So They Don't Want To Teach Foreign Languages In Arizona Grade Schools? How Stupid Can They Get? By Jeff Smith NEXT WEEK THE state Board of Education will meet in Phoenix to decide whether kids in Arizona will grow up to be Bubbas or Brave New World citizens. Lest you remain mystified as to my preferences in matters such as these, I'm pulling for the international approach. If you were to ask the members of the board, they'd probably not characterize the October 28 vote as quite so chiarroscurro, but a case can be made that nothing less than whether the America of the future is populated by isolationist redneck/whiteboy/ bluebloods, or by open-minded, educated internationalists, rides on this decision. The issue at hand is whether to rescind the foreign language requirement in Arizona's public elementary schools. Principal among the organizations pushing to free the individual school districts from the requirement to teach foreign language in grade school is the Arizona School Board Association (ASBA), and perhaps principal among the ASBA's reasons for wanting out from under this requirement is an almost obsessive drive to be out from under requirements, period. Local control is a mantra and philosophical icon, not only among school boards, but among governmental, public-interest and social-service groups throughout the nation. It's one of those Republican things that makes right knees jerk with perfect reliability. Here's why the school boards want to ax grade-school foreign language: cost, time, qualified teachers, local control. It wouldn't be fair to dismiss the ASBA argument this peremptorily. To elaborate their position point by point: too much, too much, not enough, not enough. I'll go even further in giving the anti-language side its due, by skipping the AZLA responses entirely. Instead allow me a few paragraphs to offer a personal rejoinder: The ASBA is full of shit. They say their member boards don't have enough money in the budget to teach Spanish, French, whatever in elementary school? Hell, I'll go them one better: The poorest districts throughout Arizona don't have money enough to teach reading (in English), writing (ibid), and 'rithmetic. Instead of pitting foreign language against the rest of the curriculum for a slice of an inadequate pie, the Arizona Legislature needs to fund all the districts adequately for all of the above curricular activities. And you want to know the root problem? That ol' debil local control. In the name of local control, Gov. Whitey and the Legislature continue to defy constitutionality, justice and common sense by hanging onto a system of local district-based taxing and funding for public schools. Thus, under the sacred banner of local control, poor localities get shit for funding, while rich localities build indoor football fields for their high schools. Guess which sort of localities dominate the Arizona School Board Assn.? The ASBA says there isn't enough time in the school day for teaching kids to talk like wogs, frogs or vatos? Bullshit. When I went to University Heights we got reading, writing, math, spelling, geography, history, music, finger-painting, P.E., intramural sports, lunch, recess and a nap. I know sports and most of P.E. have gone the way of the passenger pigeon...along with a number of other subjects and activities that some school boards regarded as fluff. Again I say bullshit. We even had regular spelling bees, pageants at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and put on a production of HMS Pinafore that kicked righteous ass. I was the Captain and got to kiss a girl right on the mouth. Anyway, my point is that there's time in the day for teaching foreign language if the teachers could give a malcreado kid the death-ray eye and tell him, "Lissen you little thug: Pull that crap again and I'll waste your young ass." I know some of the teachers and parents pulling for foreign language also want to avoid bruising the self-esteem of every sociopath below voting age, and leave their butts unslapped (for what? so Bubba in cellblock "C" can get a cherry?), but I see no irreconcilable conflict here: I see opportunity for a little political give-and-take. Not enough qualified language teachers? Well duh. Why do you suppose that is, in a country where the very idea of teaching Spanish to white kids is regarded as revolutionary. This sings the very soul song of the Arizona Language Assn.: We need to teach our kids while they are young and their minds are open to new ideas, cultures, words. It's a known fact--as the old redneck put it--that little kids pick up new languages way faster than big kids or grown-ups. Not only that, but the process of learning a foreign language opens up kids' brains to a whole raft of performance enhancements. This intellectual hot-rodding isn't magic, isn't voodoo, isn't some dippy, airhead psycho-spiritual thing: It comes down to the physical geography of the brain, and how learning processes stimulate chemical activity and growth.

		© 1995-97 Tucson Weekly . Info Booth