🚀 go-pugleaf

John Cooley wrote:
> 
> Anil, I love languages, too.  As a result, I fear your reasoning here might be
> a bit flawed.  For 98% of all Americans there is absolutely no advantage
> whatsoever to learn anything other than English.  That is, virtually everywhere
> we are in North America they speak English and those two weeks every three
> years where we go overseas to a non-English speaking country, we find plenty
> of people speaking English there!  (Let's see, because of business I was in
> Japan last November, Israel last month and in Sweden two days ago.  I didn't
> speak one word of the local lingos and got along quite well!  English *is*
> the international Lingua Franca these days.)
> 
> Please don't get me wrong: I agree with Goethe that the only way to learn your
> own language is to learn another one -- I'm *just* explaining why there was
> such a high drop out rate in your French class, Anil.

One of the things learning a foreign language does teach (when it's learned
correctly) is the ability to think in a different way. Let's say you learned to
speak Eskimo. You would probably never think about snow in quite the same way
that you might have in just speaking English.

Unfortunately the watered-down curriculum of today's elementary and secondary
schools is not even offering the basic set of knowledge, skills, and deductive
reasoning necessary to compete in a world based on science and technology.

What should be required in high school? 4 years of the following: English,
history, mathematics, science (biology, chemistry, physics, computer), a
foreign language, and art (music, painting/drawing, sculpture, dance, etc.). 
It is irresponsible to say that 98% of Americans would gain nothing from learn-
ing a second language. Is it better to take Singles Living, Auto Shop III, 
Typing II?

Since American high school students rank dead last in industrialized nations in
science, foreign languages, and many other domains (e.g., geography) and a huge
number can't decipher a timetable for a bus I would say that foreign language
isn't the only thing that should be taught, but part of an enriching curricu-
lum. Too many high school students are dropping out of science, foreign lan-
guage and other classes claiming, "It's too hard." (curiously, some foreign
languages are superb for science: the Italian word for frog is "rana"; I be-
lieve the biological family - maybe it's the class - of frogs is Ranidae).

It's this defeatist, "well I'm not gonna need that for this job" attitude that
is threatening many sectors of industry. There are furniture manufacturing
plants that are closing, not due to lack of demand for the products, but 
because the factories are unable to locate people that can pass a basic apti-
tude test. Our schools are graduating students who are unable to read and
comprehend a simple paragraph, unable to add and subtract, unable to perform
basic mental skills.

My ability to speak in foreign languages, paint, play the piano, ski, perform
CPR, bake a turkey with all the trimmings, read and understand the majority of
Scientific American or a non-disclosure agreement do not help out in my ordi-
nary life, but what a dimmer life I would have had I not possessed these
skills.

S.

-- 
Sean Yamamoto                                            Silicon Graphics, Inc.
seany@sgi.com                                            "Apply Occam's razor."

     If William of Occam had a beard, it wasn't because his razor was dull.