It Reminds Me Of So Many Other Stories
Students at a Catholic school in Wichita Kansas are now only allowed to speak English. But some parents aren’t pleased with the new rule. They say it’s discriminatory, and sends the wrong message to students.
Back in the heyday of Canadian government assimilation programs this rule was the norm. I can’t tell you how many people I know who were verbally abused and beaten for speaking anything other than English in school.
Then, as now, it is a pitiful, and petty, action driven by people who are afraid of anything that is not the same as they are…. and in this case it was driven by unilingual kids who thought they were being talked about at recess.
Boo-hoo-hoo, the poor little English kids can’t understand what is being said so it obviously must be about them – instead of the school changing the rules those kids worried they are being talked about should
[a] be offered counselling for their insecurity issues and/or
[b] get off their asses and learn the other language
The cable news media is spinning this as an education issue, the kids need to learn English if they are going to get ahead in life, and other languages get in the way of that – to which the bunker calls bullshit.
My children grew up in a home where English was not the first language, they were surrounded by a language other than English, they were not educated in the English language until they hit grade 4, and then instruction was a mixture of two languages until grade 6.
…. and ya know what? They’re all doing just fine, better even than the majority of the kids who the school tried to beat the langauge and culture out of under “English only” rules.
So the next time you come across some fearful, bigoted, and paranoid “expert” claiming that ‘they gotta do it in English for their own good’ you just point ‘em in my direction — ’cause I’ve got living, breathing, proof they are wrong.
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Trackposted to Nuke’s, Perri Nelson’s Website, Right Celebrity, The Populist, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, Stuck On Stupid, Cao’s Blog, Big Dog’s Weblog, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Pet Haven, Right Voices, and Adeline and Hazel, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
