Yesterday's blog post elicited a question or two about my French II teacher. Although she's from Germany she was in Georgia teaching French. She also taught English. Unlike us lazy Americans, many Europeans are not only fluent in their own language, but in English, as well as one or two others. I think they start learning foreign languages at a very young age. Studies have shown that it's easier to learn and become fluent in a foreign language as a child than it is as an adolescent or an adult. Madame Teaver spoke French with a perfect French accent. She could've taught us so much more than Madame Turner did if the other students had been willing to learn from her. I heard that in one of her other classes a student asked her if her grandfather was a Nazi. Rude little bastard!
As far as her teaching English, she once told me about a student of hers (a black student) that did really well in her class until she got pregnant. When Madame Teaver approached another teacher in the English department about it, the teacher told her that it's impossible for black students to do well in English because proper English isn't spoken in their homes. Well ain't that a load of bullshit?! Depending on my surroundings I may occasionally lapse into the vernacular, but English was one of my best subjects in school, and I still do well with it as an adult, hence my certificate in copyediting. That was just one more example of the racist thinking that pervaded the institution where I received my secondary education.
Talk about setting students up to fail - that's a classic one. And, there is still some of that going on today. i'm so happy you were able to rise above all that friend.
ReplyDeleteThere iz still a lawts of that going arownd tooday, sum izn't az blantant an sum iz appawlingly blatant. Hoomanz shud try to be moar like cats.
ReplyDeleteI know this kind of thing still goes on and I wonder will it ever cease? I used to think that one day things would change for my country, that the British would give us back our land, but as an adult I have to accept that it never will be so. So too are your people subjugated in your own country for you are Americans and deserve equal treatment. It is a sad indictement on humanity that this has not changed.
ReplyDeleteYo! Who's saying I don't speak no proper English. I'll mess them up good! Seriously, the USA is going backwards on race relations. You just have to look at the disrespect aimed at our President. No other President has EVER been treated as disrespectfully and it's sickening.
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