Spanish At School Translates To Suspension

[Pierre the Great]

This article is a couple of months old but it is more revelant today then ever.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0802122_pf.html

I post this because of the english only bills in congress. This nation was started on a basis of everyone accepting everyone. Where you could keep your own culture. For example my grandparents didn't learn english until the 60's and they were born here. Making it english only violates the history of our country.

[shortcat1]

This article is a couple of months old but it is more revelant today then ever.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0802122_pf.html

I post this because of the english only bills in congress. This nation was started on a basis of everyone accepting everyone. Where you could keep your own culture. For example my grandparents didn't learn english until the 60's and they were born here. Making it english only violates the history of our country.

Shame on him! How could he do that??? What is this student... a subversive?... What's next... Arabian?... Terrorist...

:king: :hlogo: :king:

[Fanpuck33]

Why dredge up an 8 month old story? This country's public schools do stupid things all the time. It's nothing new. If you want something worse than this, how about a public school teacher who was fired for wearing a cross on a necklace. That's 10 times worse than this. This teacher lost her source of income which she used to pay rent, buy food, etc.

As for "violating the country's history," you couldn't be more wrong. Yes, America has people from many cultures from around the world. At the same time, America is known as a "melting pot" for cultures. In a melting pot, everything becomes melted and becomes one. It implies unity through diversity. Part of the unity has always been that everyone who comes here learns to speak English. You're not going to get very far in the US if you don't speak English. Having your own culture is one thing, but America has also always been an English speaking country. For over 200 years people have come to the United States and they have kept their own traditions while learning English and becoming an <insert country here>-American. Speaking English doesn't force people to lose their culture.

As for this case, the suspension is obviously a harsh punishment. I think, however, that I understand why the school does not like it when students speak Spanish. If the teachers (or at least most of them) don't speak Spanish, then these kids could be getting awaay with saying horrible things about other students, teachers, etc. I'm not conding the original suspension, I'm just trying to explain where the administration was likely coming from.

P.S. where are the people who call me out whenever I try to use the Post as a source?

[Pierre the Great]

Tell that to the asian americans fanbuck who were rounded up during world war II on the west coast. They were put into interment camps because of two things: they looked like the 'enemy' and they didn't speak english.

The germans during world war I and II were forced to close there german schools, stop doing german services and in some cases changed there name to a none german name.

And don't forget the mormons and native americans.

Wow. You pulled the I don't know what you're talking about so I'm afraid you might be planning something card. This xenophobia is disturbing and I don't know how old you are Fanpuck but I'm just out of high school and this runs rampent in schools. Heck segregation still exists in the schools if you haven't noticed. If you haven't just visit the local high school, elementary school or middle school.

No mixing whatsoever.

If you can't understand where people are coming from then you have lost your cultural identity since this country was founded on immigrants.

Land of the not so free.

[simonus]

Tell that to the asian americans fanbuck who were rounded up during world war II on the west coast. They were put into interment camps because of two things: they looked like the 'enemy' and they didn't speak english.

The germans during world war I and II were forced to close there german schools, stop doing german services and in some cases changed there name to a none german name.

And don't forget the mormons and native americans.

Wow. You pulled the I don't know what you're talking about so I'm afraid you might be planning something card. This xenophobia is disturbing and I don't know how old you are Fanpuck but I'm just out of high school and this runs rampent in schools. Heck segregation still exists in the schools if you haven't noticed. If you haven't just visit the local high school, elementary school or middle school.

No mixing whatsoever.

If you can't understand where people are coming from then you have lost your cultural identity since this country was founded on immigrants.

Land of the not so free.

Pierre, c'mon. In no way is Fanpuck advocating interment camps and you know it. This kid is not Korematsu. Fanpuck is not a Xenaphobe and your argument style here is quite disturbing to me. You are laying some pretty vicious charges against the guy.

My grandparents or great-grandparents (depending on which part of the family) came to this country not speaking english or french and I guarantee you that the first thing they did was start to learn english (or french). The Forward, the major yiddish daily in the US, offered featured ads for correspondence courses to improve your english. My family knew that we would find nothing but isolation if we didnt understand english and so learned it.

The dutch in New Amsterdam learned english. The germans in New Berlin learned english long before the Kaiser. Every group that came to the US assimilated insofar as they speak english as their primary (or at least public) language. The few groups that have been hostile to english (hassidic jews, amish, etc...) have been extremely isolated communities. The only irish speaking some form of Irish in the US are the Irish travelers... an extremely isolated group. Albeit all this, the great majority of hassidics, amish, and travelers speak english fluently. Why? Cause it's important.

