For 40 years, room 209 of the Upper School building was occupied by Lisa Countess, the beloved Latin teacher who retired last spring.
After her departure, many Latin students like myself were curious (and a little scared) as to what the future of the language at Friends might hold.
On the first day of school this year, as friends and I walked into US 209 for our ‘moment of truth,’ we met Stella Bowman.
The first thing I noticed when entering her classroom was that the light purple walls were now covered with Marvel and DC comics posters. A small figure of Spider-Man hung from the projector screen.
“I’m a big ol’ nerd when you get down to it, which I think you kind of have to be a little bit when you teach Latin,” she says.
Some fun facts about Bowman: Her favorite color is purple. She likes anything fitness-related: climbing, hiking, weight training, and snowboarding in the winter. Her favorite musical artists are Aly and AJ, and the Silversun Pickups. She would also love to see the Buffalo Bills win a Super Bowl in her lifetime.
Before coming to Friends, Bowman taught Latin at a private school in Charlottesville, VA. She left there to get her master’s degree, and eventually found her way to Baltimore.
She says what drew her to Friends was the community.
“A lot of it was just the mission of Friends and how inclusive and [how it seems like] a loving community,” she says. “That was a big draw for me.”
Another big part of it was the challenge of finding a school that has a Latin program at all, since these are becoming increasingly rare. Latin is different from the other languages taught at Friends. For one thing, it’s a dead language.
Bowman disagrees with this characterization, though.
“I still feel like it’s living,” she says. “I mean, literally, I guess people can argue that. Is it used much? Not so much. But the fact that we still continue to teach it, and that you all are using it? I feel like that obviously makes it alive.”
She also stresses the importance of the language to the study of English and Romance languages, since Latin vocabulary and grammar carry over a lot.
“The fact that the modern languages – with the exception of Russian – that students are learning here have come from Latin, makes Latin, I think, the best out of all that’s offered here.”
These are bold claims. But they made sense to me after Bowman told me that she has always taught Latin – as opposed to her predecessor, who taught many subjects in her time at Friends. Bowman says Roman culture is one of the things about teaching and studying Latin that she finds interesting, as well as the grammar of authentic Latin.
Another of her favorite parts, Bowman says, is getting to show her students the weirdly grim and morbid sentences ancient Romans were writing.
“The Romans are just so weird,” she says.
Although it’s early in Bowman’s first year, she says some of her favorite moments so far have come from meeting her classes for the first time, and new faculty meetings that have helped immerse her in the culture and community of the school. While first years at new schools can be overwhelming for teachers, she recalls thinking that it “felt right” after her first full day of teaching here. As she progresses through the school year and through her time at Friends, Bowman says that she’s excited to watch her students grow, whether they stick with Latin or not.
“It’s always nice to watch as your students come and go, and watch as they come as a freshman…and they leave you as a senior,” she says. “Having those relationships with students is always a blessing.”
My Latin peers and I quickly realized we had nothing to fear after meeting Bowman, and that we are in for a great year of Latin with a wonderful addition to the Friends School community.
