OK, I will start this thread - Sela

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What's sad about the newer posts of this thread is that instead of focusing on the challenges of the school, the Sela boosters are taking the cowardly and easy way by calling skeptics anti-Semetic. Seems really shallow and pathetic and certainly will give interested families pause to go elsewhere. Our children's education is the most important thing there is. Period. Being skeptical is not only appropriate, but the responsibility of good parents. Also, just because many people, Jewish people included, have expressed that Hebrew is self-limiting in numerous threads on DCUM doesn't make them anti-Semetic. It does, however, make Sela boosters seem desperate and lazy when they so quickly pull the race card in opposition to the criticism. If nothing else, this interaction leaves much to be desired with respect to meeting real Sela parents. I hope you all aren't represented by the boosters up-thread.

You're having a lot of trouble keeping in mind that not everyone who supports language immersion schools is a Sela booster. I have two children and we're at a different DCI feeder school. I see a lot of value in adding more languages to the DCI mix, and the more the better. If you don't care for Hebrew, then simply don't have your children take it. However a knee-jerk reaction against the option for others smells fishy.

Approximately the same number of people speak Hebrew as Finnish, though somehow I doubt we'd hear so many complaints about how "self-limiting" or "useless" Finnish is. That raises eyebrows.

NP, I am a parent of a child in a DCI feeder, and I do not see the value at this time of adding more languages. I am skeptical how DCI will handle Mandarin and French at a school that will be overwhelmingly dominated by Spanish. How will they support the three languages and fufill their charter. BTW--I would not support Finnish either.

This. All the respect in the world for my Jewish brothers and sisters, but I just don't think that Hebrew is appropriate for DCI. They'll have enough time supporting French and Chinese with the small classes from those schools. Hebrew would create even more challenges. As a DCI feeder parent I'd like my child to focus on the three being offered and would actually be opposed to him Hebrew- not because I have issues with Jewish people and their culture, but because I'd want him to take what I believe are more useful languages (Spanish, Mandarin, French, Arabic, and Russian in that order). While Arabic and Russian aren't in the mix (nor should they be with the difficulty in supporting the three already), if there were options to expand, Id support those two. Also, unless SELA finds a way to become fully subscribed (i'm understanding it's under subscribed at the moment), it wouldn't graduate a class large enough to enter DCI anyways. A lot of this banter is just speculative fodder in my opinion.

Hello! Just out of curiosity, how did you decide that Spanish, Mandarin, French, Arabic and Russian were more useful languages? I'm interested in knowing the basis of your preference of language selection for your children. What determines a language's usefulness in your opinion? Thanks so much!

NP, but to answer your own question scroll back a few pages where the numbers of speakers of each language was listed. In general, the "utility" or "usefullness" of a language is measured by a combination of how many people in the world speak the language, how much business is transacted in that language world-wide, and how common/uncommon it is for Americans to speak the language (so aside from immigrants, and those sharing the country's ethnicity, how many non-native and non-ethnic Americans speak that language)?

Even just looking at each one of those questions alone, there is no way you can conclude Hebrew is one of the more useful languages. When you combine all of those measures, Hebrew again doesn't make it by a long shot. And, as others have pointed out, neither does Finnish or several other languages. And as a new poster in this conversation, I echo the point that it's unfortunate that saying this point about the utility is described by some as anti-semetic. When talking about opening and running a school, when choosing a school for your child, when deciding which schools to partner with... the issue of how useful and how much of a world-wide language a language is is CRUCIAL. You simply cannot responsibly have that conversation without considering these factors.

If, for your family, there are other factors that make Hebrew useful or very desireable, awesome, then you are making an informed choice and it's good for you that the school exists. And if you're a family who just wants bilingual education and doesn't care at all which language, again, that is good for you and why not do Sela? You can get in and it's still bilingual so all the brain and other benefits should be there.

But for those considering the school without a connection or desire specifically for Hebrew, or those wanting to choose a language with career or college success as a major factor in which language is chosen, then the above issues must be considered. And to call someone anti-Semetic for raising them is ignorant and also damages your stance in supporting the school. It makes it look like those who attend/run/support the school are out of touch with reality. (And yes, I know this is the anonymous internet and there's no way of telling who is who, but whoever is raising anti-semitism in the conversation about the problems at the school or questioning the utility of Hebrew on the American and world stages is damaging the school's image here.

Thanks so much for your feedback and I appreciate your perspective!