Now we shouldnt be trying to exterminate Spanish for many reasons. It is not evil for a community to have their argot. I guarantee that you heard a healthy amount of yiddish in Cote-St-Luc when I was a kid... but it was more of a pigeon-talk. People communicated day-to-day in English. Suspending a kid for a remark in the hallway (especially one that even I, someone completely ignorant of spanish, understood) is a bit much and should not of happened.

But don't call anybody who advocates a strong english national identity (which, btw, we have had since before independance) a racist concentration camp advocator. It's not worthy of the debate we need to have about the topic.

Edited July 27, 2006 by simonus

[Pierre the Great]

Yeah I will admit I went off the deep end there when I started going the xenophobia route. I was just angry at the idiots in the article.

But you could make the case that people have been speaking spanish longer then english in this country.

When I did a post about french in Quebec and how its not being spoken by new immigrants I said it was important to speak french in public in Quebec since that is the majority.

What I have a problem with is what this school did in repromanding a student for speaking his mother tongue.

There's a girl at school who is from Russia and talks to her parents in Russian on the phone. She gets weird looks.

I'm just saying people need to accept each other for who they are and where they come from.

Its really to late in the game to do anything about the english spanish debate. By the end of my life they country will have 2 offical languages like it or not, its going to happen.

Its either going to go two ways and ironically both of my examples are places in Canada.

Richmond BC, Vancouver's Chinatown. As my neighbour said "are we in the south pacific or Canada" which is english/mandrin even though chinese isn't an offical language its quasi reconised. Or it will end up like Federal Canada and be bilingual.

It all depends on California though. If the push for two languages comes from somewhere its California that will start it. If they did something like that I think it would be in the mold of Ontario and Manitoba where I believe french is recognised its just not offical offical (someone please clarify on this for I don't know a lot about offical provincial languages)

[House11]

It all depends on California though. If the push for two languages comes from somewhere its California that will start it. If they did something like that I think it would be in the mold of Ontario and Manitoba where I believe french is recognised its just not offical offical (someone please clarify on this for I don't know a lot about offical provincial languages)

Yeah I have a first hand account on this issue ... I'm for and English only language ... it's for the betterment of the country ... now I don't think anyone is saying you can't learn your own native language or traditions and you are free to do that ... but for the betterment of schools and society as a whole it would be nice if everyone one was tought English ( well its american not english ) as a first language ... everyday at work I can't help people because they don't speak english ... there are even people that come up to me and ask me if I speak spanish ... I say no ... then they go and speak english ... so can't speak it at all so I can't help them. but i've pick up alittle spanish so I know when people are talking shit or behing my back !

[Fanpuck33]

Tell that to the asian americans fanbuck who were rounded up during world war II on the west coast. They were put into interment camps because of two things: they looked like the 'enemy' and they didn't speak english.

The germans during world war I and II were forced to close there german schools, stop doing german services and in some cases changed there name to a none german name.

I'll let simonus' response take care of that one, as it doesn't even deserve a response. If you think I advocate those kind of things, then you have absolutely no clue what the hell you are talking about and have no idea what the hell I am talking about.

I don't know how old you are Fanpuck but I'm just out of high school and this runs rampent in schools. Heck segregation still exists in the schools if you haven't noticed. If you haven't just visit the local high school, elementary school or middle school.

No mixing whatsoever.

Racial segregation exists only in a very, very small percentage of situations. Primarily, any unooficial segregation is socio-economically. This happens to end up looking like racial segregation, since higher percentages of minorities are poor, urban dwellers and a higher percentage of whites are middle class suburban dwellers. This leads to urban schools having high percentages or minorities and subruban schools having high percentages of whites. As for mixing, that has totally to do with the individuals. People tend to hang out with people who are like them. Most of a black person's friends will be black, a white person's will be white, etc. This may not be the best way, but it is natural. I've had black friends, Idian friends, and white friends, most of them being white. This doesn't make me a racist, it makes me human. Walking to classes, I heard people speaking Spanish and Indian everyday day. It took a while to get used to because it is not the norm. Do I dislike these people? Of course not.

If you can't understand where people are coming from then you have lost your cultural identity since this country was founded on immigrants.

[sarcasm]Really? Immigrants you say?[/sarcasm] My grandparents on my father's side didn't come to this country from Poland in 1931 or anything. And I guess my mother's side of the country didn't come to this coutry back in the 1700s. Something they all have in common: they learned English.

