The U.S of A: Where Politicians Apologize for Wanting to Educate Kids

[marmar]

via AlterNet's PEEK:



The U.S of A: Where Politicians Apologize for Wanting to Educate Kids

Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo at 1:17 PM on July 12, 2008.

It's truly pathetic.




Have we really dumbed ourselves down so much in this country that presidential candidates have to apologize for saying that children should learn things?

ABC News' Sunlen Miller reports: Sen. Barack Obama reiterated his belief Friday that America's children to learn a foreign language, firing back against criticism he received from some conservative groups who suggested the Illinois senator wanted to make the United States a bilingual country.

Speaking in Powder Springs, GA on Tuesday Obama told the crowd that it's embarrassing when Europeans come to the US and they all speak English. By comparison, Obama said, America's young people do not have matching language skills.

"All we can say is merci beacoup," Obama said. "We should be emphasizing foreign languages in our schools from an early age."

The statements prompted outrage from some conservative groups who argued his remarks were an endorsement of the idea that Americans should be forced to learn Spanish. Americans for Legal Immigration PAC posted Obama's comments on their website with the headline: "Voters Reject Obama's Call for Bilingualism."

At a town hall in Dayton, Ohio the presumptive Democratic nominee attempted to explain his statements, blasting the interpretation of his original remarks.

Obama brought it up while speaking about how the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind" education policy has forced schools to cut programs like foreign languages.

I guess that's what makes him so "exotic." He actually thinks that children should learn other languages. Unlike the Republicans who don't even think children should learn science.

He had to actually say this explicitly:

The Obama campaign reiterated Friday that Obama would continue to require immigrants to learn English to be eligible for citizenship.

"Senator Obama has always said that learning English is an important step for immigrants to the United States and would make it a requirement for citizenship, but he also believes that learning a foreign language is an enriching experience for young people in this country," said Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki.

There was a time when Obama's comment was considered completely mainstream. It's true that Americans have never learned new languages easily, but they respected the idea that kids should learn as much as possible so they could better themselves. Clearly Obama didn't get the memo that we have embraced cretinism and that all knowledge is suspect.

Update: Reader Kevin writes in with this excellent observation:

You hear the gasbags on TV all the time arguing for globalization(including McSame), and Obama gets crap for pointing out that to compete in a global economy kids have to learn more than English? WTF?

I assume that these people believe that we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and force them all to speak English.

Update II: Reader Respectful Dissent emails with this:

If you write more on Sen Obama's call for children learning a foreign language, you can point out that the Pentagon wants a broader base of language-capable troops. (French, in particular, would be good should we have to go into Africa somewhere.) Why do the monolinguistic-fetishists hate the troops?

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/91275/

[MountainLaurel]

1. Good grief

You know, sometimes I don't think this country deserves to survive. (Well, actually most of the time I think that. But I digress.)

[Igel]

2. He continues to goof.

Europeans are good at languages. They need to be, and have motivation to be good at them.

Esp. those who are immigrants--they usually learn their host country's language. And those who need to use it in business, whether for tourists or in their profession. Most of those learn English; nearly half of the non-British proficiency in L2 in Europe is for English. And that's concentrated among (1) college educated people and (2) younger people. Which are the groups most likely to come to the US as tourists, and most likely to be those who Obama interacts with here or there. Skewed sample. He's not thought critically about the sample he's been exposed to.

Most of the rest are people like Flemish or Slovenes or Swiss, with a bunch of Sorbs, Basques, and the like added for good measure. Why do they learn a second language? Mostly because they need to learn a second official language or the primary official language. Or because they speak a language with a total number of speakers less than San Antonio, so avoiding a second, dominant nearby language is impossible.

In fact, the European Union's report from 2006, which presents itself glowingly, essentially comes out and says that those with a need to use a second language see more of a point in studying one or two, and those who have a use for a second or third language actually maintain proficiency--which is "mastery", defined as a person's saying they can hold a conversation in the language. (Some mastery; I claim mastery of one language, but can converse in maybe half a dozen. "High-functioning novice" is sufficient for the European Union's "mastery".)

