December 15, 2003
Award-winning high school classics teacher says
UCSC changed his life
By Scott Rappaport
When Randall Nichols recently received a major award for his achievements
as a high school classics teacher, it brought back fond memories of
his former professors at UCSC.
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Randall Nichols is in his 19th
year of teaching Greek and Latin in Augusta, Georgia. Both Nichols
and his pupils have received numerous awards. |
In fact, the Cowell 80 alum firmly believes that his experience
at UCSC significantly changed the course of his life.
Whenever I am asked why I became a high school classics teacher,
I remember three professors from my undergraduate days at the University
of California at Santa Cruz: John Lynch, Mary-Kay Gamel and Gary Miles,
Nichols wrote in a recent issue of the classics journal Amphora.
The excellence of their teaching drew me to classics. They encouraged
me along the way and their educational beliefs and practices have influenced
mine.
Nichols is now in his 19th year of teaching Latin and Greek to 8th-12th
graders at the Westminster Schools of Augusta, Georgia. He has been
named STAR teacher in his county and was awarded a National Endowment
for the Humanities fellowship to study Greek and Latin lyric poetry
in the summer under classics scholar Gregory Nagy at Harvard. He also
serves on the Advisory Committee for the National Latin Exam.
But more important to Nichols are the awards that his students have
received. On the 2003 National Latin Exam, 32 percent of them had perfect
scores, 80 percent earned gold medals, 18 percent received silver medals,
and 100 percent scored above the national average and received awards.
His students have won National Greek and Latin Exam scholarships and
they regularly place out of the first two years of Latin and Greek in
college. Many of them go on to major in classics at prominent universities
throughout the country.
I am equally proud of the fact that I rarely lose a student,
Nichols observed. One can achieve high scores by weeding
out some students, or one can achieve low rates of attrition by
lowering standards. I believe that the art of teaching rests in maintaining
high standards without losing students.
Nichols noted that the educational atmosphere at UCSC played a major
role in his original decision to study at the campus.
There was an emphasis on undergraduate teaching, which attracted
me to it over some other better-known campuses, Nichols said.
I was taught elementary Greek and Latin by experienced and knowledgeable
faculty, not by graduate students or junior faculty.
Nichols had particular praise for the effectiveness of John Lynchs
remarkable teaching, noting that Lynch made learning easier through
his high standards, clear expectations, thorough preparation, compassion,
and engaging style. The mention of his name all these years later
still evokes strong emotions, Nichols said.
As he took more courses in the classics at UCSC, Nichols found that
other faculty in the department shared Lynchs gift for teaching.
Professor Mary-Kay Gamel provided me with a model of how to guide
and encourage students inexperienced in literary interpretation,
he recalled. After recently coming across the first paper he ever wrote
for her classics course, Nichols resolved to make my future comments
on students papers as merciful, judicious, and instructive as
Professor Gamels were on mine.
Nichols said that he has carried in his memory the images of his former
classics professors at UCSC (who are all still at the campus) for more
than two decades. In turn, he wonders what kind of images he is forming
in the minds of his own students.
It is humbling to think of the power that we wield, for better
or for worse, Nichols confided at the end of his journal article
in Amphora. I intend to provide my students with challenging
and rigorous training, but I hope the image that I fashion will convey
the patience, kindness, and respect that I experienced from John Lynch,
Mary-Kay Gamel, and Gary Miles. Such images have the power to change
a students life. They have changed mine.
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