No Stupid Questions

Statistically Americans can barely read and write English at an adult level…

The general idea of school is to learn how to learn. Most of the core subjects are just the tip of their iceberg.
Take the older software devs who didn't have computers in school when they went. They technically use almost nothing they actually studied in school. So you don't really want to requie an overload on any given subject. Schools are even dialing back the math requirements. Like pre-calc. Not everyone needs that. The required algebra is more about problem solving than equations now. Which is good. Let the kids follow thier interests a little more.

Limited time and resources means ypu can't learn everything.

Is there a lot to improve and should certain subjects be switched for others? Sure. But does learning 4 languages to a very basic degree (which you will likely almost never use and therefore forget) important enough to kick off other subjects? I don't think so.

Fun fact: You can learn without school. There's sooo much information outside of school walls, and it's easier to access now than ever in the history of humanity.

When did one foreign language become required?

In America, by far and away the next most commonly spoken language is Spanish. I could see a requirement making it so schools are made to teach Spanish, but I find it hard to see requiring them to teach any other language. Arguably, this might be better managed on the State level, since certain languages may be more common in different states.

You really are asking too much here

We need to get math, geography, literature, history, writing, personal finance, and driving training working again first

Want to know what my drivers ed consisted of?

Not cars, no

A signature of consent and having me/my class to view unredacted images and video of a girl who some of the people in that room personally knew from that very highschool who didn't wear a seatbelt screaming with her face having been peeled off having passed through the windshield, and similar gory aftermath images

Thats the educational bar of competence we're competing with here at least nearly two decades ago. You think it's gotten better or worse since then?

• most people would find it useless, especially in areas not near any other country (most of the US)
• other courses would need to be dropped or the school year expanded (not happening). The cost would also be in acquiring and retaining the talent on top of books and other materials
• taxpayers would balk at this as they would also find it useless in most cases (why does our local welder need to Welsh to weld?)

I am a huge fan of language learning and, if I had my way, would make all high school graduates take at least six months and live in some country very different to their own (including language) to get them out of the USAmerican bubble, but that certainly isn't happening.

I'm working on language number 5 myself (more if you count the ones I just tried to get to basic greetings, yes/no, etc. in).

most Americans don't need any foreign language to pass high school.

US isn't even teaching the 1 very well. 7th grade is way too late to begin that kind of learning.

What traveling? You don’t need 4 languages for Disney World/Land.

I can see the argument of more focus on a second language, but more languages usually means not enough for any of them.

My high school required 3 years of a language: I took 5 Spanish courses but was clearly never fluent.

In my kids high school, it was the first class in an immersion program program from early elementary through high school. Many of them were fluent. That should be a goal.

I mean, for one thing, high school lasts a finite amount of time

I honestly think it's because in measures of distance, a US American could be considered well-traveled without ever having left the United States. Living in DC and visiting Florida or California is a big trip logistically. I love to travel and have moved a LOT and I have just barely been to every state in the US (some I only drove through, fuck rural Nebraska). While I disagree personally, I think that most Americans just don't see the immediate utility in learning other languages.

Not learning Spanish in school as a requirement at this point is just racism, though.

lol. if that was a requirement I would have never graduated. I even had some requirements in college. me and a buddy exchanging transcripts as we got close to garduating. My buddy. "You know, you actually get pretty good grades" (ok I don't know why he acted as if its a surprise. I think he meant it more of complimentary way than it came out) "oh. except in spanish."

Unless you keep using the language, you will loose it, I am bilingual Swedish/English, and since I practice both constantly, I retain my skills.

I did take Spanish as well for a few few years, but have mostly forgotten it.

Huh, I didn't know americans need to do any foreign language. But 3 or 4 is way too much. I could barely manage 2.

English is the defacto global language and I think you'd be surprised how many Americans never leave the US, and how significantly fewer never leave North America.

Learning languages would be great, but there are lots of other things that the US education system has been failing at which are arguably far more important....

