Education and Politics

My husband asked me a few days ago why did I believe in bilingual education, as I was trying to answer the question I realized that although I don't have yet enough theoretical knowledge to fully develop the whys, I do have plenty of gut feeling about it.

My first argument is to ask any parent whether they would prefer to have their children learn an adopted language to the expense of falling behind in all other areas, or would they prefer to have their children continue they acquisition of general knowledge while building on it with a second language.
I can just imagine a child trying to overcome their being uprooted from their country, having to deal with a completely different setting with the pressure of not knowing the language, all the while being treated as a pariah, in a different classroom, not learning with the rest of the children. Any child’s self-esteem would suffer. The repercussions could be like many that we have seen in this society: children of immigrants eventually falling through the cracks of the system, feeling, and rightly so, that it is that system that has let them down, and therefore rebelling against it. Often there is also an extreme reaction against that which made them different from the others: their own culture. So they turn against their parents, against their traditions and forget their mother tongue, loosing along the way some of their identity and pride.
I have learned of many cases like these. Cases, which I am sure, could have been avoided if the system had worked with them, alongside their culture, and not against it. Bilingual education seems to me to be the way of avoiding these cases. By empowering a child through the reaffirmation of their cultural identity, the learning process becomes a pleasurable activity and as such much more effective.

Here, as in France, I have heard the argument that when people immigrate they should become nationals of the country they chose to move to. Nationals implying that they should become “Americans” or “French”, and they are not referring to citizenship. They expect them to leave behind who they were and become what the majority deems acceptable. When we speak about a language and a culture being alive, we are talking about the constant change that language and culture goes through, and those changes are usually brought upon by the enrichment that comes from being exposed to others different from us. It is because of this that we evolve. The saying “when in Rome do as the Romans” leaves out the fact that the Romans are no more and that their language is dead.
Accepting other languages, educating with this acceptance and having educational systems that work embracing the differences and do not try to force everyone into one mold is what bilingual education means to me.

Unfortunately bilingual education seems to be more of a political debate than an educational one, and therefore an ever-changing battlefield. As I was reading an article for my class, I was surprised to learn that bilingual education has been implemented on and off for quite some time. What I did notice though is that it seems like it was mainly driven by whatever political tendencies there were at the time. It started with the acceptance of having different cultures forming the country, followed by a rejection of future waves of immigrants, back on once they realized the usefulness of having a multilingual society, off again when it was decided that instruction should be done exclusively in English. Although there have been changes and legislations passed, it seems that it will remain an issue at the mercy of policy makers and people that have no interest in what education should be all about, the enrichment of human beings.

What I still cannot grasp is the lack of foresight these legislators have. It seems obvious to me that when you have well educated (well as in properly, not the social meaning it has been given) and well adjusted individuals, any society will thrive. Why then boycott your own society? Unless the purpose is exactly that, to have individuals that will always feel like they do not belong so as to serve any given political agenda.

Education should not be politicized, it should not serve the interests of a few at the expense of many. Bilingual education finds itself in the midst of political agendas by funding being the prize or the lack of it the punishment, yet it is the children that are suffering the consequences. The wrong basis is given to those children who were told that their origins are something to repudiate and forget, they will grow up emotionally poor and then, once they do belong to the society, bring their lack of enrichment with them.

But like I said, I do not yet have the theoretical knowledge to back this up, only my gut feeling.