasting the next three hours, but by then I didn’t ever want to talk to them again. Open Days were the teacher equivalent of marketing for writers.

When upset by people being nasty about Latin, I recommend the soothing power of the Altar of Augustan Peace

As I got older, I took a different tactic at the Parents’ Evening by agreeing that Latin was indeed dead and wasn’t in the slightest bit useful unless their child wanted to solve cryptic crosswords. It cleared the queue more quickly and achieved the same results as a passionate four minute speech on the worth of Latin. What I said at Parents’ Evenings had little effect, because all the sensible parents, in the end, let their offspring choose their own subjects. The students, I found, nearly always chose subjects for the right reasons, which are:

1. necessity (for certain careers you are required to choose certain subjects)

2. enjoyment (in as much as any teenager can admit to enjoying anything to do with school)

3. success (teenage boys suffer a bad press but in my experience are amusing, enthusiastic about all sorts of things and love doing well).

Lovely Roman walls

My own offspring went to a school where Latin was not offered and that was a huge relief, as I had discovered that I had produced a singularly stubborn and contrary creature who would have spurned Latin just to annoy me. I then decided that the subject I really wanted my child to take was one where I could not help with the homework, and thus could avoid being blamed for low achievement. I was blamed anyway, but that was all down to my other (myriad) failings as a parent.

A final thought on Latin and what the Romans have done for me. I loved it, I loved teaching it and now I love exploring the Roman world in my novels. I was exceptionally lucky to attend a state school that offered it - I cannot imagine my life if I had not studied it.