Infamia
Perhaps the plausible solution
is to mandate Latin again into curriculum:
vernacular conveying the gravitas demanded by current conditions.
Anticipating parental outcry over diminished GPA
and the self-inflicted epidemic of ADHD,
limited vocabulary instruction would pair
with a multitude of modern visual aids.
Focus first on basic roots:
famia
Illustrate with streaming video of MLK and Winston Churchill speeches.
celeber
Assign autobiographies of Nelson Mandela and Mother Theresa.
clarus
Require students to volunteer in person for Habitat for Humanity;
Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
Spend second semester on prefixes and suffixes:
infamis
Show the girls in class clips of favorite reality TV shows:
ladies asserting sexuality by giving it away like men.
ignomina
The boys will watch congressional hearings:
heroes explaining accidental performance-enhancing injections.
scelestus
The class will band together to view grainy footage:
misunderstood trench-coated youth wielding 2nd amendment rights
statement suicides in blazes of infamia
faces of familia in most extreme dolor
candelae et flores in sollemne silentio at steel-gated entrances
making one final unified stand in memoriam.
Boyd Bauman
