Mrs. McCormick-Lane, more commonly referred to by her students as “Corms”, is now going into her eighth year of teaching Latin at Westborough High School. Growing up in Rhode Island, she never actually wanted to become a teacher. Instead, she looked up to Edwin Moses, a 400-meter hurdler. This is because he was the first to use science to improve his race, which not only impressed, but inspired Mrs. McCormick-Lane (since she was a hurdler herself throughout high school and college).

For a career, she had always planned on becoming “either a detective like Nancy Drew or a psychiatrist.” She did not choose to pursue teaching until she was a senior in college. Attending Washington University, she obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in classical Greek and Latin. Afterwards she attended Harvard University to earn her Master’s Degree in “Teaching and Curriculum in Classical Humanities”. She promises that “I’m not making this up, that’s the exact title.”

Mrs. McCormick-Lane chose teaching Latin because “nobody else did it” and she “wanted to be unique”. However, it wasn’t until her junior year in college that she took her first Latin course. She immediately fell in love with it, claiming that “the language is just so darn clever”. Besides Latin, her other favorite subjects in college included Greek and any type of history.

Mrs. McCormick-Lane started her career teaching in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1991. Although she still loved the subject Latin, she quit teaching after only two years because she did not feel that the job suited her. During a five year break, Mrs. McCormick-Lane worked as a meeting planner and an accountant. In the end, she could not stay away from teaching or the subject Latin. She returned to teaching in El Paso, Texas.

So now Mrs. McCormick-Lane’s in her eighth year teaching at Westborough High School and she cannot get enough. She enjoys “coming in to work everyday knowing that I will have fun and laugh all day. But above all I love the fact that I get to teach a foreign language as my career.” The only downside Mrs. McCormick-Lane faces is that she cannot stand grading. She describes her teaching style as “chaotic, laid-back, thorough but fun, and high-standard yet fair”. She tries to make the subject Latin as well as each individual class she teaches interesting for every student.

Mrs. McCormick-Lane has found it challenging to convince students to take her Latin course over some of the other classes offered at WHS. She finds it difficult to teach a subject that is virtually unknown or that students do not understand. “It is sometimes hard for me to persuade students it is a worthwhile class.” But when asked why students should take her class, she light-heartedly replies that it will help them in life to stand out in a crowd—and of course help them to do well on their SAT’s.

On a personal note, Mrs. McCormick-Lane enjoys driving around her two kids outside of school. She also loves to kayak, read, and travel. When asked for a quote to live by, she immediately responded with Aristotle: “The function of the good is the attainment of excellence”. Yes, Mrs. McCormick-Lane is a teacher of excellence.