While most students take Spanish or French to fulfill their language requirement, WJ offers six different language courses with a variety of levels and focuses. Uncommon courses such as Latin, American Sign Language (ASL), Chinese and Italian attract many students who are eager to expand their horizons. But with only one teacher available for each level of a language, WJ is limited in the number of language classes it can provide.
Latin teacher Karen Generose has been teaching Latin at WJ for 21 years. Generose has been the only Latin teacher on and off every few years.
“There have been years where we’ve had lots of sections of Latin One and maybe one other teacher was doing Latin One with me.” Generose said. “It’s probably been around 50/50.”
Because Generose is the only Latin teacher, she has had to create her own courses that are adequate for each level of Latin.
“It’s a whole curriculum that I’m doing by myself,” Generose said. “I do Latin One, Two, Three, Four and AP. It’s a lot of prep work.”
Kiara Campbell is in a similar situation as the only ASL teacher. Campbell has been teaching ASL at WJ for three years, 15 years at a school in Florida and an additional 2 years online.
Campbell was encouraged by a teacher at her community college to pursue teaching ASL as a career since she was a great tutor to her peers.
“When I was in high school and college I noticed that the other students in my ASL classes would come to me for help so I was kinda tutoring them.” Campbell said.
Like Generose, Campbell also deals with overpopulation in her classes. While she doesn’t have as hard of a time teaching all of her students at once, she has found that her classroom isn’t equipped for learning in such large numbers.
“My class sizes are supposed to be 33 students but this year I have two ASL Two classes, one has 34 students and one has 36,” Campbell said. “I don’t mind the large classes but I think a bigger space would be nice, since being in the portables with up to 36 kids can get tight sometimes.”
While cramming so many into one classroom can be overwhelming, students have found benefits to being surrounded by so many of their peers.
“It’s definitely a lot more of an interactive class and is helpful for students who need the confidence to speak up during class,” sophomore Dylan Perlstein said.
Having passionate teachers who are willing to face such harsh adversity for their students is a gift in itself. Not only do these teachers share similar struggles, but they each love spreading knowledge of their languages.
“I kind of feel like not a lot of people in the world know Latin anymore. I’m one of the people who does and I feel a little bit of a responsibility to make sure that it stays alive,” Generose said.
