Friday, February 06, 2009

Dual Immersion, I Had to Say Something...


Dual Immersion. You see- this is why I love living in a small town, everyone seems to have an opinion about everything (including me). Especially when it doesn't directly affect them. Of course without differing opinions our world would be a depressing and bland place to live. Recently an elementary school in our community announced that it will implement the Spanish dual immersion program starting next year. This simple and seemingly harmless topic brought out some interesting and conflicting view points. I personally don't see the problem with children being encouraged to learn two languages, considering the fact that many Spanish-speaking students are already doing this. Why shouldn't English-speaking children have the same opportunities? Knowing multiple languages could only further a person in any career/field. Am I missing something? Not everyone agrees with my viewpoint. That is fine. What I don't understand is why they must impose their contradictory thoughts on everyone else? If you don't like- fine, but let's be fair. Let students/parents decide for themselves what is best. I wonder if these same people who are against dual immersion would feel the same about another language, something other than Spanish? Certainly they wouldn't frown on an excellent educational opportunity because of their ignorant and downright nasty prejudices? No of course not, people couldn't possibly be that unreasonable, so it must be for some other reason I'm just not noticing at the moment. Silly me.

2 comments:

Amylee said...

I love these posts. I think it's great that they are implementing a spanish/english curriculum. After all, I wish I knew spanish, so why shouldn't my son? I think it's interesting how it is the same people saying that the spanish people are ignorant for not knowing english when they are in fact being ignorant for not choosing the opportunity to learn spanish. But that's just me.
Also, I think I just made A LOT of capitalization errors.

Becky said...

I was just thinking of the Spanish Immersion programs last night! Weird.

These programs are not offered everywhere, you know. I was thinking that would maybe influence where we choose to buy a home in the future. I would LOVE for my kids to be able to take advantage of that - except I would have to try to learn some too. I don't want them talking naughty about me behind my back :)