Posted on 06/19/2015 1:54:32 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
HOUSTON – About 130 Houston student will attend a new Arabic immersion school next year, where they will learn to speak Arabic as they learn “to be truly global citizens.”
“With kids who learn Arabic, as a parent you’re going to set them up for success, as a teacher you’re going to challenge them to do the best they can, but that skill of learning Arabic and being fluent in it really can be life-changing for a Houston kid,” Kate Adams, the principal of Houston Independent School District’s Arabic Immersion Magnet School, told Houston Public Media.
“In addition to the students being fully functionally bilingual in Arabic and English, the bigger goal for me is that I want our students to be truly global citizens,” she said. “And so that doesn’t just mean language fluency or cultural fluency. It’s kind of how you look at the world and how you interact with the world.”
Click 2 Houston reports Arabic is the second most common foreign language spoken by Houston students, presumably behind Spanish. The school is scheduled to launch next year with two pre-kindergarten classes focused on Modern Standard Arabic. Officials plan to add a new grade level each year until those students reach fifth grade.
“Houston is one of the world’s leading energy capitals and it has strong economic ties to the Middle East,” HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said in a statement. “Those factors combine to create a significant demand in our city for Arabic language fluency – and we want to meet that demand.”
Amy Crouser told HPM she applied for one of the high demand slot at the Arabic immersion school and is thrilled her son was accepted. There were three applications for students for every one of the 130 spots for year one.
Crouser said her family has no ties to the Middle East, but picked the school over the district’s Spanish or Chinese immersion programs because it’s something unique.
“And the fact that we speak English in our household, and that’s it, I just don’t have the opportunity to teach that to him,” she said. “I have no one to speak another language to him where he can be immersed and truly learn as a native speaker.”
Emran El-Badawi heads the Arab Studies Department at the University of Houston, and serves on the board of the new school. He told HPM the school will have to contend with Arab stereotypes, but believes it will ultimately benefit the region.
“In some cases you’re teaching and sometimes you’re also un-teaching,” he said. “This is the city to do this. This is the city to break those stereotypes and start building bridges.”
Crouser read out loud one of the negative comments about the school she found online: “Let’s see, ‘Gee, what could possibly go wrong with this scenario? Why not just pack the kids up and send them off to an ISIS training camps? This is a very sad idea.’”
“They’re not even based on facts. It’s totally fear-ridden comments. I mean, the thing is that Arabic does not equal Islam and Islam does not equal terrorism, so to say that is bigoted and it’s bullying in my book,” she said.
The Houston Chronicle reports HUISD is focusing a lot on dual-language instruction, going from 14 to 55 campuses that offer two languages in just the last three years.
“From the district’s standpoint, it’s a plus for any student to speak two languages. Officials describe bilingual students as having increased vocabulary, being more competitive academically and better prepared for the job market,” the Chronicle reports.
“Those students … in the dual language program do exceed the academic achievement of other students,” said Altagracia Guerrero, assistant superintendent of the district’s multilingual department, told the Chronicle. “So we want to be able to provide that opportunity for more students.”
Starting them out young on your tax dollar.
The framing generation of 1787 fretted intensely how to form free government over an extensive territory that avoided the classic problem of republics, their degeneration into democracies in which various conflicting interest groups were constantly at each other’s throats. The resulting social turmoil reliably ended in despotism as a strongman emerged to “do something” about the violence.
Republics require a certain level of commonality among their people, a harmony of ideas and traditions. Without similar outlooks, distinct interest groups will develop, fight among each other and for dominance in the government. Recall the occasional freeper posts of 19th century elementary school primers. Children were taught the Bill of Rights and how God blessed our wonderful land. Adults with shared common values are more likely to keep self-government and be covetous of their freedoms.
Progressives long ago figured out that if this keystone to the social structure of republics could be pulled, free government, and along with it our freedoms, would soon perish.
Their destructive knowledge is on display along our southern border and by the many thousands of muzzies purposely imported by Obama. Not only do millions of illiterate, unskilled foreigners strain social services, they inevitably dilute what it means to be an American. Once the tipping point is reached, in which enough people don’t think the ideals of our republic are worth promoting and defending, that’s it, game over. A once constitutional republic composed of similarly minded people becomes a democratic mob of connivers intent on “getting theirs” at the expense others.
It means our former government by consent must be replaced with one of coercion.
Just language... there won’t be any religious indoctrination here....
Two very distinct political topics to the left are Sex and Slavery.
Chinese at least has the need to be learned at an early age, or else it takes 6 or more years to learn a tonal language, version 2 for non-tonal like Spanish.
Chinese don’t tolerate muzzy BS. America should get a clue.
American Madrassa...
It’s only a magnet school, but still.
Speaking fluent Arabic could be an asset in that one can get a job with an intelligence agency to spy on Islamic terrorists. I don’t see what else this could gain anybody.
Does the teacher look like she got sham-wowed into falling in love with and marrying an Arab desperate for a VISA?
This shlt will be in Your local schools soon if we don’t stop it now! If they can get away with this krap in TX-—?!!!!!!!? Wow!
Dhimmi U.
The mayor of Houston is a lesbian who is “married” to her partner.
I thought the general purpose of our schools was to make educated and informed AMERICAN CITIZENS, not “global citizens”.
Gee, I guess I’ve been wrong for about 70 years. And this announcement coming just 13 days after the anniversary of “D-Day”.
Soon we’ll have a new day of celebration , “D-Day Islamic Style - Dhimmi Day”
While I disagree with the global citizen accolade, I like this. How many kids spend 4 years taking a foreign language in high school and it is of no value. As marginal as a US high school diploma is anyway, I would have loved to have graduated from high school and been fluent in another language.
The military will give you total immersion training in just about any language in about a year.
Fine, train kids to “translate and understand”...just don’t let them get close to knives or firearms.
Everyone has contributed by constantly calling USA a democracy rather than a republic.
Everyone has contributed by constantly calling USA a democracy rather than a republic.
it sounds sort of like Obammy....... in that there is political and sexual confusion all rolled into a single corrupt package
??
and ... the American citizens elected the illegal immigrant Manchurian Candidate enemy agent....into the WHouse...
twice..........and the Houston citizens presumably elected Mrs. Raise the Kids with the Arabic Language SO They Can Read and Understand The Korans we will Provide them>>>>?????
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