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UNE student is ‘best prospective Latin teacher’

January 24, 2005

Tom.thumb2.jpgTom Atkinson, a student of Classics at the University of New England, has won an award worth $1,000 that recognises his potential as an outstanding Latin teacher.

The Classical Languages Teachers’ Association of NSW has selected Tom as the “best prospective Latin teacher” for 2004 and presented him with its annual Brother Dynes Memorial Award. (Brother Bernard Mark Dynes, 1916-1989, was a Christian Brother who was renowned for his "gentleness, firmness, and intellectual excellence" as a Latin teacher in Sydney.)

Tom, who is about to begin his Honours year at UNE, has been teaching Latin to Armidale school students in weekly, extra-curricular classes. He said that, while everything depended on the results of his Honours year, a career as a Latin teacher was “a real possibility” for him. “If I do become a teacher, I feel I ought to teach in secondary rather than in tertiary education, “ he said. “School Latin is so important as the foundation of Classics education.” (Latin has dropped out of the curriculum in Armidale high schools within the past decade.)

Although he has majored in Latin and Classical Greek for his Bachelor of Arts degree, Tom came to the study of Classical Languages late in his undergraduate career. “If I’d studied Latin at school I probably would have gone straight into Classics at UNE,” he said, “but the possibility didn’t occur to me till I was a couple of years into my degree. It was the study of Ancient History that brought me to Latin.”

He attributes his love of Latin to the quality of his teachers at UNE. “It’s not hard to fall in love with a subject if it is taught well,” he said. UNE is one of only three universities in NSW teaching a full program in Latin and Classical Greek.

Tom’s teaching experience has led him to believe that many school students would enjoy and benefit from the study of Latin if only the “system” would accommodate its return to the curriculum. “Latin has deep significance,” he said. “Its logical structure, diverse literature, and prestige through two thousand years of history can give students a unique insight into the nature and power of language.”

He said he believed it had been his enthusiasm for the subject that had “saved” him when he began teaching school students. “They can forgive a lot of ineptitude if you’re sincere about what you’re teaching them,” he explained. Now he has students he believes could go on to do Latin for the HSC. “But for that to happen, there would be a lot of hurdles to cross,” he said.

Media contact: Tom Atkinson on 0432 332 346 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.
For the photograph of Tom Atkinson displayed here, contact Jim Scanlan on (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at January 24, 2005 10:57 AM