College of the Pacific

Lynn Kraynak

My high school Latin teacher shaped my approach to teaching. He had a doctorate in linguistics from the Netherlands, and was only teaching high school until he completed and American doctorate. He must have been bored silly; he amused himself though. For example, a Latin word might trigger a train of thought. Then, he would give us the etymology of the word, beginning with Sanskrit and ending with English. If we behaved ourselves he would sit cross-legged on top of his desk, start rocking back and forth and say, "Somewhere in Arabia at this minute a man is sitting beside a dirt road and.." Then he would recite a passage from the Koran in Arabic. His unorthodox approach stimulated my curiosity and taught me to wonder and to see how languages are connected, and change, through millennia.

In my teaching I always try to create curiosity, wonder and an awareness of the connectivity between us all other peoples, past and present. Like my high school teacher, I often seem to go off on tangents, but in the end show how it all connects. Sadly, I never learned Arabic, but find reciting Greek and telling stories about Greece effective.

Lynn Kraynak

Lynn Kraynak
Associate Professor of Religious and Classical Studies
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