9 year old girl punished for speaking Turkish in the playground

[mr friendly guy]

Which shithole repressive state did this? Oh wait. Germany.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/girl ... -lwll5m727

The parents of a nine-year-old girl are considering suing her school after she was punished for speaking Turkish in the playground.

The dispute in Blumberg, a town on the southern fringe of the Black Forest, has raised questions about whether it is discriminatory for teachers to insist that their pupils talk German at all times.

There has been much debate over the extent to which it is acceptable to impose German language and culture on non-native speakers and people with migrant backgrounds.

Angela Merkel and others have argued that society should be moulded by a Leitkultur, a guiding culture, of European values such as rationality and pluralism, and new citizens are obliged to be able to speak the language at least to a passable standard.

The rest of the article is behind a pay wall. RT has a full story which isn't behind a paywall, so here you go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBAPPHkgd_w

Is this just Turkish that is being targeted? What happens if someone wants to practice a second language in their spare time? God forbid, imagine a child used... ENGLISH in the playground in their spare time.

[The Romulan Republic]

"RT has a full story..." I'm sure they do.

To state what should be obvious, I don't doubt there are scumbags in Germany who discriminate based on race, culture, and nationality, because they exist in every single country on the planet, including Germany. But I trust RT as a source about as much as I do Mein Kampf. Even if what they report is true, the way they report it is likely to be slanted to gin up as much divisive outrage as possible and facilitate whataboutism, because at the end of the day, they're Putin's propaganda outlet, pure and simple. They just should not be cited as a source, period. And no, I'm not just saying that because they're a "non-Western" source- I'd say they same about Fox or Breitbart or OAN, and for much the same reasons.

As to the case itself, presuming the report is accurate- the parents should sue, and the school staff responsible should be fired. As to the larger political circumstances in Germany, I would hope that Germany of all countries would know better than to try to impose "European values". Every society has multiple cultural groups, even if it pretends that it doesn't. There isn't even a universal consensus on what "European values" are, and attempting to impose one form of culture on a society is inherently despotic. Residents in a country have one obligation to that country- to obey the law, provided that law is generally applied in a fair and consistent fashion. They do not have the obligation to conform to a single culture or set of beliefs, not in a free state. And Germany has VERY PARTICULAR REASONS to think twice about condoning anything that smacks of nationalism or racial/cultural/religious discrimination.

[AniThyng]

Well I somehow get the feeling this is one of those things where (white?) English speakers get a free pass, and everyone else doesn't. But coming from the perspective of a country where language and language education is a very sensitive topic, there is something to the idea that there is an obligation for immigrants to be able to use the lingua franca* of the community they are living in. A policy of discouraging (with punishment) use of languages other than the school's medium of instruction** on school grounds is not uncommon in countries trying to impose a uniform language policy. But I live in an undemocratic 3rd world country so what do I know

*of course if said lingua franca is *still* not the actual national language of the country as a whole, whoops. language ghettoes are a real thing. depending on your social economic status and where you choose to live...

**ironically for my country, this is more commonly applied to prohibiting use of chinese dialects other than mandarin in chinese schools, and not for malay!

[mr friendly guy]

"RT has a full story..." I'm sure they do.

Since their story isn't behind a paywall, you can see their full story. What the fuck do you think I meant when I said they have a full story as opposed the full story after talking about paywalls. But its amusing watching you get triggered mate.

Well I somehow get the feeling this is one of those things where (white?) English speakers get a free pass, and everyone else doesn't. But coming from the perspective of a country where language and language education is a very sensitive topic, there is something to the idea that there is an obligation for immigrants to be able to use the lingua franca* of the community they are living in. A policy of discouraging (with punishment) use of languages other than the school's medium of instruction** on school grounds is not uncommon in countries trying to impose a uniform language policy. But I live in an undemocratic 3rd world country so what do I know

*of course if said lingua franca is *still* not the actual national language of the country as a whole, whoops.

**ironically for my country, this is more commonly applied to prohibiting use of chinese dialects other than mandarin in chinese schools, and not for malay!

There is indeed an obligation to learn the lingua fraca. Although one would think that shouldn't preclude a kid using another language in her spare time out of the classroom in a private conversation.

I also have a feeling people speaking other European languages would get a free pass in Germany. From what I understand there are ethnic Turks living in Germany who aren't first generation migrants and they struggle with German, so I can see where they might be overzealous, but that doesn't really excuse this heavy handed approach.

[Vendetta]

Is this just Turkish that is being targeted? What happens if someone wants to practice a second language in their spare time? God forbid, imagine a child used... ENGLISH in the playground in their spare time.

It’ll be specific to Turkish because they’re the largest immigrant demographic in Germany.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Pretty much the same thing happened at Duke University a couple of years ago. A faculty member got in trouble because she was telling Chinese graduate students that they weren't allowed to speak to each other in Chinese.

