http://imokwiththis.jpg/

"She proposed this to the parent association. They were very supportive,"

And this is all you should need to read to shut the hell up, sharia-fearing xenophobes.

Beginning next semester, all 200 second- through fifth-graders at PS 368 in Hamilton Heights will be taught the language twice a week for 45 minutes

I know kids have an easier time learning languages than adults, but I don't know that even over 4 school years that's enough time to develop more than a halting speaking ability in Arabic. The basic Arabic course at the Defense Language Institute lasts for 63 weeks of immersive, 5 days-a-week, 8 hours-a-day training, and even that doesn't really create a fluent speaker (and most students end up having to repeat at least one section of the course, while many don't even graduate).

Good for them for trying, though--if successful it absolutely will give their students a leg up in the adult job market, assuming they continue their studies beyond elementary school.

Personally, I would have gone with Chinese. But that's just me.

Can't we just bomb those muzzies until they speak English or Chinese?

I took french all through school. And it didn't stick at all, though that could be said for most of the stuff I was taught. My daughter watches dora et al. on NickJR and is picking up spanish and chinese words easily.

I think teaching kids another language is great, what they do with the info is another story.

AverageAmericanGuy: Can't we just bomb those muzzies until they speak English or Chinese?

Isn't Muzzie that French cartoon character that taught you French?

kingoomieiii: "She proposed this to the parent association. They were very supportive,"

And this is all you should need to read to shut the hell up, sharia-fearing xenophobes sane people..

What a farking joke!

The military could use arabic speakers.

Since this is coming from the New York Post (the Fox News of newspapers), rather than clicking I'm just going to assume that the author of the article is doing everything in his or her power to create outrage.

Tomorrows Fox headline: "Tiny bomb vest sales surge in NYC."

One reason Principal Nicky Kram Rosen selected Arabic - as opposed to more common offerings, such as Spanish or French - is because it will help the school obtain a prestigious International Baccalaureate standing.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/man hattan/arabic_mandatory_at_city_ public_UdLomjOOnZNfjDfs6YQrUN#ixzz1vo1 xQJmG

I took IB French... they taught IB Spanish down the hall. Maybe the program has changed???

I was required to take two years of Latin, what's the problem? Oh, frightened white people, ok.

Looks like Howie Carr is writing Fark headlines again.
Now if only the commenters here could match wits with the commenters at bostonherald.com we'd be getting somewhere.
Not sure exactly where, though.

you have a little brown something on your nose right there.

So basically if the kids act like they're coughing up phlegm they should pass with flying colors.

SDRR: kingoomieiii: "She proposed this to the parent association. They were very supportive,"

And this is all you should need to read to shut the hell up, sharia-fearing xenophobes sane people..

Not really. Anyone who is afraid that Sharia law will be instituted in the United States cannot be counted among the sane.
Seriously, if you are afraid that the US is going to institute Sharia law, you are mentally ill and need psychiatric help. I'm not
saying that just to be mean, I am making an informal diagnosis. Although I am not a mental health professional, the idea that
Sharia law is coming to the US is such a bat-poop-crazy paranoid notion that I feel confident that anyone who actually fears
it is clinically insane.

Harv72b: Beginning next semester, all 200 second- through fifth-graders at PS 368 in Hamilton Heights will be taught the language twice a week for 45 minutes

I know kids have an easier time learning languages than adults, but I don't know that even over 4 school years that's enough time to develop more than a halting speaking ability in Arabic. The basic Arabic course at the Defense Language Institute lasts for 63 weeks of immersive, 5 days-a-week, 8 hours-a-day training, and even that doesn't really create a fluent speaker (and most students end up having to repeat at least one section of the course, while many don't even graduate).

Good for them for trying, though--if successful it absolutely will give their students a leg up in the adult job market, assuming they continue their studies beyond elementary school.


A year and a half of 40 hours a week learning another language? How do they do anything else during that time!?

FullMetalPanda: AverageAmericanGuy: Can't we just bomb those muzzies until they speak English or Chinese?

Isn't Muzzie that French cartoon character that taught you French?

Or was it a BBC cartoon?

"And no, those children aren't French. They're American. Or maybe Quebecois."

Harv72b: Beginning next semester, all 200 second- through fifth-graders at PS 368 in Hamilton Heights will be taught the language twice a week for 45 minutes

I know kids have an easier time learning languages than adults, but I don't know that even over 4 school years that's enough time to develop more than a halting speaking ability in Arabic. The basic Arabic course at the Defense Language Institute lasts for 63 weeks of immersive, 5 days-a-week, 8 hours-a-day training, and even that doesn't really create a fluent speaker (and most students end up having to repeat at least one section of the course, while many don't even graduate).

