Ridgewood High School Latin team to compete at nationals
JULY 7, 2014 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JULY 7, 2014, 3:07 PM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
Latin teacher Catherine Venturini has a big smile and a bigger passion for Latin. And the result of that passion is clear when watching students in her rising-star Latin Academic Team practice for competition.
Talking to 10 students who came to one of the year’s last lunch meetings, the 14-year Ridgewood High School (RHS) teacher read aloud Latin phrase after Latin phrase. Students from the club, which this year won the state title in the Latin Quiz Bowl and will compete in nationals in late July, were quick to translate.
One (not necessarily authentic) Latin phrase stumped them.
“Man, don’t prepare the cow?” one student asked.
“They’re looking for something a little more colloquial,” Venturini answered.
“Don’t have a cow, man?”
Everyone burst into laughter.
It’s the kind of positive and lively atmosphere that many Latin outsiders might not associate with the so-called “dead” language. But the students say that that perception is wrong: Latin has a lot to teach them about the way modern society works, and because it happened years ago, it offers an opportunity for a more objective critique.
“It allows us to understand more of what the modern world is,” said Latin Academic Team Captain Britta Potter, who was the team’s lone senior this past year. “So much of it is rooted in the classical world … [and] looking at it in Rome, you don’t have as much of a personal connection to it. It’s a lot easier to be objective.”
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/education/ridgewood-headed-to-nationals-in-georgia-1.1047611#sthash.PdXa7YwA.dpuf