[Solauren]

I can see forbidding non-German language in the classroom, outside of language instructions. It makes communication between staff and students easier, and encourages the use of the national language. The same with interactions with the staff.

However, anything beyond that, including on the playground, unacceptable. Even if the child was trying to talk to a teacher and was simply too excited to speak in a language they were not comfortable with.

[His Divine Shadow]

Minorities should be allowed to speak their language whenever, the majority population only benefits from hearing other languages spoken even if they don't understand them. Older people not used to this often react racistly true, but getting kids used ot hearing many languages from the start helps foster the correct kind of outlook on life (i.e. not being racist a-holes like their parents).

[Solauren]

The problem with that in a school, is finding enough teachers that speak those languages. Yeah, it sounds easy in theory, but it could be time consuming. And then there is the required salary if you have to hire them for in-class translation. And that translation could be disrupted to other students.

'Language specific' schools are a viable solution, but you have to find a large enough portion of the student population.
And really, if you are going to live in/settle a country, learn the language. Heck, if you're going to do more then visit a resort (i.e stay for a few months), learn the language*.

*My wife and I are debating if we'll ever do a long-term visit to Japan. If we decide we're going to, we plan to attempt to learn Japanese.

[wautd]

The problem with that in a school, is finding enough teachers that speak those languages. Yeah, it sounds easy in theory, but it could be time consuming.

That actually sounds very hard. I can imagine that a teacher can explain best in his or her own mother tongue.
I'm from a country with many minorities and it would be unreasonable/impossible to find teachers that speak Dutch, French, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish,...

'Language specific' schools are a viable solution, but you have to find a large enough portion of the student population.

Not sure if that will help with the students learning the language of the host country, although I guess that's debatable (if they get decent language class it should work eventually).
I'm more afraid of the risk of creating immigrant concentration schools though, where people will stay in their own cultural bubble without learning anything about the culture of the host country. Multiculturalism in Europe can hardly be called a shining success and integration has to come from both sides.

And really, if you are going to live in/settle a country, learn the language.

I see that as basic courtesy and requirement for integration in the host country. Without it, it's way harder to find a job, let alone dealing with daily life, learning about the social norms of the country, listen to or read the news of the host country.
My wife is Spanish and is taking dutch classes because it's really hard to function in a society if you don't speak or read the language

[AniThyng]

I would say the biggest issue for the State is avoiding situations where unofficially the immigrant community is large yet disintegrated enough that you could actually function without ever learning the language of the rest of the country, or where only the bare minimum is known and used only grudgingly.

[Dark Hellion]

I worked at an elementary school in a relatively small city in the U.S. The second grade class (7-8 year olds) represented 11 home languages and the school had 34 total home languages. The district attempted to have translators for each ones. Language barriers are a serious challenge for multiculturalism.

[wautd]

I forgot to mention in my previous post, but another problem with having multiple languages in a classroom is that it's seriously time consuming. Simply put, if a teacher would have to explain everything in two languages, then he or she can only cover half of the curriculum.
It's a complicated issue for which there are no simple solutions

[His Divine Shadow]

Who has said anything like that though? Being allowed to speak in ones language whenever doesn't mean you should receieve instruction in it, that happens in a common language.

[Dark Hellion]

Who has said anything like that though? Being allowed to speak in ones language whenever doesn't mean you should receieve instruction in it, that happens in a common language.

What if the student is not fluent enough in the common language to understand the instruction (especially when the instruction is in more abstract concepts)? Or what if there isn't a common language?

What if a student is generally fluent in speaking but is not as proficient in reading and writing? Should this student still be instructed in language arts in the general classroom or should they be pulled out to a secondary language classroom? Either you are asking the student to perform tasks that will be beyond their current capability or participate in instruction that is far below their current abilities.

There are lots of very nuanced questions that start needing to be asked as the general diversity of the populace becomes more heterogeneous.

[Solauren]

Let's see....
If the student is not fluent enough in the common language to receive instruction, they should not be in a public school.
Instead, they should be receiving tutoring/instruction to get them up to proficiency in that language.

A lack of reading and writing in the common language is a very common thing. It's taught in school, after all.
However, see my above statement.

It's simply better for all involved for the non-common language speakers to get their language skills up to speed first, before going into the public education systems. Teacher have enough to deal with as is, without adding variable multilingual instruction requirements to their jobs.

In the case of refugees/involuntary resettlement situations, the government can pay for it.
In the case of voluntary resettlement/immigration (i.e parents got a job offer), the parents can pay for it.

