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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This AGAIN?

The bottom line is that you can get into a decent to good college without taking four years of a language in high school, but the very good and best colleges want to see four years, and why not? Foreign language is important. It’s a complicated world. Speaking a second language is an important thing. It’s a lot more important than a lot of the other bullshit classes that you have to take in high school. Why is everybody so afraid of foreign language? [/quote]

I think because they can be time consuming. Foreign language classes are just a bunch of rote memorization, you cannot get around the time needed to sit and memorize no how “smart” you are.  The smart kids in all the AP science, math, English classes that are trying to get into top colleges, want to put their brain power toward the tough and complex concepts that come with these classes.  They don’t want to devote a significant time chuck to a bunch of word memorizing week and week.  But they have to because they need an A[/quote]

Math is a bunch of rote memorization at the beginning, too. And through most of high school math, it still doesn't require deep thought or analysis. My highly humanities oriented kid had no problem sailing through calculus in high school and it was pretty rote for him, just practicing similar problems. Do you know how many times he asked me, "why do I need this, I'll never use it" - and I had no answer as in my life and 30 year career I've probably not used much more than basic math skills from time to time.

I'm not arguing math should be eliminated. I just do not understand why so many Stem focused people think subjects like world language are worthless. Even when you get to APs, Stem people act like AP maths and hard sciences are the "hardest" APs. That humanities oriented kid I mentioned above had no sweat getting 5s on AP calc BC and physics C (he literally didn't study - it was senior year and he was into college) - however, he did struggle to get a 4 on the AP spanish exam. [/quote]

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