I’ve thought about it a lot. What is going wrong in Henle that is making everyone so miserable? And I think I found an answer. We can’t leave our kids on their own to figure it out and expect it to go well. We have to keep Latin lively and fun and engaging. And that means we have to keep learning Latin along with them. Ouch. We are responsible for helping them fall in love with Latin.
In Foundations, we sing and we chant and we get silly as we recite noun declensions and verb conjugations. My five year old does not groan when I ask him to sing the First Declension with me. He sings with JOY! Latin isn’t scary to him. And my eleven year old is doing Latin for Children, and it’s so silly and FUN that he never complains about doing Latin, either (read about my love for Latin for Children HERE). There is joy in Latin in our house… until Henle hits, and then it all goes out the window.
So I think the way to still love the journey of learning Latin when it comes time for Henle is to keep it fun. And that’s on us as parents, because our teens are not going to choose to make Latin fun for themselves. We’ve also got to get back to the roots of Classical Education–memorize, memorize, memorize. And remember that learning happens in three stages, always: knowledge (memorization), understanding (translating), wisdom (being able to explain it to someone else!).
The first thing to do is go back to the beginning, even in the middle of second semester. It’s ok to start over. It’s encouraging, in fact. Go back and do some of the first month’s exercises. Build confidence. Make it fun! Race your child and see who can translate faster. Dig deeper into the sentences that are easy to understand using the Quid et Quo. Make a matching game out of vocabulary words and play it with your Henle student. All you need is 3×5 cards and a pen. Review, review, review.
Next, get serious about those pesky rules! Here’s a newsflash, that blue Henle book is not just for decoration. All the important parts of the Latin language are in the blue book. The purple just gives us practice with using the rules. And I’m going to be honest, it took me nearly three semesters to really grasp the importance of those rules. I was just reading them quickly and moving on. But when you get deeper into the purple book, that’s not going to fly. You can only rely on knowing your basic noun declensions and conjugations for so long before things get harder.
So memorize those rules! How? Make it fun. Do exactly what they do in Foundations. Recite, recite, recite. Use silly voices. Use hand motions. Do jumping jacks. Make up songs. Whatever it takes. Go back to the beginning and start finding ways to memorize the rules. Remember, memorizing the rules isn’t extra busy work to distract from real learning. Memorizing saves time in the long run. Once we KNOW all four conjugations of future tense verbs, we are going to have a far easier time reading and translating Latin. Skipping the memorization of rules sets a Henle student up for failure. And here’s the thing, no teen is going to choose to memorize the rules. It’s going to take some prodding and begging and pleading. And they will roll their eyes at you as you sing the goofy tune you made up for “Sum, esse, fui, futurus!” But they will thank you some day… and you will hear them humming it despite what they may try to tell you.
The third thing to do is call for back up. There are so many resources out there that can help you understand Latin better. Youtube has countless options and they’re all free. If you are willing to spend some money, you could do Latin with Andy. (Side note: I have never tried Latin with Andy but it gets rave reviews from many people I know). If you as a parent are feeling overwhelmed, you could try using a Henle Latin teacher manual. And don’t forget about the good old Foundations Cycles 1 and 2 memory work CDs. There’s also tons of resources from Magistra Jones. The point is, you are not alone in this. Henle Latin can make you feel like you are drowning. Grab hold of the life preservers available to you and hang on tight. Sometimes a different perspective on Latin can help revive your joy for learning.
Keep an integration map on your wall. Use a posterboard and write all the subjects being studied around the edges, including Latin. Every time something you are learning in one subject pops up in another subject, draw a line. I think you will be shocked to see not only how often this happens in general, but how often the lines are connecting something else to Latin. This type of visual can really help your student understand that Latin is very much alive and well and hanging out around every corner! Bonus: use lots of different markers to make it fun to look at!
And of course, don’t be afraid to scale. Slow down if you need to. Do less exercises and spend more time on the rules and the vocabulary. Play games. Sing songs. Don’t be afraid to have fun. EVEN IN LATIN. Yes, it’s possible and yes, it will go a long way towards the hopeless feelings so many seem to have about Henle Latin.
Hang in there. There is so much beauty in seeing Latin weave its way through law, through English grammar, through science, through history. Latin is everywhere and more often than not it is the common thread that connects all the other things we are learning.