Immersion debate needs some reason
OK, everyone: take a deep breath.
After a week of letters, marches, press conferences and rhetoric that has sometimes bordered on hysteria, it is time for everyone involved in the current French Immersion debate to take a step back and regain their composure.
The decision by Education Minister Kelly Lamrock to phase out Early Immersion in favour of a 'one-system-fits-all' French second language program has caused outrage in many quarters. Even the province's official languages commissioner has waded into the debate and some doctors are now saying they will move if their children can't have access to Early Immersion.
Before this debate gets completely derailed by the hysteria, it is worthwhile re-examining why this decision was made and what it really means.
Our current system of four different entry points for Immersion (Early, Late, Intensive, Core French) does not work. There can be no debate about that. As a province we are not even coming close to graduating all children -- and there should be an emphasis on ALL -- with a working knowledge of French.
Secondly, parents who place their children in any of the Immersion programs should go in knowing none of the options will make their children truly bilingual. Some of our graduates may be able to hold down retail or service jobs and get by with passable French, but they are not bilingual.
New Brunswick has paid a steep price the last 30 years for insisting its education system not only teach our children subjects like Math, History, English, Science, but also to make them as bilingual as possible during those 12 years. The result: we languish at the bottom of the pack when it comes to international test scores. We are producing generations of children who are mediocre -- compared to their peers in other jurisdictions -- in both subject grasp and in second-language grasp. The status quo is not an option.
For those parents who want a true immersion experience, perhaps putting their children in the French-language school system is the best option. It is obvious that for them, acquiring second language skills takes precedence over any other educational outcome. For parents who want their children to acquire subject matter in their native language, and have available a second-language program that will give their children working knowledge of French, the reforms proposed by Lamrock make sense.
Whatever parents want or decide, we urge them to cool the rhetoric. The more emotional we get, the less reasonable we become.
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Regarding the second to last paragraph 'For those parents ...' : The 2 suggestions you make and the support you have been showing for the 'decision' made by the incompetent Minister of Education indicate that you are not clearly understanding the concerns of the public, nor do you understand the workings of the Education System in New Brunswick.
First, 'putting' children in the French-language system is not an option for many parents because of various laws. Second, the reforms proposed by Lamrock DO NOT MAKE SENSE, especially in light of the clarifications we have received from Drs Netten and Germain which appeared in your paper March 19th.
Are you, Editor, part of the Lamrock political clan or are you simply an example of mediocrity?
So the scapegoating continues unabated.
Recently, one of the most highly respected heart surgeons in the world, a Moncton native,
was profiled in this paper, and one of the points he emphasized was that learning French as a second language was one of the defining moments of his life. Prior to early immersion, he was unilingual anglophone.
Anglophone students in this province have poor grades in English also. Is it even remotely possible
that many of the reasons for failure have nothing to do with learning French?
You refer to hysteria and basically ask for reason. To me, this is a good way to silence people when,
in fact, what is emerging, even on boards such as this one is proof of linguistic misunderstandings,
relative to issues never resolved. Silencing the people is not the answer. This is important, hence
the influx of letters. Silence is not the answer.
There are only two entry points for immersion, not the four this editorial says there are,
they being early and middle, or grades one and six. The Intensive program, with grade
five entry, does not yet exist except perhaps as a pilot program in a couple of districts,
and Core is not an immersion program at all.
Many grads of EFI were also under the impression that they were bilingual, and have created careers around that fact. They will also be dismayed to learn they are not bilingual, they are only English people who can speak and read French with relative ease.
I have been collecting stories from people who have been through the French Immersion program. These stories describe how being bilingual has helped their careers. I am collecting these stories into an anthology that I will be sending to the provincial government and the media. People can send their experiences to immersion.nb@gmail.com.
After this misinformed editorial, I hope that this newspaper will publish these stories.
The fact is, and I believe he makes this point very well, is that people are becoming irrational over this. The disgruntled people seem to put a second language much higher than a sound education. You scream and yell and call for resignations when they take away french. Where was that anger when it was released that NB has the LOWEST rates in math, science, and literacy.
Who cares, I guess, as long as they can speak marginal french. right? I mean that is the sole purpose of education in NB, isn't it?
Sure seems like it.