What If: Required Foreign Language

A popular stereotype of Americans traveling abroad is the tourist who is at a loss when it comes to coping with any language other than English. Fair or not, the fact is while the U.S. does not have a national requirement for students to learn foreign language in school, other countries require it. For instance, in Europe, students by age nine must have learned at least two new languages before becoming a teen. Meanwhile, the U.S. does not have a nationwide foreign language mandate at any level of education. Many states allow individual school districts like ours, to set language requirements to help higher your degree for high school graduation. I honestly think students at our school should be required to take foreign language classes and have a much more variety choice within picking a new language. After all if you’re forced to take a foreign language course, you should be able to pick what you want to learn. Being forced to take a foreign language class might sound awful, but the fact of the matter is you’ll get a better high school degree. I like to think of it as a new opportunity to expose our young minds to different culture and aspects of the world that could create innovative minds.