Re: How to prime kids to learn 3+ languages?


"Beliavsky" <beliavsky@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1192105794.288694.141970@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Oct 10, 7:20 pm, Anne Rogers <nos...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Actually, I've found Europeans in general (not all, but many) to have
a much more breadth of knowledge about the history of countries other
than their own than Americans do.

The problem is, in the time most people have to dedicate to history,
there isn't all that much you can get through, particularly with the
emphasis on using source material and looking at things from different
points of view, rather than rote learning.

A certain amount of rote learning is important, and American schools
and colleges are failing to demand it. There is an American civics
quiz at http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx ,
with fairly easy questions, on which American college seniors scored a
pathetic 54%. I'm about 15 years out of college and did a lot better.
Here is one question.

37. Which of the following was an alliance to resist Soviet
expansion:
A. United Nations.
B. League of Nations.
C. North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
D. Warsaw Pact.
E. Asian Tigers.

Only 43% of college seniors knew the answer was C.

Since the schools are not doing their job, the Core Knowledge
foundation, http://www.coreknowledge.org/CK/index.htm , inspired by
E.D. Hirsch , may be a useful resource for parents who don't want to
raise airheads.

Or, to put it more precisely, if you want your students to have a US
centered, White, Male focused view of the world, by all means follow core
knowledge. And really,it's one of the better curricula out there-PROVIDED
you realize that it leaves out fully as much as any other curriculum, just
with a different bias.

When I hear of situations like the above, I have to wonder how many people
remember their senior year of college. When I was a senior, I was in the
midst of trying to finish my thesis in two disciplines, prepare a lecture
recital in music, get into graduate school, and get married (in retrospect,
trying to get married in the month between undergrad graduation and the
start of graduate summer session probably was a mistake). I probably would
have done fairly well on that test, but only because one of the classes I'd
procrastinated until my last semester was 20th century US
history/government.

If you'd asked me to take such a test, I would have done so, but, honestly,
I would have zipped through it, giving top of the head answers without
thinking about them, because, in the scheme of things in my life at that
time, if it didn't help me reach my short term goals (graduation, marriage,
grad school), it wasn't all that important.

My guess is that at some time in their lives, most college graduates took a
music class with some theory involved. I'm also guessing that if I asked
college grads to construct the circle of 5ths, (something which falls in the
music standards at the middle school level-a level at which most US children
still have music instruction as part of the general ed curriculum), most
would have the "Oh, I learned that once"...reaction, but be unable to do it
without looking it up or some prompting. That doesn't mean it was never
taught, or that they never learned it. It's that, if you're not using it and
don't need it, you have no reason to keep it at the top of their head. And
while someone who doesn't know the circle of 5ths seems pretty airheaded to
me, it's a handicap that most people seem to shoulder with no noticiable
impairment ;).

By all means, teach your child what you deem is important. But DO NOT assume
that your view is the only right one, and that someone who doesn't
prioritize their knowledge in the same way is ignorant-becase, to someone
else, you, or your child, may be just as ignorant at what they deem
important.







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