Latin School of Chicago

First Person Last night, it occurred to me that I was about to fail at something I had promised to do. My assignment was to write about passion at Latin. Of course, I thought, that's easy enough. Wrong. I procrastinated for weeks and then, uncharacteristically, froze as I stared a deadline in the face. Finally it occurred to me that I was trying to squeeze passion into an intellectual box and wrap it up with some neat definition. But passion doesn't work that way. I'm not sure I can define it, but I know it has defined my experience at Latin for more than 30 years. Passion lives at Latin. I see it, hear it, feel its energy. It's there whenever my colleague Billy Lombardo reads from one of his works or talks about baseball, the sounds and smells of Bridgeport, his son, Kane. It's present when veteran teacher Warren Hawley exudes a childlike sense of wonder about trains and when newcomer Neelam Dhaliwal shares an Indian tradition like Diwali and gets me to feel comfortable wearing her mother's salwar kameez. I understand passion when Dick Dolezal entices students to delve into Dickens' Bleak House, all 900 pages of it, and when he and science chair Steven Coberly remind us why teaching is a calling unlike any other. Stop by my office and glance at the pictures. Look at the wide smile on alumna Emma Hirshman's face as she's mobbed by WE-ACTx campers in Kigali, at senior Lizzy Brilliant's face as she photographs deaf camper Patrick sporting her pink sunglasses. It's easy to see their passion. It resonates in alumna Sarah Serrano's voice when she talks about how instantaneously she fell in love with Rwanda and describes her desire to return as a "need." I see passion when I look at photographs of Emily Neumeier '11 and chef Rachel Star '13 experimenting with multiple Italian dishes before our Latin in Rome excursion, smell it when they track down the best pizza and gelato in every city we visit from Rome and Florence to Verona and Venice. FIRST PERSON by Ingrid Dorer Fitzpatrick, Upper School History Teacher Reflecting on passion Think about senior Zari Dumanian's transformation when she talks about her current Capstone work at Northwestern, her excitement when her lab rats do well with their mesh sutures and the collars she designed to help them after surgery. Hear senior Julie Sarne '12 explain the difficult reconciliation work of American and Palestinian teens at Hands of Peace or listen to her classmate Ben Manis '12 tease incredible beauty from his cello as he plays Tchaikovsky. That's passion. I hear passion when alumni like Steve Galpern '88 and Pete Mathias '05 talk about their lifelong love of history, when Anupama Selvam '03 and Kate Schostok '01 describe their human rights work, when Alice Baumgartner '06 writes about her riveting experiences delivering medical care in a remote clinic in Bolivia. I sense it when Appellate Court attorney Jillisa Brittan '81 recalls her legal role in Latin's first Nuremberg Trial and Steve Markowski '11 talks about his experience as Admiral Karl Doenitz in Latin's 30th simulation. There's former Latin teacher Gregg Hoffenkamp's reaction at the discovery of an obscure figure of speech in Homer's Iliad and Tom Kloehn's delight to be reading Virgil both in Latin and Classical Civilization, the latter a class that exists only because a handful of students were so determined to pursue their passion for classics that they willed it into being. What does passion have to do with Latin? Everything. Not all of our passions are generated here, though some – like my daughter's abiding love for writing and language – trace back to lower school. Passions are expressed, celebrated and nurtured here. They surround us, move us, inspire us. For many years, I've loved the intellectual life that thrives at Latin, but passion is the complementary dynamic force that makes Latin such a compelling place to be. Our passion is my muse. "I've loved the intellectual life that thrives at Latin, but passion is the complementary dynamic force that makes Latin such a compelling place to be." n Latin School of Chicago 9

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