Cambridge teacher urges classes to use Taylor Swift lyrics to replace ‘sexist’ curriculum
Latin goes awake! Teacher asks classes to use translations of Taylor Swift lyrics to replace old school’s ‘sexist’ curriculum
- Latin teacher trainer Steven Hunt is upset about language stories that are ‘sexist’
- He is ‘horrified’ for teaching stories that trivialize slavery and ‘objectivize women’
- The 35-year-old teacher suggested pupils might react to Taylor Swift hits
Translating the lyrics of Taylor Swift songs into an ancient language might seem like a niche hobby.
But a Latin teacher suggested that this teaching method, among others, is needed to replace texts that promote “stereotypes.”
Steven Hunt, who trains Latin teachers at the University of Cambridge, said he was “horrified” that he had once taught stories that trivialized slavery and “objectivized women”.
The Cambridge Latin Course, first published in 1970, is being rewritten in response to complaints about diversity.
Mr Hunt, who taught Latin for 35 years, has compiled a teacher’s manual on how to keep the subject alive.
Latin teacher Steven Hunt suggested students might respond better if they translated the chorus of Taylor Swift’s hit Bad Blood – “Because baby now we got bad blood” – as “Quod, care, nunc malum sanguinem habemus (Photo: Ms Swift on stage in 2021)
Steven Hunt, who trains Latin teachers at the University of Cambridge (Peterhouse College file photo) said he was ‘horrified’ that he had once taught stories that trivialized slavery and ‘objectivized the women”.
He suggested that students might react better if they translated the chorus of Taylor Swift’s hit Bad Blood – “Cause baby now we got bad blood” – to “Quod, care, nunc malum sanguinem habemus”.
Other possible activities include Latinized Disney songs, with a YouTube channel imagining how the song Frozen Let It Go might have sounded in ancient Rome.
Students could also improve grammar by reading Latin romance novels.
Mr Hunt said many teaching materials did little to promote “inclusion” and included “few people of color and women”.
“Students need to see themselves in textbooks, and they also need to see others – the marginalized, the unheard and the unseen,” he said.
A story from the Cambridge course, The Slave Dealer, includes “racial stereotyping” and jokes about a male-pleasing female slave.
“At the start of the 21st century… it should have no place in a textbook, and I now advise against its use in the classroom,” he said.
Mr Hunt said he had taught the story a hundred times “with barely a thought about the objectification of women, the glib stereotypes of non-Romans and the blind acceptance of a financial transaction in which a human being is sold to another”.
He said that in response to the complaints, the publisher “recognized the highly problematic nature of this passage and other passages in the book and undertook a rewrite of the entire course”.
This is part of a desire to “decolonize the program” and put trigger warnings on texts that are not politically correct.
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