I look at it this way; I'm in Canada.
Canada has two official languages. English, and French.
French is the primary common language in Quebec. All in-class instruction is in French. (Or at least it was when I was still in public school, so many decades ago)

If my family had suddenly moved to Quebec when I was young, my parents would have had to get my fluency up to speed, or find a English immersion language school. It's not the publics problem I couldn't read, write, or speak French. My family made the choice to move there.

After a certain point, people have to take responsibility for their own choices, including moving they're family to a location in which they do not speak the language. Yes, Refugees may not have that choice (hence the government paying for the tutoring), but those that move their family by choice? They can handle it.

[His Divine Shadow]

Who has said anything like that though? Being allowed to speak in ones language whenever doesn't mean you should receieve instruction in it, that happens in a common language.

What if the student is not fluent enough in the common language to understand the instruction (especially when the instruction is in more abstract concepts)? Or what if there isn't a common language?

What if a student is generally fluent in speaking but is not as proficient in reading and writing? Should this student still be instructed in language arts in the general classroom or should they be pulled out to a secondary language classroom? Either you are asking the student to perform tasks that will be beyond their current capability or participate in instruction that is far below their current abilities.

There are lots of very nuanced questions that start needing to be asked as the general diversity of the populace becomes more heterogeneous.

Those are special situations though and need to be handled on a case by case basis rather than when we're talking about a normal class with regular pupils, these kids you mention need specialist aid and training.

We've deal with those issues when integrating the refugees that came here during the last crisis and most important was getting the children into language classes and into learning the local languages and having intepreters and aides to help the kids get going in school. But the end result is to get them understanding the local languages.

Once they understand that, they can talk whatever lingo they want with each other whenever IMO. My sons assistant often speaks bosnian with others at school who are also from bosnia and has even taught him some bosnian childrens verses. I often hear people switch languages, several of my coworkers are from russia or belorussia and other places and they go off in russian half the time when talking to each other.

Once my kids are grown I expect them to be speaking at least 4 languages, swedish, finnish, vietnamese and english.

[Dark Hellion]

Who has said anything like that though? Being allowed to speak in ones language whenever doesn't mean you should receieve instruction in it, that happens in a common language.

What if the student is not fluent enough in the common language to understand the instruction (especially when the instruction is in more abstract concepts)? Or what if there isn't a common language?

What if a student is generally fluent in speaking but is not as proficient in reading and writing? Should this student still be instructed in language arts in the general classroom or should they be pulled out to a secondary language classroom? Either you are asking the student to perform tasks that will be beyond their current capability or participate in instruction that is far below their current abilities.

There are lots of very nuanced questions that start needing to be asked as the general diversity of the populace becomes more heterogeneous.

Those are special situations though and need to be handled on a case by case basis rather than when we're talking about a normal class with regular pupils, these kids you mention need specialist aid and training.

We've deal with those issues when integrating the refugees that came here during the last crisis and most important was getting the children into language classes and into learning the local languages and having intepreters and aides to help the kids get going in school. But the end result is to get them understanding the local languages.

Once they understand that, they can talk whatever lingo they want with each other whenever IMO. My sons assistant often speaks bosnian with others at school who are also from bosnia and has even taught him some bosnian childrens verses. I often hear people switch languages, several of my coworkers are from russia or belorussia and other places and they go off in russian half the time when talking to each other.

Once my kids are grown I expect them to be speaking at least 4 languages, swedish, finnish, vietnamese and english.

I am going to try to be really careful not to be snarkey but Finland is not really an example of a highly ethically diverse society. You're country is 88% ethnic finns. You live in a country that is literally less ethnically diverse than I am and I am considered an average white guy in America.

The issues that you are claiming are special cases may be in Finland but they are encountered everywhere in U.S. school systems. The school I was talking about was in a city of 7300 people, in a metro area with around 400,000 people. It was not uniquely diverse by any stretch of the imagination. Even in a relatively small rural town of 1700 I encounted refugee students who did not speak English as a primary language.

Literally, the class I worked with had students whose primary langauges were Hmong (parents spoke exclusively Hmong), Cantonese Chinese (parents spoke both dialects of Chinese only), Mandarin Chinese (parents spoke both dialects of Chinese only), French/Arabic/Native african language (parents spoke very little English), Vietnamese (parents were fluent in both), many primarily Spanish speakers (parents of all levels of fluency), Albanian (parents spoke something like 5 languages) and two other languages which I can't remember. How exactly do you propose to deal with this level of linguistic diversity, especially when you have groups that have very unique langauges where there are few if any speakers who could teach a language class?

[His Divine Shadow]

Frankly what you describe doesn't sound unfamiliar.

Finland as a whole is ethnically homogenous but I live in one of the more heterogenous places. Only the capital is as heteregenous as some of the towns here. One of the nearby small towns here (next municipality south, 9500 people) has around 14% of it's population foreign born, majority again is swedish (79% swe, 5.5% fin, 15.5% others). You will encounter many people here who don't speak swedish or finnish or english as their primary language despite being out in the sticks.