There are some who learn languages just to know them. Or who studied a language in school and haven't forgotten it. Not many, and more of those are young and college educated (most of the remainder of the European Union report's language learners).

So take the European facts and transfer them to America. We need to find an international language that's widespread and needed. Well, for half of Europeans, that's English. Scrap that and you lose much of what Obama's talking about; most of us already know English. If we knew only French or German, he'd find that maybe 10-15% of the Europeans that came here--discounting the French themselves--could hold a conversation, and that would knock his argument in the head rather soundly. If we (including Obama) knew only Dutch, he'd find that nobody knew his language except the Dutch and a few others scattered about in Germany and France. Then there are those learning their host country's language. Well, he covers that--immigrants learn English. Since immigrants are 12% of the population or so, that's a hefty chunk; they're usually omitted from the stats, including Obama's. Odd that, since such people are included in the European stats. So then there are those learning the official language of their own country. Well, here that's usually English. Unless maybe if you grow up on a Navajo reservation.

By the time you get rid of all the European attributes simply inapplicable to the US, and factor in immigrant's learning English in America, America and Europe look awfully similar.

Obama's embarrassed, at what amounts to a difference in circumstances. We're privileged--as are the British--because we already know a highly useful language. We're also privileged because we know a regionally dominant language. I regard neither as grounds for embarrassment, nor pride; it's mostly luck of the draw, with a nod to things like an established fairly explicit orthography based at least roughly on phonology (which is also 'luck of the draw'). Or he's embarrassed that Americans aren't better that Europeans. Hard to know which. It's rather embarrassing to be embarrassed for any of those reasons, though.

[marmar]

3. Sorry, I agree with him.....It's embarassing that people in the U.S. only know one language.

You can equivocate all you want to on this one.

[dysfunctional press]

4. if all the states spoke different languages, most americans would speak more than one.

and if all the countries in europe spoke the same official language, most europeans would probably only speak it.

[Pacifist Patriot]

5. I'll stand with you on this. American arrogance with respect to the English language is embarrassing

[BB1]

6. Very. Just yesterday i got apprehended

by a young american tourist. she said: "Excuse me please?" and then went on about an internet cafe. Come on! You're in a foreign country, in the middle of Amsterdam (so you obviously got there, which qualifies you as more intelligent than an ape) and now all of a sudden you cease to think because there are people around who can do it for you!

If only tourists would learn how to say "Goedenavond" or really simple things like "Mag ik iets vragen?". I mean, why wouldn't you persue knowledge? Is there a greater good?

(I mainly got pissed off by the girl because she was the fourth asking for directions in English. The German couple and the french dudes didn't speak dutch either, but at least they weren't so smug about it.)

[marmar]

7. Exactly.....And even in places like A'dam or Copenhagen where English is widely (and well) spoken...

.... I always make a point of learning the basic greeting words, the "can you help me?" and "where's the bathroom?" phrases in the local language. A few minutes with a Berlitz guide before taking a trip isn't going to kill someone.

[lonestarnot]

10. We throw away more keys to the locks and wonder why we can't open anything.

[fortyfeetunder]

13. I agree also -- bilingualism is a good thing

Learning more than one language has tremendous cognitive, social -- and economic advantages.

As we continue to be globalized, our kids will have no other choice but to be conversant in more than English if they want to have more career opportunities.

[LWolf]

8. It's not a goof. He's right.

It's telling that the only thing I think he gets right is so controversial, lol.

Hre's one instance where he's willing to say what's right, rather than what is popular or expedient. I'll stand with him on this one.

[windoe]

9. You dumb down schools for 40 years and this is the result.

Not only do people cease to have a background in language, domestic and foreign, including domestic and foreign history, but they have not learned to reason or think for themselves, which is even worse. I have come across way too many people who do not read or seem to have the attention span required to think in complex terms necessary for understanding an opposing point of view.

