He got the first of nine ear piercings when he was 16. He lives to organize. For three straight weeks he spoke strictly Latin. He dabbles in public speaking, most recently offering zombie expertise. Oh, and yes, he teaches three levels of Latin and managed to redesign the school website this fall. Jason Slanga is truly a Renaissance man.
    Take his recent gig at Baltimore Ignite, for example. Named by Baltimore City Paper as “Best Nerd’s Night Out,” the event offered 16 speakers five minutes each on stage to discuss a subject of choice. Slanga had one topic in mind: zombies.
    “What should you do if a zombie comes into your living room?” Slanga asked the crowd, who responded with a roar of laughter. Slanga stressed the need for the public to stay alert for the onslaught of a zombie attack. Former students confirm that Slanga would occasionally discuss in class the potential of a zombie apocalypse.
    “The brain is a small target,” Slanga said, “…but you must destroy the brain.” Allowed 20 slides, Slanga lectured while displaying various weapons and zombies, including one of Dwight Shrute from “The Office.” Creating a PowerPoint was no problem for Slanga, who is arguably the most technologically advanced teacher at Dulaney. A prime example of his skills is his creation of the Dulaney website.
    “I did a major overhaul over the summer,” Slanga said of the school’s new site. Consisting of between 50 and 75 different pages, Slanga said the website is saved in several hundred different computer files. He also listed the seven different computer “languages” that are used on every page, sometimes all at once.
    To help him, Slanga said, “There’s a web team—they type things up for me.” Because the students are at different levels of computer skills, Slanga assigns the students individual tasks every week.
    Despite his commitment to web design, “It’s a hobby,” Slanga said. “[The] one thing that drives me more than anything else, and this is going to sound cheesy, is teaching.” While at UMBC, Slanga originally intended to major in Computer Science. As a freshman he also planned to take Spanish, but because all the classes were full he chose to study Latin.
   Upon entering his fifth year, Slanga realized he had met the credentials for an Ancient Studies degree. “I had so many Latin classes that they filled all the requirements,” Slanga said. Unintentionally, Slanga had become an expert in Greek and Roman history, architecture, culture and more.
After graduation, Slanga was hired to teach Latin at Dulaney with a provisional certificate. He then took education classes, during which he developed his unique teaching style.
  “I like his teaching method,” said junior Matthew Dziejma. “He teaches differently than a normal teacher.” Slanga uses interactive techniques to help students grasp new concepts.
   “He starts with something you already know,” explained Dziejma, “and builds on with examples. But you won’t figure out what you’re learning until the end of class.”
    In addition to teaching, Slanga is on the board of the North American Institute of Living Latin Studies (SALVI), which promotes that Latin be utilized as an oral, not just written, language.
   “There’s a pretty major divide between teachers,” said Slanga. He said that his professors at UMBC were opposed to speaking in Latin. He and Latin teacher Dawn Mitchell agreed to teach the subject as an oral language at Dulaney.
   Over the summer, SALVI offered one and two week full immersion Latin workshops in which Slanga and Mitchell both participated.
  “We were staff for both [workshops],” stated Slanga. “I was in the kitchen. [We spoke] all in Latin—all the ingredients, all the cooking utensils, the orders—“Here, take that upstairs!’”
Slanga said that since Latin classes can’t take trips to Spain or have a French pen pal, Latin speakers have to create their own opportunities.
   After the workshops, Slanga said, “My brain hurt so badly. I was literally thinking in two languages for a month.”
  As described by Dziejma, “Slanga is a very busy person.”