An upper Manhattan public elementary school will be the first in the city to require that students study Arabic, officials said yesterday.
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.
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.
“Arabic has been identified as a critical-need language,” she said, citing students’ future “career trajectories.”
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4 Responses
I didn’t know you needed International Baccalaureate status to become a terrorist. What kind of career trajectories are we talking about? President Obama was educated as a Muslim and he speaks perfect English. Nooo…it’s the peace loving (probably Jewish) Nicky Kram Rosen that wants equality. How about we teach American kids real communication skills instead of lol,ttyl,omg.
Specialized language programs are good. In most of our schools students have to learn one foreign language (no choice in the matter, Hebrew is mandatory). Some require Yiddish as well. Getting American kids to learn a foreign language is a problem. In the good old days, all high school students had to learn several (usually Latin, sometimes Greek and Hebrew, and later a modern language such as French or German). Standards have fallen. One reason many yeshiva kids survive when they try to work in the goyish world is they have far superior linguistic skills.
If we wanted to use public schools, we could get one that manated Hebrew, however the gedolim (wisely) decided that it is better to have on our schools and learn Torah.
Arabic is actually a fascinating language. It is very similar to both Hebrew and Aramaic and can lend to a deeper appreciation of both. The Rambam wrote the Perush Hamishnayos as well as the Sefer Hamitzvos and the More Nevuchim in Arabic. Although the Rambam is most famous, there were many other Rishonim and Achronim who wrote in Arabic as well. After all, we were in Arabic lands (Bavel, Persia) for a thousand years before Muhammad was born!
More to the point, Arabic will continue to be a very useful language so long as the current war against the jihadists goes on. The armed forces, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. are going to need Arabic-speaking people, and especially ones who are not Arab themselves, and therefore are more likely to be loyal.