Oh boy, if comments were solicited from the people of southern California, a couple of new servers would be required to handle the mail.

The trend here is away from multicultural pandering. "English immersion" is the language teaching method of the day — and it seems to work. Los Angeles Unified School District has well over 100 languages represented by the students; a "multicultural" language instruction would result in utter chaos, the Tower of Babel. English (Americanized) is the Mother Tongue and the language of many disciplines including computer science and the internet. I believe language is the source of experience (reality?) and also that multicultural (read — bilingual) instruction grossly interferes with "word as object." Words used with the vagaries of language constructs define who we are, what we see and feel, and even the world at large. I understand that because of developing brain functions language that is not learned by the age of 14 or so is grossly inferior to that learned earlier on. Why clutter up a child's head? Hey, for that matter, why clutter up my head? I love multiculturalism and relish ethnic variety, but as crucial as language is, a single one will be dominant and the one that is taught should be the language of choice (whatever it is) in the society with which one aspires to be communicative in.

If this is truly the Internet Age, then those with social agendas on the teaching block will be aiding an intellectual rift from which an elite will emerge, information haves vs the have-nots. I think this rift is dangerous to individual actualization and to society as a whole; it's already pervasive globally but why perpetuate such foolhardiness when in the end a multi-pronged language approach is bogged down, noisy, and unnecessary? English is cumbersome as it is and takes great focus to begin to master. A "multicultural" approach to education results in mediocrity of many languages and superiority of none.

michaelo

I notice that the spell checker offers "multidimensional" as a correction to "multicultural." This difference could sway my opinion a bit.....