“I love teaching. And I knew very early on that I wanted to be a teacher.”
Ms. Johanne Lynch, one of two Latin teachers at South High School and the sole instructor for just nine juniors and eleven seniors, reflected on the close of her twenty-one-year career at Great Neck.
In a world in which many consider Latin to be a “dead language” and choose instead to study more practical languages like Spanish or Chinese, Ms. Lynch found purpose in the study of classics.
“I thought I would be majoring in the sciences and going to medical school,” she said of her undergraduate education at the Dominican College of California. “But then I realized very early on that nobody got into the medical school from the college I went to. So I thought, ‘What do I really want to do?'”
She found her answer in the Latin and Greek courses she enrolled in. “I fell in love with it. So I continued with it,” she said.
“It puts you in touch with people who lived 2,000 years ago. And maybe if we understand that we have a connection to people in the past, we also understand that we have a responsibility and connection for the people who are going to come after us.”
Upon moving to the East Coast and obtaining her M.A. degree in Latin and Greek at Fordham University, she began teaching in the city—an environment foreign to someone who had, up to that point, lived only in California.
“Rockefeller Center in the morning was crazy, and a lot of [people] didn’t look very happy. And I thought: These people are going to jobs that they don’t like to support their families. And I’m blessed because I’m making a living doing something I love.”
She worked for a total of five years before taking leave to care for her children. Then, she returned to her lifelong passion for teaching—this time, in Great Neck.
And though the breadth of her involvement in this school may seem relatively narrow, the impact she has made on her students is indelible.
“Ms. Lynch is one of the most gentle, caring, and tenderhearted people—let alone teachers—I have become acquainted with,” said senior Hugh Choi. “The class truly does feel like a family to me.”
Senior Jordyn Wong echoed similar sentiments. “She has the sweetest personality. You can talk to her about anything, and she’ll give you honest and real advice.”
Her passion for the arts doesn’t end with Latin, either. In her free time, she plays the clarinet and sings in a choir. “[Music] can touch places inside us that don’t necessarily have to be intellectual,” she said. “We’re more than just an intellect. And music helps us go to a place where we can think about that and understand that.”
As for her retirement plans, she anticipates more time for both her hobbies and her family. “I’ll be reading. I’ll be playing more music. I want to go to the gym every day so I can be as healthy as I can be. And, probably, my family is going to get nicer dinners.”
She may soon also return to academia as a substitute teacher because she can’t imagine herself not being involved in some form of teaching.
To the students of South High, Ms. Lynch imparted, “Take a little more time for yourself and practice kindness. It is a hard world, but there’s a lot of goodness too.”
