Should public high schools require you to take a foreign language?

[A18]

I can't think of a more authoritarian requirement.

I guess if I found the right court, I could get them to rule that this violated my "free speech" or something.

[Akno21]

Yes, it's part of being a well-rounded student.

[Jake]

Unless you are a moron, you should already be taking a foreign language, and if you are a moron, don't waste the teacher's time by taking one. Just one man's take on it.

[Ebowed]

No, taking foreign languages should be optional.

[Hitchabrut]

Should you? Of course. Should it be mandatory? Absolutely not.

[Alcon]

It's a college entry requirement, so it might not be a terrible idea.

[A18]

For public colleges, it also should not be an entry requirement. Private colleges, it's up to the college, though it's still laughably absurd.

I challenge anyone to give me a compelling reason the average person should take one, other than "it's a requirement." No one I know even remembers the language he/she took.

[John Dibble]

Well, I'd leave that decision to the school boards.

I took three years of Spanish in my high school(only 1 was required, though). I would rather they have had Japanese classes available - that would have been much more fun. They only had Spanish, French, and German.

[Lunar]

Foreign languages are one of the few useful skills I was tought in high school.  I took four years of German and a year of French, as well as studying Italian on my own time.  Just yesterday I was talking with an elderly German couple from Bremen.

I support maintaining it as a public college requirement.  Being able to communicate internationally makes American skilled labor more competitive and means you have more balanced people coming out of the system.

[nclib]

I can't think of a more authoritarian requirement.

Why is this more authoritarian than other high school requirements?

I agree with Akno that it's part of being a well-rounded student.

[A18]

Foreign languages are one of the few useful skills I was tought in high school.  I took four years of German and a year of French, as well as studying Italian on my own time.  Just yesterday I was talking with an elderly German couple from Bremen.

I support maintaining it as a public college requirement.  Being able to communicate internationally makes American skilled labor more competitive and means you have more balanced people coming out of the system.

If people want to get jobs where they communicate internationally, they are more than welcome to take the class.

As for skilled labor, give me an example. You typically hire a translator for this kind of thing.

[Lunar]

Foreign languages are one of the few useful skills I was tought in high school.  I took four years of German and a year of French, as well as studying Italian on my own time.  Just yesterday I was talking with an elderly German couple from Bremen.

I support maintaining it as a public college requirement.  Being able to communicate internationally makes American skilled labor more competitive and means you have more balanced people coming out of the system.

If people want to get jobs where they communicate internationally, they are more than welcome to take the class.

As for skilled labor, give me an example. You typically hire a translator for this kind of thing.

Obviously the point of the public college language requirement isn't to make everyone a translator.  The typical argument is that it's a useful life skill - however I don't feel colleges should intervene for that purpose.  I do agree that it is useful and am surprised about your complaints considering that it's likely one of the few productive hours you spend your weekdays on.

However, my point was that employees who can comprehend a second language are more useful than those who can't.  Increasingly businesses require people to interact with people who speak only Spanish - if you've ever been to parts of central California where fast food restaurants announce your order number exclusively in Spanish you'd understand.  Obviously what Taco Bell requires doesn't really matter to public colleges, but what about insurance companies and so on?  I know you have a problem with people who don't know English - but you can't change the fact that many are recent legal immigrants or temporary guest workers that your future business will have to interact with.

More and more businesses have started up various headquarters internationally and constantly get updates from around the world.  Having some employees with a rough understanding of a language that your business might be interacting with maximizes efficiency, despite the presence of a translator.

Although I think it's silly for schools to focus only on European languages.  Probably replacing German with Chinese or Japanese would be a good idea, shrug.  I'd say Hindi, but that's the first language of only a third of Indians and English is almost as natural of a language as Hindi to the rest.

[A18]

If people think they may get a job where they have to interact with foreigners, that's fine. They can take the class. Most don't, and we shouldn't have the state imposing educational standards for the 'common good.'

If anything, we should be trying to screw over people who speak only Spanish. Maybe we should require companies to associate with customers and clients only in English. I would oppose that too, but it makes more sense than this inclination that we assist the destruction of our common language.

Why are we even thinking this way? We shouldn't be learning their language, they should be learning ours.

[DanimalBr]

Last time I looked, English was a high school requirement. 

[Jake]

Philip, learning another language vastly increases your ability to comprehend and learn our own language.  It's beneficial for students to take it, not because they need to talk to the guys picking their apples or the guy surrendering to them, but because it makes them smarter and more capable individuals.

[Lunar]

If people think they may get a job where they have to interact with foreigners, that's fine. They can take the class. Most don't, and we shouldn't have the state imposing educational standards for the 'common good.'

As I said in the last post, almost all companies WILL interact with foreigners.  It has nothing to do with the 'common good' and more to do with producing skilled labor that companies will want to hire.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

As I said in the last post, many of them are guest workers or recent immigrants who couldn't be expected to learn English at the time of the business transaction.  And almost all companies WILL have to interact with them.

If you want to smite the Spanish language in this country, good luck.  However, ignoring it won't work: businesses are still going to want to hire employees who speak the language of our southern neighbor.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

No, but I don't see how this is more authoritarian than gym or anything else.  It's not really a big deal.

[Nym90]

It shouldn't be required, but it should be made clear to students that they will have to take one if they want to go on to college.

[A18]

Philip, learning another language vastly increases your ability to comprehend and learn our own language.  It's beneficial for students to take it, not because they need to talk to the guys picking their apples or the guy surrendering to them, but because it makes them smarter and more capable individuals.

I learned another language, and it certainly has not had a noticable impact of any kind on my ability to comprehend and learn our own language. I have never had a problem comprehending and learning it, and I don't now either. No change.

I'm sure your Spanish/German/etc. teacher told you that, as mine did; just like your biology teacher will make similar remarks about biology; your journalism teacher about journalism; jfern about his conspiracy theories; etc. That is meaningless.

Every kind of knowledge is benefitial, but it is for the individual to seek out, not for the government to impose upon its subjects.

[Ebowed]

No, but I don't see how this is more authoritarian than gym or anything else.  It's not really a big deal.

Good point.  Forced gym class is also the spawn of the devil.

[Lunar]

No, but I don't see how this is more authoritarian than gym or anything else.  It's not really a big deal.

Good point.  Forced gym class is also the spawn of the devil.

"Or anything else" was the key part.

[Lunar]

I learned another language, and it certainly has not had a noticable impact of any kind on my ability to comprehend and learn our own language. I have never had a problem comprehending and learning it, and I don't now either. No change.

Really?  I've learned tons about our own language from German.   Particularly the different forms verbs can take the impact on the rest of the sentence: accusitive, dative, nomitive and genitive.

[falling apart like the ashes of American flags]

Mine didn't, but we were basically told that we had to take 2 years of one to get into any half decent college. So I took 2 years of Spanish and have completely forgotten all of it. I say no.

[falling apart like the ashes of American flags]

For public colleges, it also should not be an entry requirement. Private colleges, it's up to the college, though it's still laughably absurd.

I challenge anyone to give me a compelling reason the average person should take one, other than "it's a requirement." No one I know even remembers the language he/she took.

ha, for once I completely agree with you! Especially with the last sentence.

[MaC]

I can't think of a more authoritarian requirement.

I guess if I found the right court, I could get them to rule that this violated my "free speech" or something.

I can think of a more authoritarian requirement.  It's called hours of community service needed to graduate.  It's basicly slave labor.  Granholm considered making it a requirement in Michigan.  There's no greater incentive for kids to drop out when they need to do the same work prisoners do.