Good for them for trying, though--if successful it absolutely will give their students a leg up in the adult job market, assuming they continue their studies beyond elementary school.


For what, working a gas station or driving a cab? If there's a language that should be stressed in a program like this, I'd say it should be Chinese

Will there be flight training as well?

How do you say fukoff in Arabic?

kingoomieiii: "She proposed this to the parent association. They were very supportive,"

And this is all you should need to read to shut the hell up, sharia-fearing xenophobes.


Of course the parents are supportive. They are getting their kids into an IB program. I did one in high school and at that school, the AP classes were for the slow kids. By the time I graduated, I had two years worth of college credits and most of my undegrad classes had a lower work load than my high school ones. I was lucky enough that my father could afford to pay for an in-state school and my dad was lucky enough that he only had to pay for two years of it instead of four (I've tried for years to convince him to just give me 1/2 the money he saved... but he won't).

I'd let my kid take whatever language they told me he/she had to take to get that same kind of advantage.

FloydA: SDRR: kingoomieiii: "She proposed this to the parent association. They were very supportive,"

And this is all you should need to read to shut the hell up, sharia-fearing xenophobes sane people..

Not really. Anyone who is afraid that Sharia law will be instituted in the United States cannot be counted among the sane.
Seriously, if you are afraid that the US is going to institute Sharia law, you are mentally ill and need psychiatric help. I'm not
saying that just to be mean, I am making an informal diagnosis. Although I am not a mental health professional, the idea that
Sharia law is coming to the US is such a bat-poop-crazy paranoid notion that I feel confident that anyone who actually fears
it is clinically insane.

In the US we don't call it Sharia Law. It's pronounced "PAY' tree uht Act"
What kills me is irrational fear/hatred of Arabs is a conservative viewpoint, but introducing a ridiculous solution like requiring Arabic is a liberal viewpoint.
It's nice to see both sides working together, though...I guess

kingoomieiii Smartest
Funniest
2012-05-24 12:00:25 PM


"She proposed this to the parent association. They were very supportive,"

And this is all you should need to read to shut the hell up, sharia-fearing xenophobes.

Well, i'm no fan of the sharia (having studied it briefly in comparative law), but that said... this is a cool idea and what's not to like?

Parents can choose to send their kid there, its a tricky enough language that its probably good for a child's memorization and other "brain" skills, and maybe one out of a hundred of those kids can take their arabic further and go into the spook business, military intel or the oil biz. I mean we're stuck with the middle east for a few more decades, right? Until we develop those alternative fuel cars...

Harv72b: Good for them for trying, though--if successful it absolutely will give their students a leg up in the adult job market, assuming they continue their studies beyond elementary school.

I started French in seventh grade at that frequency. In and of itself it didn't help much as far as communication ability goes, but it did give me a base to learn more in high school and then learn enough to at least communicate. I won't claim fluency by any measure, but I can survive in a Francophone area as long as they don't have the Quebecois 'duck with a cold' accent.

Introducing kids to other languages, even if they don't learn enough to be functional through the introduction, has a lot of value.


...All that said, Arabic is an interesting choice of language to require.

Beginning next semester, all 200 second- through fifth-graders at PS 368 in Hamilton Heights will be taught the language twice a week for 45 minutes - putting it on equal footing with science and music courses.


Equal footing with science courses? It's almost as though someone is trying to destroy the country.

Bunnyhat: A year and a half of 40 hours a week learning another language? How do they do anything else during that time!?

They don't. That's their whole job for the year and a half. Bootcamp, then straight to the DLA in Monterey, CA, then to whatever training school for the project they'll be supporting.

/my ex went to the DLA.

someone I know grew up speaking Arabic, in college he was recruited by the State Dept and the CIA, now he flies around the world and mocks me with his great life.

craxyd Smartest
Funniest
2012-05-24 12:45:48 PM


For what, working a gas station or driving a cab? If there's a language that should be stressed in a program like this, I'd say it should be Chinese

Nonsense. Gas station or a cab? Have you ever worked for the military, a multinational corporation, as an expat living overseas? Or even picked up an issue of the Economist or Wall Street Journal? I'm guessing by your answer, clearly "no".

Arabic, Chinese, Russian are all important in the future. I took Chinese.

PirateKing: Bunnyhat: A year and a half of 40 hours a week learning another language? How do they do anything else during that time!?

They don't. That's their whole job for the year and a half. Bootcamp, then straight to the DLA in Monterey, CA, then to whatever training school for the project they'll be supporting.

/my ex went to the DLA.

In addition to about an hour PT in the mornings before breakfast, of course.

