Wisconsin Latin Teachers Association

President Nate Kolpin Wauwatosa School District kolpinna@wauwatosa.k12.wi.us Secretary Michelle Bayouth Madison West HS mbayouthicloud@gmail.com Treasurer Daniel Tess Brookfield Central High School tessdanielp@gmail.com Webmaster Mark Krause krausemg1@gmail.com

very year, come January, a state of anxiety until March orE

April (or May, this year!) surfaces. Departments find out the enrollment numbers and FTE allocations for the next school year. Most of our programs rely on enrollment numbers, and most of the time the responsibility for attracting new students is placed on the teachers. This is the sort of topic not dealt with perhaps if one’s school has mandatory language requirements, but for many of us, what used to energize us in our methods classes (how can we sustain an amazing program!) becomes something of a burden if fickle fortune deals us a low-request section for the following year.

The obstacles faced could be primarily due to ignorance, which includes not knowing colleagues, principals, and guidance counselors. With most of the adults in students’ lives mesmerized by STEM or off campus internship opportunities, the best avenue left for persuasion is the direct one, the students themselves. Our current students realize the value in their language study and they attract new recruits. Friends, siblings, and peers reach out to friends, siblings, and peers to the extent that they are willing. Clubs and trips help energize the mustering process. It takes a lot of effort since good teaching and good curriculum are not sufficient. One must be a great teacher as well as a decent advertiser. This also might have seemed like an easy thing during practicum and student teaching, but making sure the courses we teach have advertisable appeal might become shifted to the back-burner when work load already pushes the boundaries of what’s doable within a reasonable schedule.

Magistra Caledonica had sustained a healthy program at Madison West with healthy enrollment numbers. She fostered a real community. And still, Latin was targeted for excision from Madison West due to administrative budgeting decisions. For all who wrote support letters and worked to persuade board members to consider an alternative, no thanks could ever be enough, and your efforts are valued by the parents and students who are still striving to have their voices heard.

The perennial angst around enrollment reveals a more fundamental issue than numbers. We have a cultural problem of superficiality and a moral problem of values. In a world that wants workers, we also need to convince students, parents, and the businesses which they eventually work for or create, that what they need are amazing human beings. There are ample anecdotal articles attesting to employers seeking quality of candidate over a specific skill. Latin, and we would argue all language learning, is uniquely situated to explore humanitas. Not only do we frontload communication but we also explore deep questions of how we view the world and how something which perhaps initially seems foreign to us can become our own.

We might still need the panem et circenses of program peripherals to sustain interest in our classes, but those types of auxiliary activities might be the perfect door to welcome more people to explore our shared humanity.

Keep an eye for both WLTA and WJCL events as the school year starts, and we’ll see you at the Fall Conference in November!

Nate Kolpin