I agree. Being able to speak Spanish sometimes gives me an advantage in business, but some of the social uses have been memorable. I encourage all Americans to learn Spanish. This mother is trying to resist reality. Resistance is futile. Assimilation is inevitable.

I don't think it should be mandatory to just take Spanish, but learning a second language should be mandatory. Forward thinkers are learning Chinese.

My little bit of Espanol sure has come in handy. Im thinking about the Rosetta Stone Spanish program to become semi fluent.

Being from Texas, more and more jobs require Spanish as a second language or at least offer an increase in pay for bilingual employees. If it helps the children to better function in the real world and prepare them for adulthood (pretty much what school is supposed to do) then the parents should be grateful.

Especially since it seems parents are increasingly allowing the schools to raise the children and are taking less and less of a part in their children's lives. Saddening, yes, but at least this is something to prepare the students for real life.

It's not as if the schools are teaching the children another religion. It's a language that happens to be the second largest spoken language in Texas.

[edit on 2/7/2008 by AshleyD]

A secondary language is a required course in Texas schools. So what do the parents want their kids to learn, Faroese? Khalka? For crying out loud, Spanish is probably the handiest damn language in the Western Hemisphere - It's certainly the most common.

I know a lot of you are saying that Spanish is good to learn because we "need" to or "have" to, but I disagree.

If someone WANTS to learn Spanish to better themselves or to be able to communicate with others, so be it. But don't you dare try to tell me that that I HAVE to learn Spanish to accommodate for all of these people coming to America.

This is America they are coming to, if they want to talk to us, THEY should be the ones learning a new language. The official language of this country is and Should Be English, nothing else.

Ignorance is bliss.

If you speak Spanish you can to a certain degree understand Portuguese and Italian. That covers a large part of Europe and South America.

The part of the brain that learns languages shuts errr slows down after puberty. Get your kids learning languages the younger the better...

My Grandparents spoke... English, Maltese, Italian, German, French, and a fair bit of Arabic.

Somewhere down the line people thought that languages were not important.

I speak English, a bit of French. My Cantonese/Mandarin is getting better, but it's hard going and I live in China.

(Yes I'm showing off!) My son speaks English and Cantonese fluently, he is also learning Mandarin and in a few years when he goes to Primary school he will start learning Spanish. (very proud Daddy!)

Children like my boy are the future, communication is the key to improving the world we live in. In 15/20 years from now China will be huge. Mandarin could well be come the Lingua Franca.

Do people fear that their children will be too much smarter than they are?

I hope my son is much smarter than me... Probably not that hard mind.

MonKey

At least 4 years of secondary language is required in order for a high school diploma in New York State, Spanish is the only one that is required to be offered but my high school also offered Italian and French and I know of others that also offer Greek, Arabic, Chinese, German, etc. Students that attend state run (SUNY, CUNY and community colleges) are also required to take at least 2 semesters of foreign language as well in order to get a diploma.

Is it fair? I dont like it but as stated by others the day is not far off where the US will be majority Hispanic barring an extreme right wing regime taking power and deporting them all along with borderline ethnic cleansing.

Old joke so brace yourself for a groaner:

What do you call someone who can speak three languages?
Trilingual.

What do you call someone who can speak two languages?
Bilingual.

Do you call someone who can speak one language?
American.

Bringing that into the topic, we don't necessarily have to see this as having to give up our national identity. As someone pointed out above, Spanish is the dominate language of most South American countries and very similar to Portuguese and Italian and even French if you look at the two side by side. No one wants Spanish to be declared the national language but it doesn't hurt to know it. Just my two cents.

Good lord, I can't believe parents are upset about their children getting more educated. All for what? Pride?

But then again, we ARE talking about Texas here. The same Texas good ol' W comes from.

ONLY in Texas would people be upset about their children getting a better education. Ridiculous.

[edit on 2/8/2008 by bigbert81]

Why not take say, some of the troops and money in Iraq and put them on border patrol? Why not instead of pissing off the rest of the world, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and children, we protect our border? You know, what the army is supposed to do?

A hundred years ago Greek and Latin were commonly taught in the schools. I took Latin in high school myself because it is a good base for learning other Romance languages like Spanish, Italian and French. The university I attended required at least a reading knowledge of two languages, a requirement they have insisted upon even as other colleges are relaxing their standards. It's only been in fairly recent times that Americans have thought they could make the rest of the world speak English and not bother with anybody else's language. It's a very ethnocentric approach. Knowing other languages should be a hallmark of an educated person. Spanish should be just a beginning, as it is the most practical language for Americans to know. French is a close second.