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Students attend 2015 National Junior Classical League Convention
Courtesy of Yatcheong Au
Carpe Diem John Hawley, Jai Bahri (9) and Justin Au (10) participate in a session at the NJCL Convention in July in Texas. Five students participated in multiple events, earning commendations and awards.
Five students from Harker attended the National Junior Classical League (NJCL) convention from July 27 to Aug. 1 at Trinity University in Texas.
Maya Nandakumar (‘15), Elisabeth Siegel (12), Justin Au (10), Jin Tuan (8) and Jai Bahri (8) were accompanied by currently retired Latin teacher John Hawley and middle school Latin teacher Lisa Masoni.
JCL is an organization that encourages the interest in the classical arts of Ancient Greece and Rome. The annual Latin convention holds competitions among members.
“I worked on a lot of creative, graphical and classical arts at the convention,” NJCL first vice president Maya Nandakumar (‘15) said.
Students individually studied in advance for each of their contests, which include academic tests, arts contests and costume contests. The Olympika and Ludi competitions mimic the original Greek olympic games with marathons, swimming, track and field events. Certamen, another contest, is a trivia style game that can be played competitively at novice, intermediate and advanced levels.
“There were so many events. One of the biggest [events] for the Upper School was Certamen, where Elisabeth Siegel was one of four people representing California,” Hawley said. “In an essay contest, she won first place at her level.”
The convention has a different theme every year. This year’s theme was “tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito,” Latin for “Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them.” Students also get to participate in themed spirit week of the convention such as “Tiber Riverwalk,” “Old Western Classics” and “Lone Star-struck by Latin.”
“The number of contests that the convention features allows students to show their prowess,” Hawley said. “I would say that it is very successful. I enjoyed it because being part of California delegation is just really impressive for us.”
JCL students will participate in the state chapter convention in the upcoming school year, where they will get a chance to advance to the National level convention.
This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on August 31, 2015.
Vijay Bharadwaj (11) is one of the opinion editors for The Winged Post and Aquila. She served as the assistant opinion editor and the Wingspan copy editor...