Bubbaworld

There is a very troubling trend developing in Oklahoma. Currently it is the strongest in Tulsa but will likely expand statewide in the near future.

The trend?
Forcing non-Hispanic children to learn Spanish.

Currently Tulsa Public Schools officials are considering a proposal that will set up a pilot program at six elementary schools in which teachers will switch every other day between instruction in Spanish and English.

Evidently the idea is to ‘equalize’ the educational opportunities of elementary school students in this social experiment by handicapping English only speaking children to the same degree as their Spanish speaking counterparts rather than using the ‘English immersion’ methodology that has previously been used in bringing Spanish speaking children ‘up to speed’ in the English language.

Clearly this approach will benefit Hispanic children as it will provide for half of their instruction time in their native language and half in their second language.

But what about the non-Hispanic children that speak not a word of Spanish?

In every game there are usually winners and losers and in this ‘game’ under consideration by Tulsa Public Schools the clear losers will be non-Hispanic children forced to learn a new language under a system that can only be reasonably called “Spanish immersion”.

“Leveling the playing field” is a phrase often used to justify altering long established societal norms, either good or bad, and that is what this proposal on the part of Tulsa Public Schools does.

It imposes upon native born English speaking children the same handicaps that exist for non-English speaking children of immigrant families and while this idea may appear “fair” to some, imposing handicaps is not a sensible means of attaining equality for the handicapped.

To insure equal opportunity for those that must use a wheel chair we do not require everyone to use wheelchairs. To insure equal opportunity for those that are blind we do not require everyone to be blindfolded. To insure equal opportunity for those that are hearing impaired we do not require everyone to wear earplugs.

And we should not insure equal opportunity for Spanish speaking children by forcing English speaking children to learn Spanish.

Ours is an English speaking nation and while we have both a moral and legal obligation to provide non-English speakers with the opportunity to learn English we do not have either a moral or legal obligation to force children to learn Spanish in spite of what the administration of Tulsa Public Schools believes or desires…