I've been asking people for years how teaching in another language causes
discipline problems, or how it leads to us "failing" our students. Nobody
has been able to give me an answer. Do you have an answer?

As I said in an earlier message, Jim, everyone has a scapegoat, or a
strawman, on whom to blame all of the problems. Most of them don't make any
sense. The connection between teaching other cultures (they called it
"geography" when I was in school, and they did a stinking job of teaching
it) and problems in schools are nonsense. Where is the connection? How does
it lead to problems?

There are problems with education, but the fundamental ones are problems
that no one likes to hear. The biggest problem is parents who don't teach
their kids the importance of education, or instill in them a sense of
necessary authority. The second problem is that we don't take education
seriously ourselves. Mostly we give it lip service. (It isn't education we
value, it's degrees and diplomas.) The third is that our culture assumes
that teachers are losers -- so we get losers for teachers.

There's enough real trouble to go around without making stuff up.

--
Ed Huntress


In Tx. we had, (maybe still) bi-lingual education. One son was in the 8th
grade that year. He learned very little, everything was gone over twice, in
English then Spanish. Twice the time to cover any topic. In my book, that's
a failure.



In no way do I advocate leaving one's heritage behind, but on the other
hand, IF you want the privilege of living in the US, take a bit of
responsibility to learn the language and customs. I think I read that San
Francisco's city ballots, a few years back, were printed in 109 languages.
That's BS. I had 3 of my grandparents come from Europe. They learned
English, but still retained the language of Sweden and Italy. One great
grandparent from Denmark, same story.



But Ed is right about problems with education, there is plenty of reasons.
Parents are # one. How many hours do your teenagers spend on "My Space"?.
Why is it a new phone comes out and the line is around the block? "WOW look
what I got!!" Seems like priorities are a bit skewed. "My child would
never do that", or "You, (the school) fail my kid and I'm gonna sue".



Parents are the #1 problem. Our consumer mentality is right up there, too.
That started during Eisenhower years. To get the economy started, after
WW2. 90% of what we buy today, is in the trash in 6 mounts. EVERYTHING is
geared to us buying, needing it has no part in the equation. Built-in
obsolesce and perceived obsolesce. We are rapidly polluting, destroying,
exploiting ourselves out of a place to live.



Everybody is up in arms about Palin's $150K for clothes, but no mention of
the $700 BILLION we send out of the country each year on oil. Or how many
kids have no health insurance. I personally would like to stop all oil
imports, and find our energy right here in the US. Not oil,(but that is
years away), but solar, geothermal, wind, bio-diesel, nuclear, methane.
There are many alternatives, but must be used in conjunction with others.
Big business says, "OH ****, what if that does happen..ain't gonna let it
happen" Our guvment is now the lackey of Big Buz.



An MBA, with their funny money, making 15-30 times as much as a teacher.
More BS. The critic more important then the doer.



The real problems are ignored, while all kind of hand wringing goes on
about things of little consequence. When you point the finger, there are 4
more pointing back at you. We are all to blame, complacency has no drive to
improve.