Classics
Latin and Greek language and literature are fundamental to Western civilization.
At Abelard, all students are required to study Latin for at least one year, and both Latin and Greek courses are offered in every subsequent year. Because they are taught through grammatical rules, and because Latin forms the basis of French and the other Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian, the study of Latin and Greek makes learning other languages easier.
Learning Classical languages also improves our students' English language skills (e.g. vocabulary and grammar), their critical thinking skills, and their performance on SAT (Critical Reading) and ACT (English and Reading) exams.Latin and Greek are of intrinsic interest and worth, and our students enjoy our Classics courses so much that over eighty percent choose to take second-year Latin and many of our graduates continue to study Classical languages at university, regardless of their major.
“Academically, Abelard gives its students something to sink their teeth into. It is a school where all the grade 10 students read The Iliad and where the third-year Latin class reads Virgil in the original.”
Anne-Marie Zapf-Belanger, A.B. (Harvard), JD (UBC),
Abelard Class of '05