Kid busted for Speaking Spanish?

In this day and age?






http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10372148/


Abner

 

I have NEVER understood the common American reaction to people speaking languages other than English (which we don't really speak all that well anyway!) A child who becomes fluent in two languages will have an enormous advantage in college and in life. Heck, most A&S bachelor's degree programs REQUIRE two years of foreign language and in the Americas, Spanish is a very good choice.

Yet here we are, trying to suppress this child's bilingualism.

Is it hate based on fear? Racism born of ignorance and superstition? What?

 

I think it's hatred is born of jealousy. I used to laugh at knuckleheads on the ship who would bitch and moan when they observed Filipino Sailors speaking Tagalog on the mess decks or some other non-work related location.

Those who are either not able or not willing to achieve, tend to develop a need to blame someone for their lack of achievement.

 

admittedly I get nervous when people discuss things in front of me in a language I don't know... then laugh.....

I'd give my write arm to be bi-lingual....

 

Re: Like, you know?

Well, I think he´s been expelled because his Spanish is like, you know, totally like his English. No problema isn´t even correct Spanish.......

 

Okay, JLV...

I'D have said, "No hay problema."

Is that incorrect? Here on the border, we sometimes get a little sloppy...

 

Problem...

Some schools do have English only requirements because some people use their language to insult other people. One kid sued and lost after it was proven he was insulting the teacher he was speaking to. There have been similar instances in the workplace. If you do have a policy then you have to enforce it because if you don't you get in trouble for the instances when you do so.

Discipline means just that, if you are told to do something reasonable you do it whether you like it or not. Frankly, an English only policy in an American school is both reasonable and in many cases crucial to good order and discipline. If people think they can get away with the little things it isn't much longer before they start violating bigger rules. The past police chief of NYC proved this when he started his minor infraction enforcment program.

This school is in trouble because they had no policy. However, the student had been told about it before so he should have known better. I wonder if they are suing for money or just doing it to prove a point? I bet there is money involved. Call me a cynic but people always seem to be most offended when they think they can get some money out of it...

 

DTechBA,

I hadn't thought of the discipline angle. I can see that language, especially in a REALLY multicultural place like, say, Los Angeles, could be a badge of gang affiliation or such.

But on the OTHER hand, wouldn't it be better to punish the objectionable behavior instead of the use of the language itself?

 

You might be able to make the case for English only in the classroom, but I think a policy of English only in places such as the cafeteria and hallways is offensive and unsupportable.

 

Nope, you have it backwards..

Most trouble in schools happens outside of the controlled environment of the classroom. The lawsuit I mentioned derived from a confrontation in the hallway between classes. Some students were arguing and when the teacher told the students to get to class one of the insulted her.

It is obvious some of you have never been in an environment where you had to discipline young people. Seriously, it makes you unable to render an informed opinion on how to discipline them.

 

How....

If the teacher and or other person does not understand the language they would never know they have been insulted. However, the others who understood the insult would and would laugh at the teacher behind his/her back. That is how a breakdown in discipline starts in any environment.

 

All too often, someone here makes a statement similar to the one above. I disagree with this line of thought. It's condescending and presumptuous.

I'll stand by my previously expressed opinion; I think a policy of English only in places such as the cafeteria and hallways is offensive and unsupportable.

 

It is not....

It is neither condescending nor presumtous as it has been demonstrated time and again. Kids and young people are not just "little people" like many people think. They do not have the knowledge base or emotional control systems that an adult has (or at least most adults). Surprisingly, even though we were all kids once we forget this as we age. When you get back in an environment of young people you have to learn it all over again. How many have ever had a circuitous argument with a child? They tend to identify with their peer group much more than adults do with theirs and their relations with their peers play a much larger role in their id than that of adults. Therefore, the question of language use in school has much greater ramifications than say in the workplace.

Those who think kids are just smaller versions of themselves are at a loss to explain why they act the way they do. There are scores of people who have spent years trying to understand the motivations of young people. CBS (?) has a special coming up on just this subject and people have spent billions on books and training to understand theirs or other's children.

