Thanks for sharing your thoughts…

While certainly not agreeing with all of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, I find her a rare and talented writer.

Blessings

Insofar as history illiteracy, I don’t think it any worse than general illiteracy–not so much as NOT being able to read, but not reading. Risking sounding like the whiner who blames all her problems on not getting her favorite peanut butter as a child, I put a great deal of blame for this on our political history.

I receive at least one email a month with some off color joke about US immigrants not speaking English. While I sometimes cringe at the anger involved, I have to admit that I agree. Immigrants in America should learn English. Although I have never had the fortune, my parents traveled the world. In every country, once you were outside of the ‘tourist mecca’, very few people attempted to communicate with them in English–they needed to know basic, emergency phrases in the language of that country. It was only fair. That was THEIR country. (and despite what seems to be the world view that Americans are to blame for making English the ‘universal language’, they need to pay attention to history–It was the English Empire that started that one!)

Our American political history, however, has moved from welcoming economic immigrants seeking a better future–and learning the language to facilitate that–to welcoming economic immigrants and bending over backwards to accomodate their individual cultures. This includes policies and mandates and regulations that require already scant resources within our school systems to be spread even thinner to teach the 3R’s in the student’s language of choice.

Don’t get me wrong. I love having people of different cultures live in my community. They have so much to teach me about the different perceptions of the world. It does bother me, however, that the mandates of No Child Left Behind requires the local school system to budget in, not an English as a second language course, but entire classes taught in a foreign language to assure that the whole school testing does not go below the federal guidelines. It is a small bit of political history that is going to affect our children for years to come.

I think you have it right… make it part of your goal every day… not just one day a year, and it won’t matter if you forget a day some organisation declared.