Posted on 07/05/2006 7:46:38 AM PDT by srotaG adirolF
CARBONDALE - Adrienne Davis graduated from Carbondale's Roaring Fork High School in 1999. She is now a teacher at Edwards Elementary School where in a few years all the classes will be taught in both Spanish and English.
Starting this fall, all kindergarten classes will be dual language. And as those classes move up, eventually the entire school will be bilingual.
It is a solution that is working in Edwards, Davis said, where formerly about 80 percent of the kids in the elementary school were Hispanic.
"It is definitely a positive thing," Davis said. "The kids are all playing together. They're all in the same shoes, (because) they know what it feels like not to know the language. They have more appreciation for each other.
"It's so neat to see the parents getting together talking about how their kids are doing. It's a union of cultures," she said.
Dual-language learning is a two-way immersion program where native English and Spanish speakers first learn to read and write in their native tongue, while being exposed to oral lessons in their non-native language. The kids are then taught other subjects like math, science and social studies in both languages.
The Roaring Fork School District has had a dual-language program for more than a decade at Basalt Elementary School. And Carbondale may be next.
"We're piloting a program in kindergarten in a modified form," said Crystal River Elementary School Principal Karen Olson. "We're looking at the benefits. We've talked to Basalt and Edwards ... a lot of parents and teachers have brought this up and want their kids involved."
Crystal River already has the staff to accommodate dual-language learning, Olson said. And the school will have one more bilingual teacher this year - Kenny Teitler, who was instrumental in bringing the dual-language program to Basalt in 1994.
more of the article at the link
Well, any reference to "union" is double-plus good in an education context.
We usually like to praise Diversity -- but the rubes are on to this and now recognize this as a Marxist Indoctrination tool. The new terminology "union of cultures" should provide camouflage for our efforts for perhaps 5 years. We have a cell in Toronto working on a follow-up term that can be used after "union of cultures" gets a bad rap.
Congress should have declared English our national language decades ago but they didn't and still don't have the balls to do it. They're more concerned about getting votes.
Bend over, grab your ankles and accomodate the illegal aliens, gringo!
This is way beyond crazy.
God this stuff makes my blood boil.
I can't imagine how a small school district like this could afford to run a bilingual program. And how does the administration justify it against the tradition of assimilation? How does the "melting pot" work when the metals are kept in separate pots?
I recall that LA was forced to teach in English only, much to the dismay of the left. They found out that the children actually did BETTER in a single language school.
But, I guess the left just feeeeeeeeeels better in a bilingual school.
It's a union of cultures < /sarc > yes if the "dominant" culture will surrender everything yet continue public funding.
All of political correctness "diversity training" is political reeducation.
It does look like the usual one-sided propagandistic approach. Note the implied white racism in the title, just to get heads spinning before beginning to read. Note the utter lack of actual data. Note the interviews with participants and employees motivated to support it but none who might object.
Just glad I scratched Colorado off my list of potential states to emigrate to when I decided to leave California.
I suspect a Colorado paper going to Carbondale, Illinois to cover this sort of thing has an agenda. While I have not spent much time in southern IL, I do know that parts of central Illinois with large Spanish speaking populations have friction, not only between Anglos and Latinos, but also between old generation Latino immigrants and the new one.
While the school i slikely implementing the program, the "happy happy joy joy" response of the population is likely a fabrication based on a press release or something like that.
It can't hurt to teach kids a second language, the younger the better.
Unless in this case "bilingual" doesn't really mean TWO LANGUAGES being taught, but everything in Spanish. In which case, it's not really "bilingual" is it?
Right now I am visitng in the Atlanta area. I have never seen such an illegal alien invasion as this. A ton of the stores fly the mexican flag now. Some with no American flag present. It is amazing. I went to McDonalds and the lady taking my order spoke almost no english!!! In America!!!
This is America. Why the Hell should I have to push 1 for English or learn a second language in my own country?
My country is gone the barbarians have arrived, and as with other nations that have tried duel language and culture they are soon in the trash heap.
Illiterate in two languages. Get a mop kids.
Spanish will be increasingly important for us to trade in Latin America.
Spanish is here to stay whether we like it or not.
So let's adapt and learn the language.
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