Opinions8 October 10, 2012

Young children have been watching Dora the Explorer since its debut in 2000. Dora’s cousin Di-ego took over in 2005 with the spin-off Go, Diego, Go! More recently, Ni Hao, Kai-Lan has appeared on the scene of TV shows aiming to teach children other languages. Since these shows are so popular, elementary aged children obviously have an inter-est in foreign languages. All cartoon kidding aside, the Kirkwood School District (KSD) does not offer the study of a second language until sixth grade in spite of this.

Michael Gavin, senior class principal, confirmed that adding a second language to the curriculum at the elementary level would be beneficial to students, but said KSD does not have enough re-sources to implement such a plan. Although this would put financial strain on the district, teachers from the middle and high schools could contribute at the elementary level, lessening the need for new teachers. Since foreign language is so important, it should be offered to elementary school kids no matter the cost.

In a survey, 75.7 percent (134/177) of students believe that foreign language is not as essential

as core classes. However, learning a language as late as middle school puts Kirkwood students at a disadvantage compared to other parts of the world and even other parts of the St. Louis area. For example, in the Ladue School District’s el-ementary schools, Spanish is part of the curricu-lum starting in kindergarten.

In order to be able to keep up, Kirkwood’s el-ementary school students need to be offered a foreign language. According to the U.S. Depart-ment of Education, more than 200 million Chi-nese students study English at the primary school level while only about 24,000 elementary school students in the U.S. study Chinese. With a better knowledge of a foreign lan-guage coming from 13 years of study instead of (maybe) seven, Kirkwood’s students will be eligible for more jobs, even in other countries.

Not only will a longer study of a language benefit students, but by starting a language early, children have very close to native knowledge and pronun-ciation of the language, according to Cornell Univer-sity. While it is not impossible for older students or even adults to learn a second language, it is easier for young children because their minds pick up vo-cabulary more quickly. By sixth grade when stu-dents are eligible for a foreign language in KSD’s current system, they have missed out on six years of opportunity to study a second language.

In addition to being easier for younger children, learning a second language allows students to focus with distractions better than monolinguistic chil-dren, also according to Cornell University.

According to the Department of Education, a language program at the elementary level should include instruction for the equivalent of 45 min-utes a day four days out of every week. Therefore, KSD should implement a program for a foreign language at the elementary level, cutting a few minutes from every subject to add 36 minutes of instruction in a foreign language every day that would be comparable.

Elementary aged kids have the increased ability to learn a second language and an interest in for-eign cultures being nurtured only by the cartoon characters of Dora, Diego and Kai-Lan, so KSD should give elementary school kids the opportu-nity to compete with the rest of the world.

The world is shrinking. Each country is part of an increasingly important global economy, and communicating with people on the other side of the world is becoming incredibly easy with the invention of email, video calls and other technological advances. In order to keep up in this rapidly connected world, The Kirkwood Call staff voted 42:4 in favor of foreign language being offered at the elementary level.

Foreign language is elementary 300 Words

Katlyn Kreie photographer

-Call Editorial-

Each issue, a Call staffer addresses a topic of his or her choice using exactly 300 words. No more, no less. Count them if you don’t believe us.

Cry me a Twitter, people

Zach Ortiz photographer

I caved. I signed up for Twitter a couple of weeks ago. I still don’t really understand its purpose. If you see me and would like to explain, please do. It’s overwhelming being bombarded by hundreds of thoughts the minute

you log on. As I scrolled through the never-ending stream of tweets, I thought to myself:

Oh, look at that. My friend got a new puppy, how cute. Ha, that joke is funny. I should tell it to my friends who aren’t on Twitter. Maybe they’ll think I made it up. Wait what’s this? Oh no, this person’s tweet is so heartbreaking. I should give them a hug the next time I see them.

How naïve I was.These tweets of sadness were not so uncommon. Day after day, hour after hour.

Tweets about how the sky was gray, that you and your boyfriend you met two days ago had broken up or your toast was burnt. My favorite, though, are the ones that are so vague they could be about my grandmother. The tweeter thinks they are thoughtful and mysterious, while everyone else is slamming their phone in their face thinking, “Why do I keep forgetting to unfollow you?” Now I look at Twitter and think:

It’s fine if you want to be sentimental every once and awhile. I’m cool with that. When it’s raining outside and there’s a 24 hour marathon of Titanic, I get sad too. But on a com-pletely unrelated note, half the people I follow are comedians just to compensate for your wormhole of sadness that con-sumes my feed.

To me, Twitter is a place to communicate with friends, stalk celebrities and procrastinate. I’d like to keep Twitter this way. A light, fun waste of time, and free of problems, deep emotions and sadness.

Nala Turner artist

Suzanne Pocost artist

81% (145/178) of students think that foreign language should be offered at the elementary level

和平 家庭