Life

The Thin Line Between Martyrs and Terrorists

It's back to school time again, when our children are brainwashed and indoctrinated into liberalism.  In the very first week of school, my daughter reported two specific incidents.

In the first,  her teacher said "There is a fine line between terrorists and martyrs." My daughter responded that no there isn't,  there is a very clear line.  Terrorists kill other people, martyrs are killed by other people.  She said her teacher just glared at her.

The next incident occurred in her AP US History class.  The teacher told the class that President Bush mentioning God in his State-of-the-Union speech made him uncomfortable.  My daughter responded by asking if, before forty years ago,  any President in US History had ever made a speech without mentioning God?  Again, she received only a glare from the teacher.

Students like my daughter are unfortunately rare.  Those who know better are often cowed into silence by the authority of the teacher and the threat of bad grades.  Most sit there and absorb these tenets of liberal dogma as if they were facts.  Since they are disrespectful of the traditions and culture of our country,  most teenagers probably remember them better than the actual facts the teacher presents.

The educational system in this country has failed and failed badly.  Not only are the students not learning what they should learn,  they are learning a great deal of false liberal dogma. 

The widely respected former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was asked during congressional testimony what the greatest problem facing America was.  The Representative asking the question, in the normal fashion of Capitol Hill demagogues, offered a choice between two alternatives. Chairman Greenspan ignored the choices and answered that the greatest threat was our education system.  Up to fourth grade , our children test on a par with other industrialized countries in math and science.  By the end of high school, they have fallen to the bottom.

According to Mr. Greenspan, Congress needs to forget about such band-aid solutions as banning outsourcing of jobs and promote education in the basics and in abstract  reasoning that workers will need to survive in a highly competitive job market.

    "Our school systems should be judged on the basis by which they produce a generic learning that enables people to be in several professions or jobs through their life work," he said. "It's so critical that we teach people how to learn."

So what is the problem,  why can't we seem to teach our children.  Steve Jobs, a rather liberal California billionaire perhaps best known as the founder of the counter-culture Apple Computer, said it best in a Wired Interview:

"It's a political problem. The problems are sociopolitical. The problems are unions. You plot the growth of the NEA [National Education Association] and the dropping of SAT scores, and they're inversely proportional. The problems are unions in the schools. The problem is bureaucracy. I'm one of these people who believes the best thing we could ever do is go to the full voucher system."

The Liberals were bright enough to see that the cultural takeover of a society will work if they take over the schools and the media.  They have very successfully done both.  Free speech is suppressed on school campuses across America under the political correctness doctrine.  The NEA and other teacher unions promote mediocrity by opposing merit pay increases and resisting with all their might the firing of bad teachers.

Our teachers today are poorly educated in math and science, the keys not only to a competitive economy and jobs for our children, but also the keys to clear and rational thinking.  In fact, a great many of the teachers are neoluddites, who view basic skills in math and science as a bad thing.  And the problem is actually worse than this,  as this attitude became prevalent in the late 1960's.  The teachers today were largely educated by teachers with this same attitude and lack of knowledge and rationality.  We are in much the same situation as Red China after the Cultural Revolution, when they had killed off a generation of educated people and therefore had no one to educate their young.

The solutions are clear.   We need to get the liberal dogma out of the classroom and get basic academics back in, through voucher systems and enabling competition in the education system.   Otherwise, our children will continue to spend their schooldays learning how there is a thin line between martyrs and terrorists.

Cognates and Other Curiosities

Some random observations from Spanish Immersion School:

Cognates are words that are the same in two or more different languages.  The word ‘bar’ is the ultimate cognate.  Although the names of alcoholic beverages differ substantially,  ‘bar’  translates across all the major European languages,  thus assuring Europeans will always be able to find the staples of their existence.

One must be careful of cognates though.  Sometimes words that look the same have entirely different meanings.  For example,  as an aficionado of Diet Coke,  I have a bad habit of ordering Coca Light over here.   It sounds more Mediterranean, don’t  you know.  Unfortunately,  the correct way to order in Spain is either Coke Light or Coca-Cola light.  If you order Coca Light,  they think you are trying to order low-calorie nose candy and give you very strange looks.

