Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Saturday, September 18, 2010 9:16:36 PM
Given a vacation trip to Cozumel on the Yucatan Peninsula by my sons, I was surprised to learn that the ancient Mayan language is alive and well. Employees at the resort were proud of their Mayan ancestry. A waiter told me, "I speak three languages; Mayan, Spanish and English.” He claimed that over fifty percent of the people on the Yucatan speak Mayan in their homes. I have researched his claim. The Encarta Encyclopedia estimates that more than 750,000 people speak Mayan as their primary language.
Consider the irony of it: the stupidity of it. If people from the Yucatan migrate to New York no one bothers to learn if their primary language is Mayan. They are taught in Spanish - their second language. Our education improves their Spanish, the primary language of a nation they have left, while ignoring English - the primary language of the country in which they have chosen to live.
Mayans are not alone. To quote the Encarta Enclyopedia, over one million people are estimated to have Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec, as their basic language. How many others are in similar situations? How many of our immigrants from Central and South America have Spanish as a second language, their FIRST languages being in the tongues of their ancestors? I have read reports of “educators” saying that many of our Central and South American immigrants speak Spanish poorly. Could it be because it is not their primary language?
In the 1970s “educators” railed against the "Di*k and Jane" series used to teach reading. While agreeing that its happy family of father, mother, two children a dog and a cat represented a desirable state of life, “educators” said the series over-simplified our culture and should be replaced. It was. Of course the "Di*k and Jane" series was designed to teach children to read, not to become sociologists, but that didn’t seem to matter - or else the critics didn’t think of it.
Today our schools teach students "Di*k and Jane" courses on multi-cultualism. Taught by the unknowing to the uninterested, they reflect little knowledge of other cultures at best and create false histories at worst. A good current example is “Hispanic.” Many “educators” assume, in blessed ignorance, that the poverty stricken lower classes migrating to the United States from nations with Spanish sounding names are all fluent in Spanish. A few, of course, are aware that the official language of Brazil is Portuguese.
How nice. People who emigrate to this country from Spain, Argentina, Honduras, Mexico and Puerto Rico are all the same. This is true no matter how poorly they speak Spanish or how much they desire to leave the culture and language of the land they left behind them.
But my complaint of stereotyping is a digression from the true problem. What every teacher knows, and honest ones will admit, is that much of teaching any subject is teaching the language of that subject. Children do not enter kindergarten knowing the meaning of words such as multiplication, product, phrase, noun and adjective. They can’t read words such as house, job and car. Those words or their equivalents are taught in every country in the world in the primary language of the nation. It permits people to function in their own societies. Isn’t that the purpose of education, to enable people to prosper in the nation in which they have chosen to live?
Current educational wisdom is creating a bi-lingual nation, but do we want one? Canada is a bi-lingual nation. Having lived and taught there for five years, I’ve learned a little about current Canadian problems and their past history. Canada has had, since its inception, a problem between the French speaking minority and the English majority in many aspects of life, including employment opportunities. It still has it. In fact, there remains a separatist movement in Quebec. Do we wish to create such a problem in the United States? Immigrants from nations around the world, including China, Korea, Germany, Russia and Slovakia, to name just a few, have all learned English. Are persons with Spanish names so inferior that they can’t? I have personal friends with Spanish names who would dispute that. In fact, knowing them, I dispute it. The emphasis on “bi-lingual” education, as employed in many states, defeats the abilty of immigrants to achieve equal opportunity in the United States.
Incidentally, I approve of multi-lingualism. All of my older children speak more than one language and speak them well and the younger ones studied another language in high school. The oldest, Chris, has been mistaken for a Russian in Russian stores in Moscow and speaks German and some French in addition to Russian. Eric conducts conferences in Central and South America in Spanish. Bill is fluent in German and speaks some French. Stephen still recalls some Korean and German. But all were fluent in English first. They learned those other languages when there was a need.
Shouldn’t all students in this country become fluent in English first? Fluent English is essential for a comfortable and successful life in the United States. They can always learn other languages as necessary, later.