“Carpe Diem,” meaning “seize the day,” was said by the deceased Roman poet, Horace, but embraced by Latin teacher, Whitney Slough, who spent nearly two weeks in Italy last summer participating in a program for AP Latin teachers.
Slough was looking for a way to get to Italy over the summer when she found a group called the Virgilian Society, which runs a program for AP Latin teachers.
The program centers, as does AP Latin, around Virgil’s epic poem “The Aeneid,” which tells the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who founded the Roman civilization.
“Every morning we spent two to three hours doing nerdy AP Latin teacher stuff, [like] talking about how to grade essays,” said Slough. “[The program was] basically teaching teachers how to teach the syllabus.”
In the afternoon, the teachers went on field trips to sites mentioned or alluded to in “The Aeneid.”
The group traveled to the alleged site of the portal to the Roman Underworld and to Pompeii, one of two cities destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
“We went to Pompeii because it was the best example of what a Roman city was like,” said Slough.
The teachers had a tour guide who knew the history behind every rock and stone they came across, and could take them to places that normally would not be available to the general public. Seeing such places made the trip a truly special experience.
“He did all the lectures and stuff but it all ties back to the Aeneid,” said Slough.
The group spent a few days of their trip in Rome, then stayed in a small villa in Naples owned by the Virgilian Society. The villa is taken care of by an old Italian couple who cooked classic Italian meals from scratch for the teachers each night.
“My favorite part was the food,” said Slough. “We had huge ornate lunches every day.”
As the teachers traveled through Rome during the hot Italian summer, they discussed teaching strategies, took pictures for their classes, and got into arguments over Roman ruins.
Slough uses the pictures to teach culture lessons for all of her classes, but most of the information she gathered on the trip she uses for her AP Latin class.
“It was helpful to reiterate the things I was already doing,” said Slough.
