I speak to them in Spanish, my partner in English,
Partner? Partner? Is this guy married to his "partner"? Is is "partner" another man and they are gay? Or??....Is the word "wife" and "mother" becoming and embarrasment just as Huxley predicted in his precient book Brave New World?
Frankly, I'm embarrassed that I live in a state that banned "bilingual education."
Gee!,,,My!My! That sentence has a certain ring to it.,,,Hm?,,,Kinda like "I am embarrassed to have a president like Bush". This guy is supposed to be a professor of English. Personally, I would red line that sentence with the bold comment of "Trite!" and "Unoriginal!"
Those with a long political memory will recall Proposition 227, approved by the voters in 1998. It was a culture-war wedge dressed as an education issue, and no matter whether you think it helped or hindered language acquisition, it did nothing to prepare California for a global future that's already arrived.
Yes! It did. Thankfully, it removed Spanish immigrant kids from their Spanish speaking government indoctrination camp ghettos.
Global? Hm?,,,As in U.N. run "global villiage"?
This would help the cause of tolerance and understanding, but it's not about sugary multiculturalism -- it's about economics.
I suspect that Rueben's motives are entirely about multiculturism. And,,,CEO's from around the world ( in all countries) will tell you that master of English is the language of international commerce. Having mastery is what needed if one's concern is economics.
Which means I had better start taking classes in Armenian. Like now.
Armenian? Well?...Go for it, Reuben! You pay for it! But, somehow, I expect that you want the taxpayers to do this for you.
Nothing stopping him from teaching his twin daughters any language he sees fit. Just our tax dollars are not going to help him do it. So....what’s the problem Roooooben
If this author is REALLLLY interested in the “economics”, then I urge him to hasten the assimilation of spanish speaking students into the mainstream and stop encouraging the absolute chaos that is our current state of the high- and middle- schools.
“No Child Left Behind”? Would you like to know what that has translated into? The blending of “special-ed” (read: not interested in the schoolwork) in with regular students in most classes. Not only has it slowed down the smarter kids, it has dumbed down the classes to the point where even the teachers suffer from a kind of stultified boredom.
I would dearly love for parents who actually give a damn about their kids education to SEE some of the papers I have graded. The work is elementary level, yet the spelling, grammar and sentence construction is appalling; there is not the slightest grasp of even the simplest concepts and no show of any interest at all. The days of anxiety over a test are completely gone. They don’t CARE if they pass it or not.
Have you seen a public school history textbook recently? It’s packed with history about the imaginary plight of the “native americans”, black history and the offerings of hispanic “heroes”. Any mention of the American Founders is limited to one or two pages, a conglomeration of a few of the most well known and any misstep gets more print than the good they accomplished. “Travesty” doesn’t begin to describe it.
I pray daily for the proliferation of private schools.
Ping for Public School.
Do you think this might interest the others?
Teach everyone three languages? There must be hundreds of thousands of kids in Kaleephornya schools who haven’t even mastered one!
What a relief to know that the kids aren't burdened with such crippling social constructs as "marriage" and "legitimacy."
If that's the case they should be proficient in English (the international lanquage of commerce) and should immediately be taught something other than Keynesian economics.
My dad was born in the US. His parents were immigrants. They spoke Ukrainian at home and when he went to school, he couldn’t speak English. He survived.
Not only did he learn English fluently, all the while speaking Ukrainian at home and in church, and in the little local community.
He graduated at the top of his class for all four years in high school, was perfectly fluent in both languages without a trace of accent in either.
It can be done and nobody needs to be coddled to do it.
Teaching kids in their native language here just robs them of the chance to become proficient in both languages. They never master English the way the need to.
ping
Lots of other suggestions for improving schools in that article, from a number of different people. This one from Roy Romer was interesting, too:
So how do we get [great teachers in every classroom]? We need to recruit better. We need to retain the best. We need to make the career of teaching attractive financially, paying more to those with particular skills, those who take on tough school assignments and those who produce the best results. We need to involve teachers in every effort. Today, there are great teachers in some of our classrooms. If we focus on moving that from some to most, it would be the single most important change in our youngsters' school life.
This list is for articles relating to public education. SoftballMominVA and I have been asked to take over the list. If you want on or off this ping list, please FReepmail SoftballMominVA or Gabz.
FWIW: While English should be the primary language of instruction in ALL U.S. schools, we are PATHETIC in that we don’t start teaching second languages in grade school. I would love for my children to start learning Spanish, Mandarin, or even Arabic from a young age (French, of course, is useless).