Simply put, this means if you do not commonly work with youth you are probably unable to judge how they should be dealt with and you should definately be willing to listen to the school leadership before you jump in with both feet in condemnation....

 

It is condescending for you to suggest that you are the only one with any understanding of this particular issue. Secondly, and more importantly, it is presumptuous for you to assume what my background has been in disciplining young people or in any other matter.

Additionally, your little thesis on the behavioral psychology of children was not necessary. No one here was making the argument that children are just smaller versions of adults.

I'll stand by my previously expressed opinion; I think a policy of English only in places such as the cafeteria and hallways is offensive and unsupportable.

 

Reading issues.....

Please point out where I said I was the only one who said I understood children. You won't find it. What I did say was that people on here are condemning with little understanding of the problem facing schools today. They were in fact doing that.

Despite your claims to the contrary, people were in fact making that very assumption about children. Lets look at the comment "I have never understood the common American reaction to people speaking languages other than English". This is not a question of people speaking Spanish in public or even the workplace. This is about children and I pointed that out. We are talking about a school where children go to acquire knowledge and learn to socialize with their peers. Another problem quote was, "in this day and age". In a previous day and age it would not have been an issue at all. In my "day", there wasn't even a hint of another language in our local school. Today, there are at least 5 (English, Hindi, Spanish, Italian and Chinese).

So, you think nothing detrimental to good order and discipline ever occurs in hallways or cafeterias? I recall that almost everything that ever happened in my 3 childhood schools that caused trouble occurred between classes or during lunch. Maybe my schools were unique. You should stop looking for things to be offended about......

 

In Shahanshah Pahlavi Aryamehr's day -- teachers were disappeared and tortured for teaching children to read and write non-Farsi indigenous tongues. All part of that whole Enqalaab-e-Sefid thing (White Revolution).

As for insults in other languages -- kids already speak their own argot and pretty much always have. Being separate from adults is all part of being a teen. Language plays a role in that. If they don't get to to insult one another in [fill in the blank], they'll find a way to do it in English so nobody groks it but other kids. I'm sure if I walked through a hallway full of English-only teens at the local high school -- they could quite easily manage to speak in teenglish without my understanding a word of it.

And frankly, most of what they have to say to one another that they don't want me to understand -- I don't care to understand. Yesterday I was downtown on some business, and walking down a main street (Granville). I passed a group of teens -- I had to stop at the light and heard them speaking (in teenglish). What I could gather from what they were saying was that they were conspiring on excuses for each of them when the automated system dialed their parents to let them know they were truant that day.

It went a little something like this --

"And then like you say I was like so barfed out that you like so wanted to ..."

In other words -- kids are already bilingual.

Embrace diversity, I say. Most kids eventually figure out at some point that one must be orthodox upon most things if one is even to have time to practice one's own heresy. (To paraphrase Chesterton.) Those who don't eventually get this don't get it -- in any language.

 

Re: Re: Kid busted for Speaking Spanish?

Ah yes, but at least you may realize you are being insulted and go find out what that word means.

Gotta love kids, mine have been a joy and for all the trouble it was I wouldn't trade my three years working with scouting for anything. For those guys with daughters. I thought I knew all about teen angst until my two daughters hit 13 or so. Holy heck, what a ride. No matter how tempting it is DO NOT make light of their boyfriend troubles. Tears will result and your wife will call you an insensitive idiot. Don't worry though, at about 18 they start coming to their senses and they are the sweet child you remember......

 

Re: Re: Re: Kid busted for Speaking Spanish?

In my experience (12, 13, 15 -- going on 12, 14, 16 this month) -- kids spend a lot less time insulting adults than they do worrying about a wide variety of other issues. If the periodic insult is thrown around -- it's maybe one thousandth of what really occupies their minds and time.

My experience around the corporate water cooler, however ... tells me that badmouthing others increases with age... ... and then drops drastically after some certain maturity point.