My parents always say they’re going to do that but they never follow through. 
Considering that the US is a Federal government made up of 50 seperate States, usually the education is determined by the State. So I can’t speak for the other 49 states, but I think California public schools should teach Spanish in middle school (at least) so by the time one’s in High School, they can learn Mandarin, German, or French. I like how in Europe, how most everyone knows at least one person a foreign language. I wish I could say the same about the United States.
Do you guys have any mandatory languages you have to learn in the States? I mean, I know it varies but typically speaking. We have mandatory French from grades 4-9. I would rather learn pretty much any other language than French.
The only mandatory language to learn in the States is English, as English is only the official language in the United States. (For those who don’t know, our friends in the Great White North have two official languages, French and English.)
Some high schools require you take one year of foreign languages, others two to graduate. Other schools have no language requirements. It really depends the state you live in and what type of school you attend.
Nearly every high school offers at least Spanish, and larger ones French. My school was lucky, we also offered German, but it was recently cut due to budget programs.
I took French for 3 years. 
I was gonna take Spanish but never got it.
thewisecookiesheet: I’ve experienced the American education system in two International Schools (for expatriates in foreign countries) and the level of difficulty for Maths and Science is a joke (They’re still teaching negative numbers in 6th grade?). Although we get to do more interesting Science experiments like rockets, hand-made rollercoasters and picking through owl pellets, compared to Singapore’s boring-as-h*ll experiments like finding the center of gravity of an irregular object or testing a leaf for chlorophyll. The strength of the American curriculum is in the Humanities, but unfortunately, Americans don’t take an active interest in History or Geography, which often leads to the stereotype of Americans being world-ignorant, etc.
Have you watched ‘Waiting for Superman’? I highly recommend it, it’s a little biased, but there’s some degree of truth about the ridiculous bureaucracy of the education system. Kinda reminds of U.S. law-enforcement and military. FBI, DEA, US Marshal, Mint Police… Ranger, SEAL, Delta Force, CIA, NSA, etc. The amount of agencies with three-letter acronyms is bewildering. But the most heartbreaking moment of the movie is at the end, when the kids (who were the subjects of the film) literally get their fates decided by a lottery ball machine. 
I guess what’s grinding my gears now is that this is the last stretch of my formal education, and I can’t be *ssed to start working on my final assignments.
That’s a great language to take. Reminds me of my le Frawwwnce heri-teege. I took three years of German in high school.
TDIT- I’m sad to say that not only Americans, but from my experience, people from many places don’t take as much interest in history and geography as they should.
If you know me, I’m a BIIIG history nerd/freak and have an obsession and knack for it. It actually runs in the family, being good at knowing about history comes natural to my siblings and I.
But anyway, people should care more. Why? History is doomed to repeat if we don’t know, study, and understand it. In my opinion, one of the greatest contributions you can do to your society is know and respect history. It’s the basis of our culture, and history is being made right now.
My U.S. History teacher literally didn’t teach us one thing this year. Good thing the text is at the end of next year. Ugh, he disgusts me. He possibly ruined my graduation next year.
As for the languages, I wish I knew some German! That’s pretty cool!
EJE: On a semi-related note, I must credit Terry Deary and Martin Brown for their excellent ‘Horrible Histories’ series for awakening my interest in world history. I bought several of his books as a teen (“The Barmy British Empire”, “France”, “USA” and “Horrible History of the World”) and I still have them now! I hope to write a history book for kids like that one day, maybe for Singapore, because that’s the country whose history I’m most familiar with.
I believe there’s an ‘American Horrible Histories’ spin-off, though I haven’t read any of the books yet. You should also check out ‘Horrible Science’ (although Nick Arnold is less matured and sophisticated than Deary and Tony De Saulle’s illustrations are more over-the-top disgusting) and ‘Horrible Geography’ (I like Anita Ganeri’s prose and Mike Philips’ style).
And I know I raved about it before in the ‘Books’ thread, but if you’re interested in learning about Rio de Janerio’s culture, I can’t recommend Ruy Castro’s ‘Rio: Carnival Under Fire’ highly enough. Don’t listen to the one or two negative comments on the Amazon page, if you want a warts-and-all look at the city from a carioca perspective, this is worth a read if it’s at your public library.
thedriveintheatre- Sweetness! I gave a longer response to your similar post in the Books thread. Have you seen the TV show Histeria! ? If you like those books, you’ll probably like Histeria!.
Hmmmmm…when advertisers wear out an admittedly funny commercial to the point where it isn’t funny anymore…
showing the same commercial 3 times in a row during commercial break…
I was watching National Geo channel and they had a commercial for a show called Locked up Aboard every commercial break.
Why do they do that? They have to know it’s annoying…
I totally and whole-heartedly agree with this statement! One of my biggest pet peeves is ignorance. Kids now a days say “History is boring, I don’t want to learn about it. And who cares - it’s not like I’ll make a difference in the world, anyway.”
The fact is, like Kenzie said, learning about your country - and other countries’ - history is a big contribution to society! When we’re informed about how our world was shaped, and all the mistakes as well as great deeds that were done, we can learn from them and prevent similar situations from happening, as well as follow the patterns of the good moves that were made.
Also, the more we learn about different influential figures in the world, we can find one - or several - that we gravitate to. They can become our role models, people we can strive to become more like. Remember that in some cases, one or two people changed the world. We can do the same!
little chef
I 100% agree…-hugs little chef- How are you, sweetie?
Hahaha “The Great White North”. Some of the things you say are so cute eje. Our school was going to offer Spanish as well but it didn’t end up working out. I forgot, we also have Mohawk classes mainly for Aboriginal students or others who are interested in it. I would love to have taken German if I had the chance! That’s really cool.
On the topic of history and geography; I’m not too fond of history but it is definetely important. I love geography though. I just love learning about the planet and how it works. Anything about space too just blows my mind and fascinates me. Back to history, I’ve got a question. So in North America we learn about the world wars right? How we fought in them and won etc. What about over in Germany? How do they teach about Hitler and concentration camps and all that awful stuff that happened in their own country? I’ve always wondered that…
Me too…how on Earth do they teach it?
“Now kids, let’s take a look at Hitler. One of the most hated people on Earth who had control over our home land, started a war and killed an unbelievable amount of people” I just can’t imagine it. 