I am not sure how to teach people HOW to think for themselves, and learn on their own, but this is crucial. Sitting and passively being spoon fed sound bites for most of one's conscious life must have side effects, especially if the information is juvenile and xenophobic.

Unfortunately, intellectuals in this country have been marginalized and accused of being elitist in order to suppress not only information and research, but in order to discourage thinking.

If we are to turn this country around, we have to start by opening ourselves and adopting beginner's mind.

Oh, and turn off the vacuum tube before it sucks your brain out entirely :)

[NC_Nurse]

11. Ignorance is bliss in this country. Or so it would seem...

"Learning" and "education" might endanger some of the conservatives/religious folks precious beliefs...like
how God blesses America only...or evolution is accepted science...or foreigners are inferior...etc.

[tblue37]

12. I teach college English and I tutor children of all ages.

I tell all of my students that if they want to be sure of getting a decent job in the future they need aim to master four things:

1. reading
2. writing
3. math
4. at least one foreign language--and more than one if possible

I also tell them to choose their languages carefully. As a freshman, my son wanted to study Italian and do his study-abroad in Italy. I said no. Italian is not a language that will get you many job offers. Instead, he studied Spanish and did two study-abroads in Spain. He fell in love with th country, the culture, and the language, and after returning from his first study-abroad there he switched his major from journalism to Spanish and international studies and did a second study-abroad in Spain in the second semester of his junior year.

He also became fluent in the language. His first offer after getting an MSM in business management was a summer internship with the Latin American division of Motorola. His mastery of Spanish got him that job. He now has a good federal civil service job. Guess which of his many skills got it for him. Yep--his mastery of Spanish was what clinched the deal. Though he had a great resume, so did all of those competing with him for the job. But unlike his competitors, he was fluent in a foreign language and was willing to learn others.

As for Italy and Italian: after his first study-abroad in Spain, he spent three months traveling around Europe, including two weeks in Italy. He found that because of his Spanish, he understood Italian just fine, and Italians understood him--because most of the Italians he encountered spoke English, and those who didn't speak English were able to understand his Spanish.

Many of my former students who followed my advice and mastered foreign languages have gone on to get good jobs--specifically because of their multilingual ability. Corporations are multinational now. A person who can function across languages is always going to have a better chance at a good job than one who can't.


BTW, I now advise my college students to also take at least a couple of courses in the School of Business--esepcailly business communication. You don't need to have a business major, but businesses like to see a couple of business courses on one's resume--and business communication is the most important one to have there.

[knitter4democracy]

14. Heck, I got flamed in college for saying education majors should.

I said that education majors should have to take a few Spanish classes or ASL classes in one of my ed classes once, and I was shouted down. How dare I suggest that education majors be able to communicate with their students?!

[litlady]

17. Requirements vary by school I assume...

My high school, undergrad institution, and Master's institution all required two years of foreign language. However, just because that is a requirement does not mean that most retain any knowledge of other languages once they have graduated. Most Ph.D programs require intermediate ability in two languages or total fluency in one. Whereas so many of the students I teach or consult from other countries have numerous languages, sometimes a half dozen or more!

[knitter4democracy]

18. Education req's vary by state first and then by school.

Our college required that you had two years of a foreign language in high school, and if you hadn't had that, you had to take a year's worth at college. So, the education majors hadn't had any foreign language study in years unless that was their major or concentration. I didn't know any at our school with ASL experience, either.

[Mass]

15. So sad. And so telling. You should have seen the reaction at my son highschool when he told them he

wanted to study TWO foreign languages (when the requirement for graduation is one language for 2 years).

Honestly, it was embarrassing. A kid who wanted to study foreign languages and continue in college. Everybody was amazed.

The US government sponsors CRITICAL LANGUAGE SCHOLARSHIPS FOR INTENSIVE SUMMER INSTITUTES, so I guess they consider that as something important as well. But the RW still consider that as offensive.

[TZ]

16. Thats really sad

Not too long ago I visited Aruba..were most of the native population speaks THREE to FOUR languages..(English, Dutch,Spanish, and the local dialect, a combination of many languages).