Other than that,  cognates are the language students friend.  No need to memorize the new word,  just learn a new way to pronounce the old one.

The Spanish are a lot of fun.  Any people that include vino in the base of their food pyramid (officially put out by the Organización Mundial de la Salud)  as the recommendation for “una vida larga y sana”,  a long and healthy life.  I can go with that.

Some of the Spanish words seem like they should be cognates, but are not.  For example,  ‘Inmobiliaria’  for government agency is much like the English word ‘ immobilize’ which seems just about right.  [ Editor:  It turns out this is wrong.  The translation is "estate office" not "a state office".  This is the Brit term for a real estate office, which makes sense if you think about it.]

Oh, and for any of you who read my rant on being an Americano,  I happened to be looking in the Spanish-English dictionary provided by the school whose teachers have been berating my arrogance.   Guess what it gives as the translation of estadiounidense.  You guessed it,  and I quote, “American.”   I love it.

Tilting at Windmills: My Experience with Total Immersion Spanish at Don Quijote Schools

For the past three weeks,  I have been in Spain taking total immersion Spanish courses at the Don Quijote chain of schools.  The first week I spent in Barcelona, the second week in Valencia,  and the third in Granada.  Several readers have asked for a review of the experience.

First,  the name of the schools is significant.   I am at age fifty monolingual, so hard of hearing that I need hearing aids,  totally incapable of trilling r’s,  and with virtually no background in the Spanish language.   So perhaps I was tilting at windmills.  After three weeks of intensive classes,  I am still unable to order dinner without making the waiter giggle.

Yet all in all,  I have enjoyed the experience.   I know a great deal more Spanish than when I started and, with the help of a dictionary,  can read and write quite a bit.  At the same time,  I have explored three of the great cities of Spain and met many new people.  In short,  I would do it again.

My greatest problem,  and I suspect this is true of most Spanish students, is speaking and hearing.   Some of the key words in Spanish are single vowel sounds and half the time, native Spanish speakers swallow them.  In fact,  native Spanish speakers seem to swallow a great deal of their language.   Still,  even here,  I have made progress.  I know how the words are supposed to be pronounced,  even if I cannot pronounce them,  and I am able to identify more words in Spanish on television and in spoken conversation.  I can even understand most of the words the teachers speak,  except when they get excited at how tonto I can be.

The total immersion concept is supposed to be a good one.   The idea is everything is spoken in Spanish with no English spoken at all in the classroom.   My experience in school is it can be carried to extremes.  Often,  the class has broken down into a comical game of charades for fifteen minutes and more when a single word in English would have clarified the issue.   To me,  this is a horrendous waste of time but would be more fun if a lot of cervaza was consumed.

Of interest is that in all the classes I took in all three of the cities,  there were very few native English speakers but everyone spoke English.   So outside the classroom,  all the students speak in English,  which rather undermines the whole total immersion concept.

A few years back,  I tried to talk my eldest son in attending an immersion school in Spanish.  He refused unless I would send his best friend with him.   I said no because this would undermine the whole point of the immersion process.   As it turns out,  it wouldn’t have made any difference as he would have been conversing in English outside of class anyways.

Another general point on immersion schools in Spain:  the Spanish taught is Castilian.  However,  large areas of Spain speak other dialects than Castilian.  In Barcelona,  the signs and conversations are largely in Catalan.  The new student in Spanish is unable to discern when they are reading or hearing Catalan as they wander through that marvelous city.   Thus new students are likely to pick up wrong vocabulary and usage.   The same is true of Valencia,  which increasingly speaks a dialect of Catalan specific to that area.  So my advice is to study Spanish in a city where Castilian is the major language.

As for the Don Quijote schools,  from what I picked up talking to other students, they are fairly typical.   Their greatest failing is a lack of orientation for new students.  This could be remedied at very low cost to them,   a few photocopied sheets upon check-in that explain how to use the local metro or bus system,  where some good restaurants are,  what sights they would recommend and how to get there,  and maybe some pointers on local customs such as when people eat.

