Opinion: What’s Chinese for “I bagged my homework”?

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The New York Times recently published a story about a spike in the teaching of Chinese in public schools – well, the public schools of prosperous Westchester County, anyway. But, in a variation of a phrase found in every story like this, readers were assured: “What is happening in Westchester reflects a national trend.”

It may even be true. Citing the Asia Society, the NYT reported that the number of Chinese-language programs in prekindergarten (!) through 12th grade in the United States has grown by almost 200 percent since 2004. The explanation – you guessed it – is China’s growing influence in the global economy. (Last year, the NYT featured a story about another trend: a surge of Arabic instruction in New York schools, attributed to raised consciousness about the Middle East after 9/11. But Arabic is so 2008!)

The supposed boom in the teaching of Chinese is part of a long tradition of current-events-inspired language instruction. In 1963, my sixth-grade class, which was still recovering from nuclear jitters over the Cuban Missile Crisis, was offered the chance during the summer to study Russian.

Presumably the inspiration was a desire to catch up with the Commies post-Sputnik. But since this was a Catholic school, some of us suspected that the ulterior motive was to teach us enough Russian to be able to tell the invading Soviets in their own language that we would die before we spat on the crucifix. I have retained little of the Russian I learned except my nickname, ‘Misha.’

The implication of language trend stories is that U.S. students now being made fluent in French or Spanish will now turn their talented tongues to Chinese and Arabic. That may be the case in Scarsdale. But is there anyone who believes that American high school students in any numbers really master a foreign language, Occidental, Oriental or Levantine? Why bother? These days everyone speaks (or texts) English.

The problem may be that foreigners speak English better than Americans. I recently swapped emails with a student in Rwanda who is helping me with a project about international competitive debate. His English was, as they say, impeccable, which might make you think that he is a native of Rwanda, where English is one of three official languages. But no – I mean Nej! The kid’s actually a transplant from Denmark.

If fluency in English will determine who succeeds in the global economy, I vote for Scandinavia. During last year’s presidential campaign, I browsed YouTube for comments by furriners about the election and U.S. politics in general.

The most amazing specimen came from a teenager in Norway. His argument may strike you as sophomoric – hey, he was a sophomore, or whatever they call them in Norway – but his English was so flawless that I sent the link to friends and asked them if they thought any U.S. teenager could have been so at ease in another language. (Answer: No.)

Here’s the video. See what you think (he takes a while to get to the America-bashing). And just hope he and his classmates don’t speak Chinese.