My son Landen, a sophomore at the American Embassy School, and I were just hoisting a water bottle up on the cooler in our apartment. I generally try to stay out of any discussion with his Spanish classes, but just now out of the blue Landen said, “Dad, the way I’m learning Spanish right now has taken any desire to ever learn the language away. You should see what goes on in that classroom.”
Well, of course I knew. I have seen the memorized dialogues, the verb conjugation charts, the lack of any consistency with the research, the never-hearing-the-language, etc. but it’s like it’s all a secret. Like the invisible world rule is that nobody is allowed to “go there”.
I guess the smoke coming out of that classroom is not enough for the situation to be recognized by anyone as a fire. Any awareness by any principles seems to be unexpressed in the midst of the daily grind, from what we can see within our own language department here in the high school. It’s all IB and memorization in that school anyway.
And it was 47 degrees in New Delhi yesterday so we are seeing headlines like this: “Delhi Government Orders Delhi Schools to Close from May 11 Due to Rising Temperature.” I don’t know which is worse. The temporary heat here in May or the long term event of my son not wanting to learn Spanish anymore.
Both are hot items. I can’t do anything about the heat, but I have four weeks left here in India. With what I’ve been learning about assessment here lately, how it needs to be true in terms of the Palm article which everyone should read in detail and slowly to let it soak in, I can and will do something about the smoke in that classroom.
Just sayin’ on a Wednesday morning.