 |
Smoke & Mirrors Zachary M. Raimi |
|---|
Midway through the second semester of my sophomore year, my Spanish 232 instructor had a nervous breakdown and left the country.
The signs of her impending downfall were present from the first class. She never learned our names or made an effort to get to know us. She would take attendance by reading the class roster, never calling us by our preferred name or even a Spanish "nombre." I was "Raimi Zachary Michael."
The instructor made it clear that she never wanted to be in class. She was about 10 minutes late for nearly every class, and often skipped. When she was there, she had us work in small groups so she didn't have to teach.
She would relay personal stories about how she was not getting along with her husband. Apparently, he was sick and taking out his frustration on her. Even more shocking, she alleged that a priest molested her when she was younger. Needless to say, I learned very little Spanish.
While my experience may have been more outrageous than my peers', most students get very little out of their respective foreign language classes. And so, with a humble voice, I am calling upon the University to eliminate the LSA foreign language requirement. The arguments against the requirement are compelling and can no longer be ignored. First - and most obvious - most students do not want to take a foreign language. It's as simple as that. This attitude is illustrated, in part, by the huge number of students who take the foreign languages pass/fail. That way, students do not have to be overly concerned about their grade and can quietly protest against the requirement.
Moreover, students think that the requirement is intrusive, and a waste of time and money. If you are not lucky enough to place out of your requirement, you must take up to four semesters of a foreign language. This is four classes that the students could have used to select something that interested them.
After four semesters, students learn very little and become furious with the University. In fact, I believe that I lost knowledge in my Spanish classes - I had a better understanding of the language as a high school student.
The requirement seems even more idiotic once one realizes the sorry state of the foreign language departments. For example, in Spanish, the department coordinator often writes a standardized test. Each section must take the same test on the same day. However, such a procedure undermines the individuality of each section and steals the instructors' freedom. One section may be very adept at Spanish while another is slower at absorbing the material. But the department refuses to acknowledge this and treats the thousands of students the same. In the end, students lose out and become more disillusioned with the requirement.
Plus, when I took my 200-level Spanish courses, the department refused to include grammar lessons. I asked - begged - to be taught grammar, but the instructors and their superiors wouldn't allow it. They said we should have learned it in the lower-level classes, and that if we didn't, there was nothing they could do. Grammar is the foundation of any language. If you don't understand it, you can't communicate. But the higher-ups didn't seem to care.
Also, the departments - especially Spanish - change the textbooks nearly every semester for no apparent reason. Students can't sell their books back to the bookstores, because the school doesn't use the old ones. And, just as the students become familiar with the style of the text, the department changes it again, interrupting the continuity of the courses.
LSA has few specific requirements - you must take various humanities, social science and natural science classes. Amazingly, one can graduate from the University without: taking a course in American history, reading classic literature like "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," being introduced to the supply and demand curve, and learning how to write effectively. Yet the University believes that learning a few phrases in a foreign language is more important.
Something is terribly wrong.
I have never been in favor of stringent requirements like universities had in the past. But I do encourage universities to create curricula that best educate the students by stretching their minds and imaginations, improving their writing and analytical skills, and forcing them to challenge the assumptions of their individual lives and the greater society.
The foreign language requirement stands in the way. As they say in Spanish, it's time for the University to say "Adios" to the requirement.
- Zack Raimi can be reached over e-mail at rmz@umich.edu.