Friday, December 09, 2005

Speaking Spanish In School is Forbidden

Is anyone else outraged at this story? When I read it I thought I was in a time warp to when First Nations people in Canada were forbidden to speak their native language in the residential schools. I cannot believe that an American school in this day and age would forbid any language, let alone Spanish, which seems to be very predominant in many states, much like French is in some of our provinces. I would think the school would embrace bilingualism, not suspend children for it. Ridiculous!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to agree that it is stupid. I haven't read the story, so I am sorry if this is redundant, but when I go to the store and there are a bunch of mexicans talking and looking at me, I get freaked out. Are they talking about me? Are they saying some sassy stuff? If a teacher doesn't know spanish, how do they know if the kids are back talking them?
It makes me think of when you walk past the old construction site, being gawked at, whistled at, being called obsene names by the good ol' boys, you know, that whole sexist issue the "imfamous they" always talk about. But, here you only see body language, and hear a language you don't know. They could be saying anything and I have no idea. They could be talking about stealing my purse and I wouldn't know.
Ok, so I read the story now. I guess this story is more covering americans being mad that they aren't speaking english in america.
Well, that's my thought on it, I guess.

Dreama said...

I really don't care if anyone is talking about me in any language...after all, what am I going to do even if I did understand them, go tell them off? Smack someone? Would you?

I have been in so many places where English is the minority, that I just don't really give it much thought. In multicultural Canada, I just see it as a given. My daughter went to school with many children from different countries who had very little English and her school had two ESL teachers to help them out. If they feel more comfortable speaking to each other in their own native language when chatting casually in the hall, who in the hell are we to tell them they can't? It just smacks of the same old stuff I hear about Americans all the time. I have come across blogs that are anti-Mexican, if you can believe that.

 
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