This topic comes up so often here...

I barely even remember much of anything taught in 2 years of spanish classes in middle school...

Now try 4 languages...

I never even have a situation where I need Spanish... and its the most popular language here behind English... imagine how quick French, German would atrophy... literally never met a french or german speaker irl...

I'm a native Mandarin speaker and since arriving in the US, I've only spoken it like to a total of 5 people maybe(?) (Mandarin not spoken at home, it's Cantonese instead) Like I rarely need it...

How many Americans (except for Chinese Americans visiting relatives maybe) would actually need to visit China?

Hahah travel. Funny joke.

In truth, though, a small number of school districts do do immersive bilingual K-12 education. That means the full curriculum is bilingual...around here usually English/Spanish. Not just one class. Usually in tightly integrated (read: mixed-race) communities.

Hardest part is probably finding bilingual teachers...especially in districts that are traditionally more budget-constrained.

Setting non-travel jokes aside for aoment because somehow Americans don't travel but they also get spotted as obvious tourists in their jeans and golf shorts.

Between prior English imperialism and recent American global market share, just about any place with a decent internet connection will have English as a viable communication language. It won't always be great and you may have to talk to a few different people to find one that speaks enough English. The places I've been often have ads in English. Often enough, they're not even dual language ads.

Now combine that with American exceptionalism and you'll see Americans don't see a need to learn anything else. No, they don't see the irony in demanding the language of England as their one and only language heard in the 'States.

But, in a less cynical take, that country is huge and geographically diverse. There are many Americans that travel. Americans that travel domestically (or even only Can/US/Mex) should not be shamed. Language aside, different regions can have as much diversity as denser countries. Think about your stereotype for a resident of California, then New York, and lastly Texas. That is, after all, because the US is actually 50 states in a trench coat.

Honestly, it probably comes down to taxes. Many Americans are rabidly opposed to any proposal that will increase their taxes by any amount, regardless of the reason, and a lot of school district funding is based on local property taxes. Coincidentally, home- and business-owners who would have to pay that increased property tax are able to have an outsized influence on local politics. No politician is going to raise that proposal for funding foreign language classes.

As sad as it is, learning to speak another language just isn't seen as that important by many. They don't need to use anything other than English in their daily lives, and many citizens don't even have a passport, much less travel abroad.

In addition, aside from Spanish, many areas just lack the resources you would need to be able to develop your language skills from "I get good grades in my highschool German class" to "I can actually use the language in normal interactions with native speakers."

Think of your local bookstore and libraries. How many if them have a section of books you can just browse in a language other than English or Spanish? For anything beyond Spanish, how often do you see or hear another foreign language? Would you be confident you could find enough conversation partners to use that language even semi-frequently?

Yes, the internet opens up a lot of doors in terms of resources, but you need to be personally invested in learning the language to make them work. Unless there's a community with great reading lists at various levels for your target language, just searching and browsing bookstore websites aimed at native speakers is kind of tough for being able to just browse and find something that catches your eye and seems on your level, especially compared to just browsing the shelves in a brick and mortar shop. Also, those books are generally much more expensive than English books, for obvious reasons.

Yes, I would be hyped to learn my local school district was going to start teaching the kids 4 languages from elementary through high school, but it's just going to be wasted money if you don't have the auxiliary elements outside the classroom in place, or a plan to at least put them in place while rolling out these classes. Otherwise, you're just going to get a bunch of yokels coming out of the woodwork to say "My boy don't need to speak nothing but 'American!" And complaining because little Billy ordered 4 books off Amazon.de and it ran them 120€, only to show up and have Billy realize these books are way harder than he thought they would be and he actually needs to order more books with simpler language to get started.

Yes, little Billy could pirate the shit out of the books and stuff he needs and find a discord chat or forum to get in free practice with speaking and writing,, but not all students will be motivated enough and tech savvy enough for us to assume this will be a viable method to get results in general.

