After a combined 25 years of teaching at the School, beloved middle school teachers David Frauenfelder and Zachary Flowerman will leave behind a Latin legacy.

Frauenfelder, a middle school Latin teacher and the Middle School World Languages Department Team Lead, has taught at the School for nine years. Now, Frauenfelder will be joining his wife in the Pacific Northwest. He plans to do work with the church that his wife leads and will tutor part-time, as he is almost ready to retire as a teacher. 

“It’s going to be a new chapter for me, and it’s going to be a wonderful time,” Frauenfelder said. “But it’s also bittersweet.”

Since 2017, Fraunfelder has sponsored the Junior Classical League, a youth organization that promotes interest in Greek, Latin and ancient cultures. Along with Flowerman and Sergios Paschalis, the Upper School Latin and Ancient Greek teacher, Frauenfelder mentored a team in Certamen, a JCL event where students test their knowledge on Roman and Greek civilizations. This year, the middle school Certamen team won the state championship, the first time in all nine years. They are advancing to nationals. 

“One of the best things about JCL for students is going to the conventions, participating in the competitions and meeting other Latin students from other schools,” Frauenfelder said. 

Ultimately, Frauenfelder, who did “everything” he could to prepare the future leaders of JCL, felt that he was leaving JCL “on a good footing.”

Frauenfelder primarily teaches Latin in the Middle school, and what always gets him going in the mornings is knowing that “someone’s going to grow somewhat.”

“I’m going to miss the kids who come into my class every day and blow my mind on how they’re growing,” Frauenfelder said. 

Although Frauenfelder only teaches Latin at St. John’s, he is also adept in ancient Greek, which he previously taught at St. David’s School in Raleigh, North Carolina. From his time here at the School, Frauenfelder sums up his St. John’s experience in two Greek words: pathei mathos, which means learning by suffering.   

“It’s not fun sometimes at this school because we’re so perfectionistic, but it is a perfect Greek way of looking at the world,” Frauenfelder said. “When you experience failure, and you try really hard, you expand all the things that you are.”

From 2017 to 2019, Frauenfelder co-taught Latin II with Flowerman, an experience Flowerman says is one of the “best classes” he’s taught at the School.

“He would keep me on track, and I would help him bring out his fun side,” said Flowerman, who also coaches middle school wrestling and eighth-grade football. “Together, we were just an awesome duo.”

Although he has loved mythology since he was five, Flowerman only found out about the classics towards the end of high school. Inspired by documentaries like History Channel’s “Engineering an Empire” series, Flowerman decided he was going to major in the Classics in order to expand his knowledge of Greece and Rome.

Flowerman’s favorite part about teaching at the School in particular is “being in a room where there are a bunch of kids who are “smarter” than him. This way, he doesn’t have to let students win when he competes against them in Quiz Bowl during assembly, a competitive trivia that he also mentors after school.

“He loved participating in the Quiz Bowl, first as a guest participant in my DaVinci and then as a faculty member in our annual assembly,” said Juliette Schlauder, middle school French teacher and Quiz Bowl sponsor.

Inside the classroom, Flowerman constantly finds unconventional ways to “make teaching fun,” including a Latin version of Apples to Apples and a Caesar-themed Among Us. 

Junior and JCL leader Nathalie McDaniel’s favorite moments with Flowerman are during the bus ride to JCL, where it is a tradition to have “bus karaoke sessions” before the competition. She has been a member of the sessions for a total of five years and is now in charge of the “JCL playlist.”

“It’s really important for JCL to connect the Upper and Middle School,” McDaniel said. “There’s value in education in the classics, and the teachers are a really big part of fostering that community.”

Already an avid singer, pianist, trumpeter, guitarist and ukulelist, Flowerman also decided to join the School’s beginner orchestra to learn the cello. His favorite performance as a cellist was during former orchestra teacher Penny Meitz’s farewell concert, where he played “Bohemian Rhapsody” with the entire student orchestra.

“There was an incredible cellist who, at the time, was in fourth grade,” Flowerman said. “I was sitting next to him, so it was the biggest person in the orchestra and the smallest person playing together.”

When Flowerman began working at the School, he was 23 years old. Now, he’s 37 — with a wife, a child, a house and two dogs.

“I have spent over a third of my life here. This is where I grew up,” Flowerman said. “My priorities, my concerns and even my skill sets are different than when I started. It’s time to take my skills and energy somewhere new.”