Sorry I am so late, as I did not know that Kat had a blog
posted. I think that as the world continues to seem to shrink, that we as a
nation need to ready ourselves for both the opportunities and trials that come
with this fact of life. As Kat very thoughtfully brought up, studying abroad
has many benefits. Just think of all the countries of the world that send
millions and millions of students every year just to the United States and
Canada. Travel and language barriers are being diminished at constant rates. We
consider this along with the fact of our liberal arts education in which we are
supposed to prepare ourselves for the future, but do not put enough fair
emphasis on the fact that the future is going to be a global one. To be
adequately prepared for these changing times, I do not think studying a
language is sufficient enough, but for all of those who are able I think they
should take the next step and spend a semester immersed in the very culture of
the language they wish to learn. It is thought by some that at the current rate
of events, that Chinese will be the next big language of the business world,
and will be similar to English in the fact that many nations will learn to
speak it for business purposes. Though I do not take away from the obvious
benefit of learning the language, I think It would be exponentially more
helpful to spend at least some time, though not necessarily a semester in the
country to learn the customs behind the language, and the people you will be communicating
with. It is as Students of this shrinking planet that we must prepare to not
only live in it, but to thrive regardless of the country you are in.
To take a point of view that I think Daniel enjoys taking, studying abroad is pointless. Why would I go to a foreign country when the foreigners could come to us and learn English? America is the best country on Earth and people should come here to see what it's like to live like a king every day. There is no benefit for me to go to Barcelona and learn Spanish if I never leave America. Sure if they come here I would have to speak to them, but that is where my best idea ever, forcing the whole world to learn English (of course English would be now called American), would come into play. This solves all of the problems that I would ever face
ReplyDeleteYou both do love to play the devil's advocate! I wonder, however, if there are not many more people who really do adopt your position in all seriousness than most of us would like to admit.
DeleteIt's interesting how the conciousness of the shrinking world is already there in a writer like Marx, who sees it of course as a good thing, but also as something that might have negative consequences. One of those is the tendency for people to become insular in the face of such expanding horizons. I think you are exactly right that study abroad and cultural interchange more generally can be a way of combatting this.
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