Should spanish be taught at schools?

Its come to my attention that alot of controversy has been going down involving the spanish language. Some say it shouldnt be taught in our schools, while others go as far as too say that it shouldnt be spoken in America period. I personaly beleive that this is a "free" country, and anyone should be allowd to speak any language they wish, and that it should be taught in schools, and made readilly available to students who wish to learn the language. However, I dont agree with the descion to make it a required class to pass to get into colledge.

Back when I went to high school (1960's), you needed to have one foreign languge (Latin counted, by the way) in order to graduate. We were not substantially harmed by the requirement.

Frankly, I think society is helped by getting a little multiculturalism. The worst societies are those that treat "everyone else" with contempt.

I think it doesn't have to be spanish but yes I believe kids should have to learn a foreign language. When I was growing up I had a choice between spanish or french so I went with spanish.

I think its very important for kids, especially my fellow americans to learn a foreign language and in america especially here in california, spanish is a good choice.

IMO of course.

Spiderj

It is not just spanish the school offers. They offer spanish, french, and surprisingly enough, sighn language. I chose spanish, becuase i know that, as much as people dont want it to happen, it will be a dominant language eventually, and if i had to learn one, learn the most valuable one.

I think learning a foreign language is a good thing, but that it should not be forced. At my university, to earn an arts degree, you must take a foreign language course (in any offered language, and they offer lots) but for any other degree it is optional. I never took any in university, but I took some french in grade school (also optional).

Knowledge is power. There is nothing wrong in having curriculums that encourage learning another languages. In the States Spanish makes sense, in Canada French makes sense, in the whole world Chinese makes sense. We English have been spoiled for too long, letting other cultures adapt to our way, it's time for some reciprocity.

I said this elsewhere, but it still makes sense; so here goes....

Q: Should Spanish be taught at schools?
A: I think so.
Q: Who should decide who takes Spanish at schools?
A: The Parents.

But it seems like the thread is about forcing a language on students.

This is what you can expect with a government-monopoly school system (PUBLIK SKULEZ™): a one-size-fits-all, learn-because-we-tell-you-to scam where there is no incentive to give the consumers (parents and students) what they want.

As long as the government, because of its virtual economic monopoly, forces you to use their PUBLIK SKULEZ™, only the people who can afford to pay the taxes and the tuition for freedom-of-choice schools are going to have any choice in the matter.

And you know the education Unions and the bureaucracy isn't going to change; why should they? You are forced to pay taxes for the PUBLIK SKULEZ™ whether you want to or not.

Wouldn't it make more sense if the government would just give you your own tax dollars back and let you spend them on a freedom-of-choice school -- whether religious, Montessori, Home-School, or whatever -- that you think is best for your kids?

Of course, that's not the way the government works. The philosophy is simple: you may be the parent, but you're too stupid to know what's best for your own children; so we'll let some Washington DC bureaucrat figure that out for you.

Until all Americans have freedom-of-choice schools, you're going to see these mandates -- not just forcing a language, but a whole bunch of others -- and they're just going to get more and more invasive.

Now as an aside, I think that anyone who doesn't learn Spanish, the second language of the United States, is an idiot. I picked it up in my forties, my family uses it all the time, and, as a result, we have economic and cultural opportunities that you monolingual people will never be able to get.

But the point is that learning (or not learning) Spanish should be your choice, not the Government's.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street

But the point is that learning (or not learning) Spanish should be your choice, not the Government's.

Exactly. I would have taken spanish, required or not. However, the fact that im denied the descion in the first place makes me very very angry.

making a language a requirement to graduate is way different that forceing a student to learn one langauage. i would be pissed if i had to learn spanish to graduate. im not a big fan of it. (if some of you people pull the racist card ill beat you!) so what. oh im not a big fan of a language. deal!

if you dont want to learn a language you shouldnt have to!

Yes, for American public schools it must be taught. I regret having not advanced into Spanish III when I was in school. I don't speak the language and I difinitely cannot understand it as well as I used to. I plan on taking a few courses in college, not because it is a rquirement (two courses minimum) but because I want to be able to understand it, to speak it fluently, and most of all to watch the spanish channels on tv and understand what those half-nekid women are saying.

Seriously, i would raise the requirement from 2 courses to 3 and have schools drop a year of english and history and make calculus or another science a requirement.

Yeah was forced to take 2 years of spanish or french in order to graduate. I took spanish. All it did was make me a little bit more angry at the langauage.

I would have killed to have taken latin.

I didnt realy learn much in spanish class except that you can memorize and cram and pass. Do I know how to speak spanish? nah do I even know the sentence structure? Nah. why? because the class made me soo gosh darn pissed.

I feel that it should be a students decision. I took spanish with the knowldge that the spanish population in the united states was rapidly growing and that eventually it may even match english. I thus saw it higly important that I understand the primary of the dilect. I figured that when I encountered a situation that would call for long term use of it I would have a better chance at picking it up.