[MAK]

It all depends on California though. If the push for two languages comes from somewhere its California that will start it. If they did something like that I think it would be in the mold of Ontario and Manitoba where I believe french is recognised its just not offical offical (someone please clarify on this for I don't know a lot about offical provincial languages)

I think that Quebec and new brunswick are the only two official billingual provinces.

the next ones would be ontario and manitoba because they have some french communities but thats it. I don't think that it would be easy to have some service in french anywhere there

[shortcat1]

I think that Quebec and new brunswick are the only two official billingual provinces.

the next ones would be ontario and manitoba because they have some french communities but thats it. I don't think that it would be easy to have some service in french anywhere there

Québec isn't a 'bilingual' province. It's officially a uniligual province. The only official language is French.

The only 'bilingual' province in Canada is New Brunswick. The three territories (Yukon, North-West Territories & Nunavut) are officially bilingual. Several aboriginal languages are also official in Northwest Territories, and Inuktitut is an official language in Nunavut.

:king: :hlogo: :king:

[Fanpuck33]

All this disucssion and I haven't even given my opinion on the bigger issue at hand, English only education in the US. While I am not a fan of the idea, I think we are coming to a point were elementary schools will need to offer some classes in Spanish. As the kids grow up, they will HAVE to learn English. By the time they get to High School, classes should only be in English as students will have learned English by that time.

[Pierre the Great]

Yes Fanpuck I agree on teaching Spanish in schools. I think they should start at first grade and teach it like a normal class up til you graduate high school.

We would be better off that way. In Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Sweden and Finland. They are taught english in schools like a math or science class. Then when they get to there high school they must learn another language. Image if that happend here. I'd be estatic. But I see a lot of political opposition from one of the two main parties on this issue.

If you are not going to make it offically bi-lingual the next best thing is to teach kids the languages because in today's America spanish is a must.

[dark_faerie87]

Yes Fanpuck I agree on teaching Spanish in schools. I think they should start at first grade and teach it like a normal class up til you graduate high school.

We would be better off that way. In Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Sweden and Finland. They are taught english in schools like a math or science class. Then when they get to there high school they must learn another language. Image if that happend here. I'd be estatic. But I see a lot of political opposition from one of the two main parties on this issue.

If you are not going to make it offically bi-lingual the next best thing is to teach kids the languages because in today's America spanish is a must.

I think that's an excellent idea. Going back to the Europe example, I have a friend from Finland who has a better understanding of the English language than the average North American!

[Fanpuck33]

Yes Fanpuck I agree on teaching Spanish in schools. I think they should start at first grade and teach it like a normal class up til you graduate high school.

If you are not going to make it offically bi-lingual the next best thing is to teach kids the languages because in today's America spanish is a must.

I think you misunderstand what I am saying. I am proposing that classes be offered in Spanish in math, science, etc. for children who haven't learned English yet. I am in no way proposing that we force children to take Spanish. Foreign languages are just that, foreign. I'm 100% behind offering them as electives, but I am totally against making any foreign language mandatory for all students. My proposed system is simply an idea to help Spanish speaking students succeed in school while they learn how to speak, read, and write English, which they should have to do at least by high school. By high school, normal classes should be taught in English only, except for students who are that age and have just recently come to the US, in which case special help would be used.

[Pierre the Great]

They already have something like that I believe or at least they did. I know the german community had german schools up til world war 2.

My uncle grew up around german in ohio. He had to be taught English as a second language growing up.

If you make them use it as electives people will just slack off. If you want people to learn the language you have to make in mandatory, in my opinion.

And learning another language can't hurt but only help learn about your surroundings.

Edited July 27, 2006 by Pierre the Great

[jetsniper]

What?

Keep the second language an option, otherwise people will just hate it even more. Everyone despised French classes here growing up BECAUSE we had no choice. But when I got to high school and started taking Spanish and German, I learned more about those languages in a week then I learned about French in the 5 years I had to take it. Why? Because I actually chose to learn those languages.

I don't get why people would slack off more in an option they WANT to do instead of slacking off in a mandatory class they don't care about. Was always the other way for me.

[Fanpuck33]

I agree with Jetsniper. Kids don't like being told what to do. Allowing them an option helps them choose something that they are interested in and will thus care more about. A kid is going to learn better if he chooses to take a certain langauge, rather than being forced to take a certain language. Of course, some kids will slack no matter what the situation.

I know I always loved elective because they were what I actually wanted to be doing.