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I think learning a second language in school has enough ancillary benefits to make it mandatory, but there is no language other than English that is so widespre

I think learning a second language in school has enough ancillary benefits to make it mandatory, but there is no language other than English that is so widespread to make that particular langauage dominant. I think that within the limits of the resources, schools should try to offer a few choices and let the students choose. Sometimes a language will appeal to a student because something they are interested in is heavily tied to that language. A serious student of judo would likely benefit from speaking Japanesse if only to be able to talk with other practitioners. A serious student of Go may be interested a language from a country where that is common such as Japanese or Korean, etc. On the other hand, someone interested in philosophy is likely to benefit from French more than most other languages. If we absolutely had to pick one, I would focus on Mandarin Chinese. China is a rapidly rising power that is becoming ever more important in the international scene and houses a huge percentage of the world population.

pbhjpbhj 17y ago
>learning a second language in school has enough ancillary benefits to make it mandatory Would you include in this those who can't use a first language to any reasonable degree. Or those who already have the main language of the country (English say) as their second language? I'm generally against mandatory subjects in education as it tends not to reflect the vast differences in experience and background, motivation and ability of the students.
- timwiseman 17y ago
  I'm generally against mandatory subjects in education as it tends not to reflect the vast differences in experience and background, motivation and ability of the students. At a higher education level (say College on up) I would be strongly inclined to agree with you. Give the students freedom and they will make the right choices for themselves, and they will be the only ones to live with it if they don't. At the basic education level (high school and below), this is precisely when society is teaching its children what it needs to continue its culture. Most students at this age do not have the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about what they should learn, and moreover society has a vested interest in ensuring that its young people meet certain minimums. My argument is that a second language should be one of those minimums, but that the choice of which language should be given (within resource limits) to the student or their family. To answer your direct questions though, someone who cannot use a first language to any reasonable degree either has a learning disability or has been failed by the education system. In that second case, the education system has failed them and should take extraordinary measures to correct that without lowering the standards (my argument is that a second language should be part of those standards). And for people who are already fluent in a second language, they have already exceeded that requirement.
  - PieSquared 17y ago
    Aurgh! Your comment is on one hand something I really want to respond to, yet on the other hand difficult for me to respond to well. > At a higher education level (say College on up) I would be strongly inclined to agree with you. Give the students freedom and they will make the right choices for themselves, and they will be the only ones to live with it if they don't. > At the basic education level (high school and below), this is precisely when society is teaching its children what it needs to continue its culture. Background: I am in high school. Anyway, I've come up against this barrier so much and it drives me crazy. Here, like in most American high schools, society isn't teaching us anything. It's teaching us to hate the 'mandatory' subjects, because everyone has to take them, and thus the teachers can't teach it well because 3/4 of their classes are utterly uninterested. To be honest, I despise my world history class. And it's not because it's history - I'm fine with history, in face, I enjoy learning about it. It's because it's mandatory, which means everyone takes it, so in the end, everyone suffers. With the AP level course system that exists in the USA, you're taking college-level courses in high school. Why should high school students have to suffer any more than college students? > Most students at this age do not have the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about what they should learn, and moreover society has a vested interest in ensuring that its young people meet certain minimums. This is even harder to argue with, because of the "most". I guess it's that old argument: would you rather allow the more gifted to excel, or everyone be held at the same level (with that level being slightly higher than had you went with the other option)? And, honestly, it isn't 'society' - society isn't doing anything. It's the school system, a bureaucratized administration incapable of seeing the system from the students perspective and incapable of creating a true institution of learning in which the students who want to learn at a decent rate can. Ugh, sorry for this rant. It's just been bothering me for the past two years, because high school is so goddamn constrained and mandatory it's angering. Instead of learning, I have to sit through things I already know and listen to incompetent teachers talk about irrelevant topics. I guess I should add something related to the original topic. I speak two languages fluently, and learned Spanish in high school for four years, then promptly dropped it. Why? Because even though I live in an area with easily 30% Spanish-speakers, I don't ever need to use it. Ever! And if I try to practice it, the Spanish-speakers would just rather speak English, because a lot of them are more comfortable talking to me in English. My point: in almost all places in the USA, other languages are useless. Now, in my own time, outside of school, I've learned some Portuguese, because I play capoeira and my instructor and students learning it along with me speak it all the time. My second point: when you need to, you will learn a language.

