I just found out my kid's kindergarten class is teaching Russian 40 mins per day.

[Sympthsical]

174. So this about grinding a cultural axe

French culture and language is better than Russian culture and language. I mean, you do you, but both have good things to offer.

Frankly, I wish I had been taught Mandarin, Japanese, or Korean from a younger age. Chinese languages in particular with their reliance on tones is a lot harder to grasp as an adult than as a child. I can speak some Korean, but only because I dated a Korean for awhile who spoke limited English at the time. It was kind of learn some things out of necessity.

But you're also not getting the point. This isn't about the cultures. This is about giving the children language skills outside of the specific language. It's just like teaching music theory to kids even if they don't play an instrument. It gets them understanding concepts in different ways. The object of the exercise is how the brain works - not the cultural question.

Getting bogged down and obsessed with the cultural question means you're kind of not understanding the purpose. People have really made heroic efforts in this thread to iterate the educational importance of what the district is doing, and it's just not sinking in because the cultural issue is forefront (and based on politics, I think).

Is putting politics and culture wars ahead of education something a Democrat wants to be doing? Because that kind of sounds like the other side.