The municipality I live in has less than 6000 people total over a large area and several towns and 5% are foreign born, my SO being one who came here in the 80s as a child, the majority language is swedish (in Finland, so this place just on it's own is not normal).

It's been a problem but the solution is still the same, teach the kids the common language and as soon as possible with all means possible. It's not a perfect solution, there might not actually be enough people or qualified teachers, but you use what you can to do as well as you can.

The local authorities are the ones who have to step in and actively work towards helping kids and adults to be given environments where they can learn. One of the key things is that language is not primarily taught in class by qualified teachers, that would just not be possible. Especially not for children. Language immersion for young kids has been common here for ages, in the past the most common form of it was families here sent kids away to a finnish family to learn finnish and vice versa. Voluntary "support families" and other volunteers has been important as well to help acclimatize newcomers and to immerse the kids in the local languages through socialization.

So it wasn't easy for a small town (another neighboring municipality) of less than a thousand people to accomodate a hundred refugees and teach them, but they managed, and money and support was given from the government to help.

[Dark Hellion]

Frankly what you describe doesn't sound unfamiliar.

Finland as a whole is ethnically homogenous but I live in one of the more heterogenous places. Only the capital is as heteregenous as some of the towns here. One of the nearby small towns here (next municipality south, 9500 people) has around 14% of it's population foreign born, majority again is swedish (79% swe, 5.5% fin, 15.5% others). You will encounter many people here who don't speak swedish or finnish or english as their primary language despite being out in the sticks.

The municipality I live in has less than 6000 people total over a large area and several towns and 5% are foreign born, my SO being one who came here in the 80s as a child, the majority language is swedish (in Finland, so this place just on it's own is not normal).

It's been a problem but the solution is still the same, teach the kids the common language and as soon as possible with all means possible. It's not a perfect solution, there might not actually be enough people or qualified teachers, but you use what you can to do as well as you can.

The local authorities are the ones who have to step in and actively work towards helping kids and adults to be given environments where they can learn. One of the key things is that language is not primarily taught in class by qualified teachers, that would just not be possible. Especially not for children. Language immersion for young kids has been common here for ages, in the past the most common form of it was families here sent kids away to a finnish family to learn finnish and vice versa. Voluntary "support families" and other volunteers has been important as well to help acclimatize newcomers and to immerse the kids in the local languages through socialization.

So it wasn't easy for a small town (another neighboring municipality) of less than a thousand people to accomodate a hundred refugees and teach them, but they managed, and money and support was given from the government to help.

HDS, I think you are talking about this with the best intentions. However, I think your perspective is incredibly lacking. What you are desribing as a diverse community in Finland is less diverse than the 20ish K person suburb that I live in. And our suburb is considered to be overly white and lacking in diversity. To reiterate, what you are saying is considered to be a diverse heterogenous community in Finland is considered to be overly homogenous in the U.S.

I am absolutely sure that the solutions you propose do work in Finland, given how well Finland's school systems perform and how highly Finnish society rates on various indices. I am not sure they work in communities with double or triple the number of foreign born/1st generational persons given my experience working in classrooms.

[Jub]

HDS, I think you are talking about this with the best intentions. However, I think your perspective is incredibly lacking. What you are desribing as a diverse community in Finland is less diverse than the 20ish K person suburb that I live in. And our suburb is considered to be overly white and lacking in diversity. To reiterate, what you are saying is considered to be a diverse heterogenous community in Finland is considered to be overly homogenous in the U.S.

I am absolutely sure that the solutions you propose do work in Finland, given how well Finland's school systems perform and how highly Finnish society rates on various indices. I am not sure they work in communities with double or triple the number of foreign born/1st generational persons given my experience working in classrooms.

Doesn't this show that the US should be doing even better than Finland at integration due to both more practice and a larger pool of people who've successfully been integrated to draw on as teachers for the next wave? Either that or the US needs to start screening non-refugee immigrants for English language skills and rejecting those who aren't fluent due to an inability to teach them the language.

[His Divine Shadow]

I have some questions, such as can you show me the numbers for these places, how many languages are spoken and such. It's really hard to imagine what kind of numbers you are talking about. Is it 50% non-english speakers? And how many of those cannot speak english?

I also don't see why the solution sproposed don't scale up, the problems are relative not absolute. Bigger communities = bigger pool to ask for volunteers from for instance, unless the societal structure is such that people don't volunteer and wouldn't consider doing so.

So I wonder have they even tried? I gotta say I have this, possibly incorrect, assumption regarding the US approach to government that makes me think it's a bit laissez faire with regards to integration i.e. hardly anything is done and things are just happening kinda like leaves blowing in the wind.