In Barcelona, the first school I arrived at, I came in on a Sunday and took a taxi to the residence.   I checked in and was told to show up on Tuesday at 8 a.m. for testing.  Monday was a holiday,   a fact that DQ assumed I and my fellow students already knew.  There was absolutely no other orientation except for a list of the rules for the residence that pointed out these were not in any way luxury accommodations.  (Their brochure did not make this point quite as clearly,  although I did pick up something of the sort when the flier said I was to bring my own towel.)

There was absolutely no other orientation which many students found rather unforgivable,  especially when they had to pay extra for airfare to get there on Sunday.

To call the residence in Barcelona basic would be an understatement.   It is a step up from most hostels but in my single I had a cot,  a wardrobe, a desk, and a table lamp I could move back and forth from cot to desk.   It did have an in-room bathroom with shower and toilet that took about a third of the total room space,  and a window overlooking the airshaft (There was no warning not to leave the window open,  which I unfortunately did and returned to find everything in the room covered with a thick layer of dust.)   It took a half gallon of bleach to counter  the thick mold in the bathroom.  The room did have an AC unit and a small television.

Certainly the worst thing about the residence in Barcelona was the attitude of the other students.  The kitchen and laundry areas were filthy,  as students seemed to await the coming of the cleaning fairy, despite numerous signs telling them to clean their dishes.  The refrigerators were all full of stuff probably left by the original students years ago.  It was not pretty.

And then of course there was the famous Barcelona nightlife.   Students, particularly those with afternoon classes, would come thundering in all night until about four a.m. with total disregard to the lack of soundproofing.

On the plus side,  the residence in Barcelona was centrally located and a great spot to explore a great city from,  but all-in-all  probably not the best place to learn Castilian Spanish.

Valencia was a refreshing change.   The school is part of the campus of the Polytechnic University of Valencia.   The residence was ultra-modern and easily as comfortable and actually quieter than many of the hotels I’ve stayed in in Europe.   The rooms were comfortable, well-ventilated,  with an enthusiastic air conditioner,  and a modern bathroom.  Everything was very clean,  towels were replaced,  and cleaning ladies showed up occasionally to clean the rooms.   Plus half board was included at a great little cafeteria in the same building.   I had such dishes as paella, grilled vegetables, various stews and even steak.

Moreover,  the Valencia school started Monday morning with a two hour orientation and tour of the campus.  There was a welcome dinner Monday night that was also informative.  (Barcelona also had a welcome dinner but not near so informative.) If you had questions before that,  the residence had a front desk that was very helpful.   The school was also about a mile from the beach,  an easy walk and an even easier tramride.    The city was further away but the bus system and the trams reached it easily.

So Valencia would be my first choice if it wasn’t for the problems with the dialect in the city and the fact that Valencia just isn’t the town that Barcelona or Granada is.  The school also muffed the pick-up,  and it took me an hour on a Sunday to get a cab from the train station,  but such things happen to the best of us.

Granada was somewhere in between these first two as far as accommodations go.   The residence was full so they put me in a student flat.   This proved fortunate as the residence has somewhat of a bad rep and is half-way across town from the school.  My flat was just three blocks away,  which would have been great except for the fact that my key didn’t work.  So I spent my first few hours in Granada finding a way to get my luggage into the apartment and then seeking out the residence to get another key (which also didn’t work).

The student flat is Granada is basic.  No air conditioning with two other roommates,  but it was comfortable enough,  although after four sets of keys, I still don’t have one that works reliably.

I had paid an extra fee to have a pick-up in Granada thinking I would get someone from the school who would give me some information and a little orientation.   What I got was a taxi driver who spoke no English who gave me an envelope with a key and a map. Obviously,  the taxi driver disappeared by the time I found I needed to go to the residence for a key. There was again an orientation Monday morning,  all in Spanish.

So I would make the following recommendations to Don Quijote and other language schools:

1.) Remember people arriving at your schools are foreigners, probably with, at most, tourist guide books.   Just a couple photocopied sheets in English giving vital information handed to them with their room keys would be a great help.   An actual orientation session in English would be much better.

