HS Should my Child learn Latin
Reasons you should consider having your child learn Latin, and Reasons you might not.
50% of English words come from Latin. But it is a dead language. However there are benefits, noted below.
One thing you need to consider is where your child will go for college.
In 2023 public local community colleges started offering a BA degree and the states that offer public community college for free... are growing.
Community colleges are muchhh easier to get into than Private colleges and Universities.
The trick used to be
*Be rich and give $50 -100 million to get your kid a 40% chance of getting into an ivy league school,
*Be a POC or Foreigner who jumps through all the hoops and ticks off all the check marks required [plus has special connections] to get a scholarship in, or
*Be regular Joe who gets AA in Community college then switches to Public College for BA.
You don't really need to do that anymore. Most companies since 2023 are no longer even looking for College degree but want them to have experiences related to actual skills for the job and soft skills. However til 2023 online job applications algorithm weeds out those without college so you will need to help guide your child for job searches a better way or maybe that discriminatory algorithm will be removed by the time they job search.
Foreign Colleges that are taught in English might also be easier to get into but you need to do researchbon that as well as the pros, cons and create your "policy" if they go that route.
If you are going for a non community college, they'll likely hold Latin on the education background and experience as highly important factor to picking your child.
Here are some points made by homeschooling parents about this:
I want to do Latin next year with my students (grades 6-10th). I've researched the pro's and con's in terms of its application in life (since it's not a spoken language obviously). Many colleges would prefer students who had studied Latin versus those who had aced their science courses due to the fact that they'd have a foundational understanding of scientific/mathmatic vocabulary from their Latin studies.
I'm not actually all to concerned with the college bound reasonings. I'm more concerned with the life application reasonings of being able to decipher other unknown vocab based on their understanding of Latin roots, how this could improve reading comprehension, how (to my understanding) learning Latin actually helps improve English grammar/structure, etc.
Latin is good to learn because a lot of our legal and medical terms come from Latin roots. Check out memoriapress.com they have a Latin curriculum.
We love Latin. My daughter started when she was a 3rd grader and now minor in Latin as a college sophomore; my son started when he was in kindergarten and as a 9th grader now, he is reading and translating the original classics.
They regularly taught me new words, based on the knowledge they gained from Latin because over 50% of English vocabulary is deprived from Latin. They rarely need to check dictionary for the meaning of new words. I am so glad I let them started young.
Lots of classical schools still teach Latin and it definitely has benefits, especially in terms of logical thinking skills, grammar, and vocab. My oldest studied it through middle school and then switched to Italian.
We love Latin. My daughter just got into college, when her admissions counselor called to congratulate her, she specifically mentioned that the admissions team was impressed with my daughter's Latin background. She did not have any other language in high school.
Latin is good to learn because a lot of our legal and medical terms come from Latin roots. Check out memoriapress.com they have a Latin curriculum.
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