Latin at my school

My school is a magnet school that's supposed to produce the leaders of the twenty-first century, or something like that. We have an electron microscope, with a second on the way, and more computers than students, and plasma TVs lining the hallways that play what are essentially infomercials about our school. We've won awards and gotten many, many grants and are actually too smart to be included in the Newsweek high school rankings. (No joke. We feel very excluded.)

But the curriculum office has decided to phase out our Latin program, and offer Mandarin instead. (Viviana has a post about the meeting the principal held with our angry parents.)

I nearly cried when I heard about this. The curriculum office made their decision without asking the students what we thought, and they made the wrong choice.

I love it when people say, "Oh, you go to [your school], you must be so smart!" It's awkward and a pain a lot of the time, because, seriously, how do you answer that? (Say yes and you look arrogant, but say no and you're being kind of dishonest. I just smile and laugh usually. People don't know how to respond to that.) But I love that people recognize that our school is a great place to get an education, and I'm proud to represent that. Sometimes people tell me about their niece or nephew or friend who didn't get in. I rarely hear about kids who got in and decided to remain in their home districts. Not because there aren't many of them (remember my sister??), but because that's nothing to brag about.

Next year, when people start saying to me "My son/daughter/niece/nephew/friend got in, but didn't go, because they don't offer Latin," I don't know what I'm going to do. All I know for sure is that I won't be proud--I'll be ashamed.