By SHARON KILPATRICK

By SHARON KILPATRICK

Rappahannock News Staff Writer

After a month of use, Rappahannock schools have found that the electronic classroom provides some wonderful opportunities for our high school students but also presents some problems.

Ten Latin I students in ninth through eleventh grade are learning to read and speak Latin. “It’s really exciting doing something that not a lot of other students are doing,” Shannon Sause said. “I took the class because I wanted to get higher scores on SAT’s and get help with other languages, but it’s also fun.”

A tape of the classroom demonstrated that Shannon was already reading Latin. “That’s remarkable,” Superintendant David Gangel said when the local facilitator Jeanne Grimes, Shannon and Grace Reynolds made a presentation about the class to the School Board.

Ms Grimes noted that the students were learning a lot of vocabulary each night, but were not being taught much grammar except as it comes up naturally. “When I studied Latin we drilled on grammar constantly,” she said. “This class is not like that.”

“I like it that it’s not hard to call and get help,” Grace said.

Ms Grimes said that among the positives of the experience is that the students are able to study Latin this way and that they have an “opportunity to see a new face.”

At the end of the first week, the students were assigned to send in autobiographies. The Latin teacher has used these autobiographies to become familiar with the students. At the end of the second week, Rappahannock students were spotlighted on the program. They placed a call to the teacher at the beginning of the program and she talked with each one on the air. “What’s it like having an older brother in your class?” she asked Grace. To Grace’s brother Jesse she said, “I see from your autobiography that one thing you hope to get out of this class is the chance to attend a toga party. Have you ever been to a toga party?”

Jesse explained that his only experience with toga parties came from seeing “Animal House.” “I see in your autobiography that you say you’re the master of rap in Rappahannock County,” the teacher continued. “Why don’t you send me a rap in Latin?”

She talked with each one about extra curricular activities or career interests. “They feel proud. They’re able to work with her. They feel comfortable with her,” Ms Grimes told the School Board.

“One thing I’m hoping will come out of this is a sense of responsibility and independence,” she said. “They have to rely on her for the bulk of their information.”

One disadvantage of the class has been in scheduling, Ms Grimes noted. She said she and her students were missing seven minutes of their third period classes. Teachers’ aides cover the end of her class, she said. She was arranging to tape the class, so students who had to stay in their third period classes to finish a test would be able to view the beginning of the Latin class on tape.