2.) Let people know about holidays when they sign up.  In my case in Barcelona, your brochure gave the holiday as the day before I arrived,  when it was actually celebrated the day after.   We do the same thing in America when a holiday falls on a Saturday,  but I did not realize it was going to be the case in Spain.

3.) All three schools offered a single extra session which was at a most advanced level.  For beginning students,  offer an extra session or two on just survival skills for Spain.  How to order dinner,  how to take the mass transit system, that sort of thing.

4.) Put a little more effort into picking people up and giving them an orientation.  I think you would see handsome returns for the small amount of effort needed.

5.) Don’t stick slavishly to total immersion.  If a class session has come to a stop because of a basic misunderstanding,  let the students use English or their native language to clear it up.   This would allow much more material to be covered and be much less frustrating to students.  (People don’t like to be made to feel stupid.  Almost always a bad move.)

6.) As the classes are small, spend more time practicing pronunciation.  This is what the students have the most trouble studying on their own.

In conclusion,  I would recommend Spanish Immersion for students with at least a year or two of Spanish classes.   All of my classes were small (seven or less) and the experience was intensive.   Take classes in a town where Spanish (Castilian) is the actual language spoken.   Be prepared for some hiccups and you’ll have a great time.

Expelled

Has anyone seen any good movies lately?   I mean like ones released by Hollywood.  There have been perhaps three movies I've even been vaguely tempted to go to in the last year.

Well, there's one coming out that has my interest up.  Ben Stein's Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed.   It is about our institutions of higher learning and how anyone who doesn't accept their version of the truth gets burned at the stake.

Science, for the last several hundred years,  has been based on the scientific method and mathematical proofs.  Experiments must be rigorous, controlled, and repeatable.  The mathematics can be easily checked.   

Science in the last decade has taken on a whole new meaning.  Science has become what the high priests say it is.   Anyone who argues is attacked on a personal level and every attempt is made to destroy them.   Evidence, mathematical proofs,  controls, and facts have all given way to political correctness.  Reporters for the major media,  having no education whatsoever in science,  accept what they are fed by the high priests.

Global warming is an excellent example.  The New York Times declares the debate is over.  That most credible scientists accept the theory of man-caused global warming.  That anyone who even points out man-caused global warming is just a theory is accused of being a denier and in the pocket of the big oil companies.  Any true scientific research which might contradict this dogma is simply not funded, and those responsible for trying to do the research have their tenure denied and their reputations attacked.

I have not seen the movie Expelled,  but I certainly intend to see it.  In it,  writer, comedian, and financial guru Ben Stein looks at another one of the sacred cows,  the theory of evolution,  and how those who dare question it are destroyed.  Even if someone should point out that Evolution is only a theory,  a point which Darwin himself would readily acknowledge,  they are destroyed.

America is rapidly becoming a third world country.  Our currency is becoming worthless and our workforce uneducated.   If we are to pull out of this tailspin,  we must turn our schools and universities back into what they once were,  world leaders in education and research.  If no scientist dare question the politically correct dogma,  we are simply back to the dark ages.

Expelled comes out April 18th.  I hope it hits harder than the rather slow moving trailer on the website.  It's an important message.  Check it out. 

Ben Stein's Blog

Who is Neville Chamberlain?

Something horrific recently happened to a friend of mine.   He had been likening the Carter and Clinton policies of appeasement in the Mideast to Neville Chamberlain in many arguments with his friends.   Then one day, in continuing an argument,  he discovered the adult he was arguing with had no clue who Chamberlain was.   He went back and talked to many of the other adults who he had previously argued with.  None of them knew who Chamberlain was either.  These were all (allegedly) educated adults, most in professional positions.   George Santayana would have loved them, although they had probably never heard of him either, or his best-known quote, ""Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

This is the end result of the past forty years of the liberal takeover of education in America.   Children are being fed a false rewritten history and many of the most important points of history are glossed over or ignored.  For those of you old enough to remember Civics courses,  once a standard in the curriculum, check out how much American History and Western Civilization is in your children's entire education.  And for the courses so labeled,  see what the textbooks are actually teaching.  It's very scary. 

An excellent e-mail has been going around the web, authored by Raymond S. Kraft.  I recommend everyone read it and give it some thorough consideration.