LESSONS IN LATIN SURVIVING

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- OK, let's not beat around the bush. Latin has always had a bad reputation. It's supposed to be a difficult subject in high school, and not much fun to learn either. In a word, boring, right?

But that doesn't seem to be the case at Central High School, which always has a waiting list of students wanting to get into one of Candy Hahs' junior- or senior-high-school level Latin classes.

Hahs, who returned to the classroom four years ago after a 14-year hiatus to raise two sons, Brandon, and Clayton, said she took Latin in high school "because my brother took it and thought it was the hardest thing he'd ever done."

"So I took it just to prove that I could do well," she said.

Hahs is from the St. Louis area. She was graduated from Southeast Missouri State University with a double major in English and Latin. After graduation she taught Latin for a while, then decided to take time out to raise a family.

"I really liked it," Hahs said in an interview during her only free class period of the day. She teaches five Latin classes daily, the maximum allowed.

"I took three years of Latin in high school and kept going on in college. I had planned on a minor in Latin, but took everything that Southeast Missouri State University offered, then took nine hours of independent study to get my 27 hours needed to teach Latin in high school."

After her two sons reached high-school age, Hahs decided to resume her teaching career. That was about the same time Central's Latin teacher retired, creating an opening she filled.

Today, as far as Hahs can determine, she may be the only high-school Latin teacher in Southeast Missouri. "Notre Dame High School in Cape lost their Latin teacher," she said. "They asked if I would teach a class, but with my full schedule I could not," she said.

Hahs spent some time in Italy, where her husband, David, was on active duty with the Navy Reserve. There, she had the opportunity to travel in areas where Latin was the spoken and written language.

"Latin is the mother of the romance languages: French, Italian and Spanish," she explained. "Latin was the language spoken and written by the Romans, and was spread throughout the known world in the Roman Empire where it influenced and was influenced by native languages, including Greek."

Had it not been for the work of the Catholic monks copying the ancient Latin Roman classics while hidden in their monasteries during the Dark Ages, Hahs said Latin might have disappeared altogether.

She said Latin continued to be taught through the centuries in the Catholic Church, and in all the secondary schools and universities in Europe.

So why take Latin in this modern space-age environment? Although it no longer is a spoken language, Hahs says Latin continues to have a powerful influence in our modern world.

"Anyone planning to enter the legal, medical or scientific profession must know Latin," said Hahs. Those who plan to teach one of the Romance languages, including English, will have to take Latin."

"I also tell my students their purpose in taking Latin is not to learn a foreign language they can speak; they learn this language so they can develop their vocabulary and solidify their understanding of English grammar," Hahs said.

"Latin also teaches a student the discipline needed to develop study habits they will use in high school and beyond."

If Latin is such a tough subject, why does Hahs have 128 Latin students in her five eighth-through-12th-grade classes?

Because teaching and learning Latin is not easy, Hahs said she has come up with some innovative methods to "find the simplest way to present some very difficult concepts and make it fun at the same time."

For example, she uses a monthly comic book that is printed in Latin. The book contains comic strips, word puzzles and other aids, all written in Latin.

Another popular learning aid used by her students is the "Pompeiiana Newsletter." A recent issue contained an article on New Kids on the Block written in Latin.

"We also play games such as Win, Loose or Draw, all of it in Latin; have team spelling bees, in Latin, of course; and we do a lot of translating from Latin to English and English into Latin," Hahs explained.

"Right now we are translating `The Odyssey' by Homer from the Latin."

Hahs also teaches units that deal specifically with the aspect of Latin in the medical and legal profession.

"Latin is important as a learning aid to English and other foreign languages," Hahs said. "When my eighth-grade students spend an hour in English class, then come to Latin, what they have learned in English is reinforced all over again.

She said: "I've had a lot of teachers and adults tell me they wish they had the chance to take Latin when they were in school or that their mother was right: they should have taken Latin."