The Core Remains

I’ve been reading the Concord Monitor recently. Much of the local news coverage has been about education budget cuts around the state. It’s common knowledge that the arts – art, music, etc. – are often the first classes to be eliminated. But once those are gone, what classes come next? Which teachers, subjects and skills are considered to be the next-most expendable?

I have not hard data, nor do I claim to be an expert. But today I’m reading about foreign language classes being dropped and the blocking of programs for troubled teens. Both of these cuts, however locally limited, trouble me.

It seems that we know now more than ever how to better address learning difficulties. Whether this means specific attention in the form of additional programs or different curriculum in the same classroom, it seems that such a careful approach requires greater resources and more teachers.

Cutting foreign language classes is a slippery slope for a country already of limited international exposure. My impression of aliens is that they are far more likely to be multilingual than a fellow American. Go to France, Mexico, or even China and most likely they’ll say hello before you can say bon jour, buenos dias, or ni hao.

I realize I’m highlighting, not solving, problems here. It’s just disappointing to see the core remains so nakedly exposed as the more expendable classes are dropped left and right. Of course reading, writing, and arithmetic are critical to a well rounded education. And perhaps there are enough artistic stimuli available to students of all ages beyond the walls of their elementary, junior high, or high school. But, I don’t think so.

I just can’t help thinking about how fortunate I was to be afforded the opportunity to learn my numbers and fruits in French from first grade on, to play the recorder in third grade and to mold clay as a ten-year old. Like compound interest that is more beneficial the earlier you start investing, early exposure to the arts, a foreign language or additional help at an early age can significantly realign a student’s life for the better from an early age onward.

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Chris

Attorney & Amateur Golfer

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