I wish more kids were forced to learn arabic... but you're not going to learn shiat studying a language in two 45 minute sessions a week.

FloydA: SDRR: kingoomieiii: "She proposed this to the parent association. They were very supportive,"

And this is all you should need to read to shut the hell up, sharia-fearing xenophobes sane people..

Not really. Anyone who is afraid that Sharia law will be instituted in the United States cannot be counted among the sane.
Seriously, if you are afraid that the US is going to institute Sharia law, you are mentally ill and need psychiatric help. I'm not
saying that just to be mean, I am making an informal diagnosis. Although I am not a mental health professional, the idea that
Sharia law is coming to the US is such a bat-poop-crazy paranoid notion that I feel confident that anyone who actually fears
it is clinically insane.

What would you call it if someone planned a protest in the US where he was going to burn a copy of the Koran, was arrested upon arrival at the airport purely because he was going to engage in this protest, and then forced to leave the state without being allowed to protest as planned?

Kanemano: someone I know grew up speaking Arabic, in college he was recruited by the State Dept and the CIA, now he flies around the world and mocks me with his great life.

This is the truth of it. The US military and intelligence divisions eagerly seek to employ US citizens who can speak Arabic, and these kids will have a leg up in military careers.

/as sekrit muslims

It's amusing the number of people who didn't read the article and assumed that someone somewhere had a problem with this.

Well we should know what somwe of that gibberish means

Beginning next semester, all 200 second- through fifth-graders at PS 368 in Hamilton Heights will be taught the language twice a week for 45 minutes - putting it on equal footing with science and music courses.

I read that as "200 pound"

Always a good idea to learn as much about your enemies as possible......and don't fool yourselves, they ARE our enemy.....all you liberal pukes can just keep blowing rainbows out your asses.



/just can't trust someone who wipes with their hand and not paper
//I thought that's what the towels were for.....

The school I work at is phasing out French and building up an Arabic program. Spanish is staying, as always. Problem?

King Something: Since this is coming from the New York Post (the Fox News of newspapers), rather than clicking I'm just going to assume that the author of the article is doing everything in his or her power to create outrage.

and you'd be wrong, and I'm guessing not for the first time.

I bet Obama has something to do with this.. ever since he came into power .. the mousies have been winning the war on terror

FloydA: SDRR: kingoomieiii: "She proposed this to the parent association. They were very supportive,"

And this is all you should need to read to shut the hell up, sharia-fearing xenophobes sane people..

Not really. Anyone who is afraid that Sharia law will be instituted in the United States cannot be counted among the sane.
Seriously, if you are afraid that the US is going to institute Sharia law, you are mentally ill and need psychiatric help. I'm not
saying that just to be mean, I am making an informal diagnosis. Although I am not a mental health professional, the idea that
Sharia law is coming to the US is such a bat-poop-crazy paranoid notion that I feel confident that anyone who actually fears
it is clinically insane.

It's as crazy as the idea of democracy coming to the Arab World.

//no, srsly

"Arabic has been identified as a critical-need language," she said, citing students' future "career trajectories.''

"It means they can spin the globe and decide where they want to work and live."

Riiiiggghtttt.... I took French for 6 years and learned nothing but basic vocabulary. Somehow I doubt 90 minutes a week is going to have any influence on where these kids work and live.

meanmutton: It's amusing the number of people who didn't read the article and assumed that someone somewhere had a problem with this.

Yeah, I wondered if I'd missed something in the article myself. Good to know that I didn't.

/OUTRAGE!!!

what disappoints me is that they only get 1½ hours a week of science instruction.

I'm all for requiring a language. Personally, I would have picked Spanish, just because it's more widely spoken and thus more likely to be useful.

A list of English words that came to us from those evil and wicked Muzzies.

OMG, New York City, home of libertines, homogays and the limosine liberal mainstream MSM media left is turning into a Sharia state!

/mah mah my Sharia

One reason Principal Nicky Kram Rosen selected Arabic - as opposed to more common offerings, such as Spanish or French - is because it will help the school obtain a prestigious International Baccalaureate standing.

I tutored a couple of kids taking IB Chemistry. I was not impressed. A lot of the material being taught bore little resemblance to university or real-world chemistry. They expressed all concentrations as moles per cubic decimetres, which is a unit that was in vogue for about a year and a half in the early 90s before everyone realised it was stupid and went back to mol/L. Somehow IB never got the memo.

The overall impression I got was that IB is that douchebag at the party who wants to sound smart, so he uses a bunch of big words incorrectly.

/agrees with whoever said kids could pass just by gargling
//works for Hebrew too
///"You fluent?" "No, just congested"