Editor’s note: The following is an open letter to Dr. Aurelia Henriquez and the Riverhad Board of Education:
In the autumn of 1990 I walked into Dr. Jeff Greenberger’s classroom for the first time, and it changed my life.
Ironically, this was not a Latin class, but rather French, which he also taught that year. In that class, I not only learned the basics of French, but a bit of Latin, an awful lot about the power of language, and quickly realized that despite the fact that starting Latin would be the third language I would study, I was determined to be a student of Dr. Greenberger’s as long as I was at Riverhead High School.
He taught far more than Latin, but also history, mythology, how languages work, and fundamentally, what it meant to be an engaged and inspirational teacher. I was lucky enough to be one of the students on the first study trip Dr. Greenberger and Ms. Custer took to Italy. A day trip to Pompeii piqued an interest that has shaped my life.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, this sparked my real love of antiquity, and has been the focus of my work for more than 20 years. Learning Latin (and all that went with it) in high school is why I have a Ph.D in Classics, why I have spent years teaching students about the Roman world at multiple universities across the UK, and why I dedicated my first book to Dr. Greenberger.
When it was announced last year that Dr. Greenberger would be retiring, I knew this would be a blow to all students at RHS, not just Latinists. I was encouraged by comments, reported at the time, by the school board president that there was a plan of action to replace retiring teachers. I, and I suspect, many others assumed this included maintaining the Latin program. I know that Dr. Greenberger and Ms. Custer have worked tirelessly over many years to develop and expand the Latin provision in Riverhead. Latin in Riverhead has a long tradition, and the fact that it exists has always been a boon to the district.
Here in the UK, there has been a rise in recent years of multiple programs (including the charity Classics for All) to get Latin and Classics teaching back into state schools and to increase the number of students studying nationwide. This is because learning Latin is so much more than learning a dead language. It is learning how languages work, it is a building block for English and other Romance languages, it is gaining the ability to analyze language, to applying critical thinking to texts, and to understanding so much of the basis of law, government, literature, and art not only of the past, but of today. Here, university students who study Classics are sought after by a range of businesses and industries because of the skills they acquire studying a dead language. It is, in essence, as fundamental to basic education as the many subjects you would never dream of cutting, such as math or English.
I am fully cognizant that recent months have been particularly troubling for education at all levels, and that budgets are always difficult. Yet the retirement of Dr. Greenberger has been public knowledge for more than six months, which is more than ample time to find a replacement, even on an interim basis. As reported in RiverheadLOCAL, it appears no attempt has been made, but rather the program is being axed with little thought to students, pedagogical benefits, or indeed, the future reputation of the district.
I know that much of my experience of Latin, and that of hundreds of others over the last 31 years, has been because of our beloved Doc and the Missus. Dismantling the Latin program in Riverhead, therefore, is not only a gross disservice to your current and future students, but an insult to the legacy Dr. Greenberger and Ms. Custer have so carefully curated.
Dr. Campbell is a 1994 graduate of Riverhead High School and a Professor of Classics at the University of Leeds in England. She is the author of “The Tombs of Pompeii” (Routledge, 2015)
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