Unfourtnatelly the class was evil and I was only trying to pass now and learned nothing.

If a student sees this and they feel that it is important to them to "be ahead of the game" then they should take the class. Although as a educator the job is to provide a student with the best knowldge and abilites to see to it they mak it in life.... or at least in theory. I am really undecided on this issue.

I think it should for business reasons, it also helps if you need to tell someone new to the country information. I took Spanish 4 years stright btw! I was only good as a "high school graduate" in reading and writing, and my speaking was pretty good. Even Howie D, learned to speak Spanish in High School.

I think if people are going to put tax payers money into schools, they should vote the class, the curriculum(not the goverment's committee), and the textbook, but it should be the parents and the child who decide how they fill all the school's requirement for a diplomia.

[edit on 12/11/05 by bsbfan1]

Originally posted by TheLizardKing
. I chose spanish, becuase i know that, as much as people dont want it to happen, it will be a dominant language eventually, and if i had to learn one, learn the most valuable one.

Dominant language? Are you talking in the US or the World? Spanish is spoken by well over 400 million people worldwide true.

But just going by number theres a better Chance Hindi or Chinese and all its variants will be the dominant language.

If your talking about just America not even a chance in anyones lifetime posting on this board.

Originally posted by KrazyIvan

if you dont want to learn a language you shouldnt have to!

That is a hard arguement to make. can you generalize that statement to "If you don't want to learn (something) you shouldn't have to!"?

Often when you are in high school (or younger) you don't see why you will ever need to know Spanish, Social Studies, Algebra...etc. (we have another thread on algebra going on right now). Yet they do come to use later on for many people. The people it doesnt come through for are the ones who just learn the examples, not the concepts. This is true for any of the examples, not just Foreign Language.

Compared to other countries, Americans (using America because I am from there) learn so much less language. I know people from Egypt who were raised knowing Arabic, then taught german through gradeschool, and English during middleschool. By their high school graduations, they were fluent in 3 languages(and one of them was studying French). This is not even close to what Americans are expected to know by their graduations. Lanuguage connects people, yet Americans don't see why they should have to learn even a few semesters of it.

---Pineapple

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
Now as an aside, I think that anyone who doesn't learn Spanish, the second language of the United States, is an idiot. I picked it up in my forties, my family uses it all the time, and, as a result, we have economic and cultural opportunities that you monolingual people will never be able to get.

I must be an idiot then. I surely do not want to learn Spanish. Is this for any particular reason? Probably. Mostly it is because it riles me that the majority of the United States has passed the National Language Amendment. And I am not one of those "monolingual" people, as if that is some sort of offense. I speak German quite fluently, as that is my native language, and one that my Nana speaks.

However, with over 80% of the people of the USA speaking English and often exclusively English, English is the de facto language of the USA.

As well it should be. With the majority of America's citizens capable of speaking English, there is no reason why I "should" learn Spanish.
Besides, my neighbors speak Spanglish, something ridiculed by a Spanish teacher I once knew.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
But the point is that learning (or not learning) Spanish should be your choice, not the Government's.

Amen to that.

EDIT:Spelling.

[edit on 22-12-2005 by Rouschkateer]

Aside from the fact that a particular foreign language should not be forced, the big problem I see at this point is how few are even grasping English properly in our schools.

The literacy rate in the US is deplorable, and I don't see how if you can't properly master your first language, attempting a second is going to do much good.

Hmm, I think the intial post was more geared at should say native spanish speakers be offered classes in Spanish instead of English.

I say nay. I have a unique perspective as my wife came to this country when she was 10 and did not speak English. Yet she was forced to learn it rapidly to keep pace in school. If she had not, who knows if she would have been able to get to collage. She learned the old fashioned way through hard work and perseverence. Spoonfeeding information to someone is not coducive to long term learning. If your goal is to keep them in a cycle of poverty, its clearly the way to go.

I support teaching Spanish in schools, but in my opinion it should be purely an elective. It seems like a waste of money to teach it to kids who don't want to be there, because they won't actually learn it, they'll just cram and memorize ( or cheat) their way from test to test if they even care enough to try to pass the class. As of right now, knowing how to speak any language other than English is not required for success in this country so making compulsory instruction in Spanish/French/any other language occur at the high school level doesn't make sense to me on a practical level.

I agree with making Spanish an elective. In my school I have see a lot of kids that are not language exempt complaining about it. This is probably because its the only language my school teaches. Of course I think there spreading it a little to far in the history books they have a Spanish glossery but the rest of the book even the other glossery is writen in nothing but English. Whats next doubling the size of the test book to make it that hte back of each page has a Spanish version of the previous page.

There's nothing wrong with offering spanish in school...or french, japanese or any other language. I think it should be mandated by the school boards as a requirment for graduation. Not only do the classes offer language, but they also touch on the cultural aspects that comes with.

On another issue...the government should not require that businesses have bilingual brochures, signs, etc....