Thursday, October 18, 2007
No Spanish Allowed
An elementary school in Kansas has made it against the rules for students to speak Spanish during school time. English is the only language that can be spoken. The reason for this ruling is that a group of students refused to speak English to teachers and a few students thouht a group of Spanish speaking students were making fun of them. I think this is violating the free speech rights of these children. It's AMERICA!!! People can speak any language they want. The school has a descipline problem to deal with not a Spanish problem!
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13 comments:
I agree that younger people don't seem to have the same parental discipline as when I was younger but that's not really my comment. Most Europeans speak several languages and they learn them in school. Most of this is probably due to the proximity of other nations. We are pretty isolated here in the United States and as a result, we are really far behind in the school systems when it comes to teaching foreign language. If we taught Spanish, French, and German etc. from a very early age and continued that education throughout high school and college, most people would be fluent. Then we wouldn't feel threatened by someone we don't understand, who may, or may not, be talking about us.
The whole argument isn't on the school teaching Spanish to these students. The students were trying to do something in english and the others were speaking spanish. Yeh we have free speech, blah blah blah. So I guess it's okay that these kids may have been impeding the other childrens learning, just as long as they have the right to free speech and everyone else that may be suffering from this just has to stand by and deal with it.
English is the national language of the US. That is a fact. Does that mean I'll be the jerk with an NRA hat over a mullet wearing cuttoffs screaming at someone to "Speak english damnit! THis is AMERICA!" any time soon? No. People have a right to free speach, and freedom of the pursuit of happiness--until it interferes with others. This would go with that interfering with other's happiness. If a kid cannot concentrate because there are a bunch of languages being spoken around him, or because he sees some other little 3rd grader talking to a friend and pointing at them on the playground and laughing...well that isn't good. Foreign language is for foreign language classes--and ESOL. Beyond that it can just get annoying and confusing.
I think that if people want to live in the United States, they should learn english. If english speaking Americans want to move to another country where a different language is spoken, they must learn the language that is most commonly used in their country.
>I think this is violating the free speech rights of these children.
Under the law in the United States, minors don't have freedom of speech.
>I agree that younger people don't seem to have the same parental discipline as when I was younger but that's not really my comment.
Studies actually show otherwise. Kids today actually appear to be better behaved than other recent generations. For more information, check out a sociological book called Millenials Rising.
>Yeh we have free speech, blah blah blah.
This is an inappropriate comment.
>So I guess it's okay that these kids may have been impeding the other childrens learning
There is no evidence here that anyone's learning was impeded.
>English is the national language of the US.
No it isn't. We have no official national language.
>If a kid cannot concentrate because there are a bunch of languages being spoken around him, or because he sees some other little 3rd grader talking to a friend and pointing at them on the playground and laughing...well that isn't good.
Again, there is no evidence this is happening. Beyond that, there is lots of making fun of people going on in schools, if they target just these students and don't target bullying from other students, that is a ethnicity-based discrimination.
>Beyond that it can just get annoying and confusing.
There is not such thing in the U.S. as freedom from being annoyed or confused.
>I think that if people want to live in the United States, they should learn english.
Critical thinking question -- why? What is the reasoning behind this stance, which is common? In a free country, who does speaking a different language harm?
As the professor said children don't have free speech. They don't have a lot of the rights adults do. They get other things such as greater protection to make up for this though. We also can't make an excuse for proximity limiting our language. If this were true everone in the south would speak spanish and everyone in the north would speak french.
Why don't minors have freedom of speech?
They aren't legally adults as stated in the constitution.
DOn't minors pretty much have no rights and under their guardians? which in this case would be their teachers. If the teachers found that these students were being disruptive then the teachers were within their rights. Give them a break, isn't the average salary of these people like around 35K?!?
Minors do have rights, but they generally aren't considered to be protected by government, but rather by the parents. This only changes, generally speaking, when the parents are shown not to be protecting those rights.
>as stated in the constitution.
This is not in the Constitution.
>If the teachers found that these students were being disruptive then the teachers were within their rights.
Again, there is no evidence that this happened.
I don't have a "bluemeanie" in my gradebook, so I can't give you credit for these posts unless you go back to each individual post an add your name.
The children were not disrupting class or the learning process. So is it legal to limit what languages kids can speak in school. I think the teacher should be promoting this.
DOn't minors pretty much have no rights and under their guardians? which in this case would be their teachers. If the teachers found that these students were being disruptive then the teachers were within their rights. Give them a break, isn't the average salary of these people like around 35K?!?
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