Responding to Kelly

I have asked recently why Spanish was selected as the target language for Eden Prairie's immersion school.  We have learned that the school's principal--Elizabeth Linares--takes no official position on the question.  Ms. Linares has promised further information from the district--and I have just reminded Camie Melton Hanily of Principal Linares' promised response.

A commenter speculates on the districts' reasoning:

Part of it is probably motivated by staffing. I'm an Arabic teacher at a local high school, but I know the job search to fill my position was very difficult. In the end, they asked me to apply. There simply aren't a lot of licensed Arabic teachers in Minnesota. We also have a dearth of Somali speakers with education backgrounds. The Academy of Nations in Minneapolis, a school for immigrants and refugees, has partly staffed with such individuals, but for elementary school teachers you'd likely have a more difficult time finding enough qualified individuals.

The other aspect is probably curriculum. Spanish curriculum for all ages is very well developed - there is a current methodology and plenty of resources, books, and materials. Not so much for Arabic - we have one college level textbook and some religious training materials, but Arabic translations of works for young children are lacking and difficult to obtain. Everyone disagrees on the methodology. I'd suspect Somali language education faces the same difficulties.

If sufficient curriculum and staffing were available, do you think Eden Prairie would have selected Arabic as the target language/culture for its immersion school?  Imagine:  A secular, pan-Arab decor--with a strenuous devotion to gender equity--celebrating various Arab holidays and customs?

I don't think we are capable of creating non-Disneyfied immersive foreign environments.  In response to this difficulty, we have selected the prominent world language/culture least required for our future economic and diplomatic success--as we already have numerous people with this ability.  The school will do nothing to benefit the social advancement of American Hispanics.  Perhaps Camie Melton Hanily will persuade me, once she unveils her promised response (a fortnight's prep-time having already been allotted to her email); as of now, I say mothball Eagle Heights.

Anti-foreign bias is common and bad, both here and elsewhere.  Suggestions for reducing the ethnocentrism prevailing in our community, country and world are ever welcome.  That said, I don't much welcome ill-reasoned, wasteful proposals.  (Disneyfication is not a countermeasure to ethnocentrism; it is ethnocentrism.)

The Eden Prairie school district has produced an excruciating ten-minute propaganda video in support of its own supposed purity--with the standard 'upbeat' New Age musical accompaniment, 'anonymous' African proverbs and tacked-on, base-touching quotations from Colin Powell and Nelson Mandela.  Teachers spew out the expected PC shibboleths, such as:

I love when kids bring in different aspects of their lives and cultures and different things like that and ways that I can figure out my skill of teaching and helping each one of those students be successful.  
Windlan Hall – math

I teach from a multicultural perspective and I oftentimes will bring in things like music and that and comment on the importance of different cultures and I think that draws in a lot of different types of students and makes them interested in learning.  Rob Gordon – social studies

As a liberal I'd rather like to take the integrationist side within the current boundaries dispute.  But the district's dirigiste contempt for honest discussion leaves me cold.