Volume 5 - Number 3

In addition to teaching and studying at CU, Rebecca Jessup also teaches Latin to children who are being home schooled or whose parents elect Latin lessons as an after-school activity. She has students as young as nine and as old as thirteen (not counting the one mom, Kris, who has been studying Latin with her two daughters). Kris' daughter, Helen, is eleven, has a long blonde ponytail and blue eyes, and can read and translate Latin at the level of a late-second semester college student. Another student, Aaron, is ten, an enthusiastic baseball player and swimmer, who is now neck and neck with the class Rebecca teaches at CU, memorizing fourth and fifth declension noun endings. Emily is thirteen, an accomplished clogger, and can recite every active and passive verb ending, including the participles, and is just beginning to tackle the subjunctive.

Rebecca's youngest students are third-to-fourth graders, and they can rattle off amo amos amat, are mastering conjunctions and making very good progress in the first Oxford text. All of these kids are taking Latin at their parents' direction. Some of the parents know quite a bit of Latin themselves and are able to help with homework. Some of the children have their weekly Latin lessons in a group of two or three, and some are private students.

Virtually all of the kids are enthusiastic learners. They can all sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in Latin, and they can sing the verb endings, "M,o,s,t, I, you, he or she" to the tune of "Frere Jacques". Once in a while the classes switch from grammar to some history and geography, just to keep everyone on their toes. All in all, these nine-to-13-year-olds are learning more Latin, English, grammar, and language in general, as well as history of Rome, than they would in almost any other venue. And most of them dressed as Romans - gladiators, senators, or bejeweled urban ladies-for Halloween.