Since we appear to be celebrating educational idiocy lately, here’s a contribution from Don McLeroy, chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, which is currently embroiled in the hair-tearing, gut-wrenching, eyeball-poking process of adopting a new English Language Arts curriculum. Actual teachers and former teachers (not consultants, so who cares) raised concerns that the proposed reading list contained very few (4 out of 150, to be exact) books concerning Hispanic culture. The student population in Texas is approximately 49% Hispanic, which (because there are other races here, too, believe it or not) makes them… the majority. Yep.
The ever-sensitive Mr. McLeroy’s response, according to Michelle De La Rosa of the San Antonio Express-News, was apparently prompted by a love of the English language and a profoundly limited culinary experience:
However, McLeroy said he directed a group of experts to add examples of “good literature” to the list. He said students should spend their time in English class learning English and reading literature that will help prepare them for college.
“What good does it do to put a Chinese story in an English book?” he said. “You learn all these Chinese words, OK. That’s not going to help you master … English. So you really don’t want Chinese books with a bunch of crazy Chinese words in them. Why should you take a child’s time trying to learn a word that they’ll never ever use again?”
He added that some words — such as chow mein — might be useful.
Suck it, Colorado and Virginia. Texas will see your racism, ignorance and incompetence… and raise you one Intelligent Design asshat in charge of the whole shebang. We win!
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I still say putting the asshat in charge of the state university system trumps your state school board loop job. However, I’ll concede that you clearly have ensconced a man with a … ummm … pioneering spirit….
Did you check his website? Inspirational.
We should take more Chinese courses today. As China become stronger and stronger, more and more foreigner become interested in learning Chinese, and there have been many websites to teach foreigners Chinese. Check the site http://www.learnchinese.bj.cn/
That website is unbelievable. Not to mention ungrammatical and badly designed.