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Jade Johnson
UWRT 1101
September 30, 2014
Instructor: Malcolm Campbell
History Major teaching Latin?
I took three years of consecutive Latin in High School. It was one of the worst
experiences of my high school career. In my third year of Latin, I switched to a new high school
in which I had a different teacher. Having a different teacher means different teaching methods
so I was prepared for the worst, but she was actually a better teacher than my first one. She
helped me learn the material better and had a better understanding of the language than my first
teacher. Her name was Ms. Boseski. Ms. Boseski was a short older white lady that walked with a
limp due to a hip injury, she had a cane that she would use to call on people when they raised
their hand in class and was obsessed with cats. She always wore this black sweater with cat
heads all over it no matter the temperature outside.
Half way through the school year, Ms. Boseski had to have hip surgery. So she would be
out for a few months so she could heal. This meant our class would have a long term substitute.
Everyone became instantly nervous because we all wanted to be inducted into the National Latin
Honor Society so we could receive a cord at graduation. To be inducted into the National Latin
Honor Society you have to pass Honors Latin 3 with an 85 or higher. We were all worried
because some random teacher was going to come in and possibly ruin our chances of being
inducted.

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Mr. Kearse was the name of our substitute who was a graduate student at the University
of South Carolina. He had a major in history and planned on being a History teacher at the high
school level. He had been a popular substitute at my high school, due to his peppy attitude, how
young he was, and how funny and laid back he could be. Everyone loved him. I had Mr. Kearse
as a long term substitute for another class and when I heard he was going to be our long term
substitute for Latin 3, I got nervous. This man doesnt know anything about Latin! How is he
going to teach us? I thought.
I had always been pretty good at Latin. It was a reading language, so we didnt have to
speak it but we had to do a lot of translating which I loved to do. I never really had too many
issues with the class. I always made good grades and passed the exams. When Mr. Kearse came
along, all he would do was give us a list of vocabulary words and then our test on Friday. He
wouldnt give us any homework, or follow the guide that Ms. Boseski had left for him. He was
just winging it. I was used to going over: vocabulary, conjugating words, forming sentences, and
reading passages out of the book. This man just handed out the vocabulary list and played
movies during class or listened to music while everyone talked and basically did whatever they
wanted too.
I remember this one time, I walked into class and he has a whole dominos pizza on his
desk that he had ordered during lunch. Everyone was thinking What in the world is this man
doing? This was one of those days where we didnt do anything but sit around and talk. He sat
there and ate that entire pizza. It was a waste of my time. I could have honestly not even come to
class and done something better with my time. The policy at my high school that the teachers had
was that If I cant do it, then neither can you. This went for texting, eating and drinking
anything but water in class. So if the teacher cant eat in class then neither can the students. So

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for Mr. Kearse to order a pizza that came to school, then eat it in front of us was extremely
unprofessional.
There was this other time we had a test, and I made a 53 on it. I was so upset and
disappointed in myself. I couldnt believe it. I had never failed a test in Latin 3, or any of the
Latin classes that I had taken before. It wasnt fair because we werent being taught like we were
supposed to be and my grade was suffering terribly. There were no other grades going in but our
test grades and this reflection we had to do that wasnt going to do much to my grade. I even
remember emailing Ms. Boseski asking for help or some studying tips since we werent doing
anything in the class that was beneficial to me. As the next two months went on, Mr. Kearse was
starting to irk my nerves. I was tired of watching war movies in class. I wanted to actually learn
in the class, it was one of my favorites.
I figured the best thing to do would be to change my study habits, and do whatever it
takes to keep my grade above an 85. I was determined to get in to the National Latin Honors
Society. I wanted to be able to add that achievement to college applications, and I wanted that
extra cord for graduation. I remember making countless flash cards and conjugating words and
phrases on my own time. I was doing what it took to keep my grade up.
After the three months went by, Ms. Boseski finally came back and we all tell her how
terrible Mr. Kearse was at teaching Latin 3, and how bad our grades were. She said she would
help all of us pull them back up, so we had a lot of extra credit work that she let us do, and we go
back to actually working in class which was a huge relief. When we initially got the long term
substitute, Mr. Kearse, I kept giving myself excuses for doing poorly in the class. I made the
decision after realizing my time was being wasted not learning anything and forgetting the

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material that I had previously learned, that if he wasnt going to teach us the material then I
would learn it on my own. I ended up passing the class with an 86, which made me incredibly
happy since I had been struggling for so long with the substitute. I couldnt put the blame on
him, because technically he was giving us the material we needed for the tests, we just had to
apply ourselves.