By the time I graduated high school, I spoke Latin and German fluently. In the last 30 years, I have traveled neither to Germany, nor ancient Rome.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why not make it mandatory for 40 or 50 languages? Why not 100? Why not all languages?

In my poor, rural school district (growing up), Spanish was taught starting in kindergarten. In high school, grades 9 - 12, two semesters of foreign language were required to graduate (or you had to demonstrate you qualified for an exception such as that you were already at least bilingual). The school offered French and Spanish. The only reason French was even an option is because of one special teacher, whom we were lucky to have, had a degree in French language arts or something like that. Other schools in the area only had Spanish.

You'll probably recognize this when you're older, but nearly everything in life is a balance of constraints and concerns. Teaching languages costs money, often in short supply, and requires qualified educators, often in short supply.

But also, what the hell do you even mean "upper hand when traveling"? I'd be shocked if most non-bilingual Americans who went through the education system in the USA spend more than 1 or 2 weeks in their entire lives some place where being bilingual would give them some kind of upper hand.

One might argue that Spanish alone would probably cover an enormous amount of those who have spent more than 1 or 2 weeks outside of English speaking parts of the world. But it all seems like an enormous waste of time and energy and resources just to make sure the most privileged amongst us have "the upper hand" when they travel. That's time and energy and resources that could probably be more wisely spent elsewhere to be honest, and for those privileged folks who have the luxury of traveling and need "the upper hand" -- they can turn in their privilege bucks and pay for their own education to learn 3 or 4 languages, I would think? Perhaps they could cut back to only 4 trips to Italy this year and use the savings for some lessons on how to speak Italian.

When I was in Germany nobody tried to talk Spanish to me. When I was in sweden they didn't either. nor did they in India. If you are to be well traveled you quickly learn to find English speakes everywhere - because that is the language of travel it is enough. A second language is only useful if you limit your travels to the area they speak it.

many kids in foreign countries take years of english but they can't speak is. Those who thy speak it well and they stick in groups thus not knowing how bad the rest of the class really is.

bold of you to assume US high schools have money for even one foreign language

As someone who grew up bilingual in the US and now knows 3 languages, the US is fucking allergic to secondary languages. It's the xenophobia

I hope you don't mind a non-US-American comment on this one. I see this kind of statement/question quite often and I have a few things to say about it:

1. It is not common to learn 3-4 foreign languages at school

It's not rare to find people who speak more than 3 languages around the world. However in most countries schools just cover the languages you are expected to know in your country/region and the most common lingua franca(e). You guys simply need less languages in your daily business. If anything, there should be a bigger emphasis on Spanish in your education, at least in some states.

2. School education isn't enough to properly learn even one language

The truly foreign languages we learn at school do not stick with most of us. On the one hand, we had to pick a language that we may have not been interested in. On the other hand, you need to spend much more time beyond and after school to get beyond the basics for real life communication - even if the common reference level says otherwise. Even English or the respective lingua franca for the given region is mostly learned from real day-to-day communication. The school lessons serve more or less as a frame.

3. An overlooked advantage of learning a foreign language is to understand how little we understand

Sure, learning a foreign language is naturally useful for traveling, job prospects and educational value. But when you rewire/extend your brain a language beyond some basics for traveling, you have a bigger understanding how different languages can be, how much gets lost in translation and how little you understand of the world.

I'm not sure, if Spanish in the USA can be as important as e.g. English in many European countries (as an outsider I get the impression that it should be even more important :D), but I think treating it that way would be a much bigger benefit for the entire USA. Oh and 4) most bilingual Europeans who are yapping about dumb Americans on the internet have no idea how ignorant they are themselves. Greetings from an immigrant child from Germany! <3

Yeah, sure would be useful. But you only have so many years to teach the kids everything.

What do you prioritize down in favour of another language?

Most Americans don't travel so it would be wasted if none of those languages come to them.

You're free to learn as many languages as you'd like. Foreign or, like, domestic. OMG