pbhjpbhj 17y ago

>learning a second language in school has enough ancillary benefits to make it mandatory Would you include in this those who can't use a first language to any reasonable degree. Or those who already have the main language of the country (English say) as their second language? I'm generally against mandatory subjects in education as it tends not to reflect the vast differences in experience and background, motivation and ability of the students.

timwiseman 17y ago
I'm generally against mandatory subjects in education as it tends not to reflect the vast differences in experience and background, motivation and ability of the students. At a higher education level (say College on up) I would be strongly inclined to agree with you. Give the students freedom and they will make the right choices for themselves, and they will be the only ones to live with it if they don't. At the basic education level (high school and below), this is precisely when society is teaching its children what it needs to continue its culture. Most students at this age do not have the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about what they should learn, and moreover society has a vested interest in ensuring that its young people meet certain minimums. My argument is that a second language should be one of those minimums, but that the choice of which language should be given (within resource limits) to the student or their family. To answer your direct questions though, someone who cannot use a first language to any reasonable degree either has a learning disability or has been failed by the education system. In that second case, the education system has failed them and should take extraordinary measures to correct that without lowering the standards (my argument is that a second language should be part of those standards). And for people who are already fluent in a second language, they have already exceeded that requirement.
- PieSquared 17y ago
  Aurgh! Your comment is on one hand something I really want to respond to, yet on the other hand difficult for me to respond to well. > At a higher education level (say College on up) I would be strongly inclined to agree with you. Give the students freedom and they will make the right choices for themselves, and they will be the only ones to live with it if they don't. > At the basic education level (high school and below), this is precisely when society is teaching its children what it needs to continue its culture. Background: I am in high school. Anyway, I've come up against this barrier so much and it drives me crazy. Here, like in most American high schools, society isn't teaching us anything. It's teaching us to hate the 'mandatory' subjects, because everyone has to take them, and thus the teachers can't teach it well because 3/4 of their classes are utterly uninterested. To be honest, I despise my world history class. And it's not because it's history - I'm fine with history, in face, I enjoy learning about it. It's because it's mandatory, which means everyone takes it, so in the end, everyone suffers. With the AP level course system that exists in the USA, you're taking college-level courses in high school. Why should high school students have to suffer any more than college students? > Most students at this age do not have the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about what they should learn, and moreover society has a vested interest in ensuring that its young people meet certain minimums. This is even harder to argue with, because of the "most". I guess it's that old argument: would you rather allow the more gifted to excel, or everyone be held at the same level (with that level being slightly higher than had you went with the other option)? And, honestly, it isn't 'society' - society isn't doing anything. It's the school system, a bureaucratized administration incapable of seeing the system from the students perspective and incapable of creating a true institution of learning in which the students who want to learn at a decent rate can. Ugh, sorry for this rant. It's just been bothering me for the past two years, because high school is so goddamn constrained and mandatory it's angering. Instead of learning, I have to sit through things I already know and listen to incompetent teachers talk about irrelevant topics. I guess I should add something related to the original topic. I speak two languages fluently, and learned Spanish in high school for four years, then promptly dropped it. Why? Because even though I live in an area with easily 30% Spanish-speakers, I don't ever need to use it. Ever! And if I try to practice it, the Spanish-speakers would just rather speak English, because a lot of them are more comfortable talking to me in English. My point: in almost all places in the USA, other languages are useless. Now, in my own time, outside of school, I've learned some Portuguese, because I play capoeira and my instructor and students learning it along with me speak it all the time. My second point: when you need to, you will learn a language.