Comment by xattt
11 hours ago
The one-dimensional mentality of anti-intellectualism is absurd. I have heard parents outside of our school but in my community talk down French Immersion programs (versus English schooling) saying that people put their children in for the wrong reasons. I don’t know what the explicit reasons were in this case, but I am assuming that the other parent means academic overachievement.
Learning calculus or French can be beneficial, especially when the glass ceiling in certain workplaces is whether or not you’re bilingual. However, the point that’s getting missed is the metaexperience that consciously or subconsciously shapes the way the child interacts with the world later on.
Somehow I feel like the workplaces with a glass ceiling over bilingual is so small as to be immaterial.
Where I live (Oregon, USA) there are very few jobs that require it but a lot of jobs where speaking a second language might get you hired over someone else.
Most jobs that are focused on interacting with people benefit from speaking a second language if it’s a common language in your community: nursing, teaching, customer service, social work, etc.
I’ve seen job listings mention it as a nice-to-have and know bilingual friends who have gotten those jobs.
I only speak one language well but I wish I spoke more. I hope my son (and future other kids) learn multiple languages. But not for job/economic reasons: it just seems good for your brain and interesting for how you think about the world.
One example: I worked for an Alphabet company with some very, very accomplished people. When the drawdown on the project came, the people who were bi- or multi-lingual all kept their jobs. They were more useful in more situations for a multinational project. The 36 people let go probably wish they'd spent a little more time studying Japanese, Spanish or Norwegian.
Why Norwegian? Why not Luxembourgish then?
I wonder. In my world, almost everyone I know is bilingual and I would not have met them and worked with them otherwise. So many of my coworkers are from countries where English is not required but they were fortunate to pick it up as a 2nd language for one reason or another and now work in a high paying company that requires English.
Still, I get, over all, the number is small. They could have all had a different career in their native language.
Knowing English as a second language and Dutch as a first language is different than knowing, for example, Dutch as a second language and English as a first.
I know people in both camps. I have more respect for English speakers learning Dutch than for Dutch speakers learning English. Even though I respect both. But the simple truth is: there's a lot of incentive to learn English. There is not a lot of incentive to learn Dutch.