Tuesday, May 4, 2010

kuar: : Arizona Education Loses The Accent Of America (2010-05-03)

kuar: : Arizona Education Loses The Accent Of America (2010-05-03)

NPR
Arizona Education Loses The Accent Of America
The Arizona Department of Education told schools that teachers with "heavy" accents are no longer qualified to teach in classes where students may still be learning English. Commentator Andrei Codrescu says this law would have eliminated his 40 years of teaching. He wonders who else would have contributions wiped away from the American landscape by such a mandate.Andrei Codrescu is a commentator on All Things Considered and founder of Exquisite Corpse .

Arizona's new immigration law is outrageous to anyone who's had the bad luck of living in a country where fear of the police was a constant source of suppressed rage. A huge weight lifted off my psyche when I came to the U.S. from Communist Romania and was told that the police couldn't stop me just because I still wore my commie trench coat and spoke with an accent.

That was in 1966, and now in Arizona in 2010, the police can target both my trench coat and my accent. The Arizona Department of Education has told schools that teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents are no longer allowed to teach English to kids just learning to speak the language.

Oh boy! Did I land back behind the Iron Curtain half a century ago? My last 40 years of teaching would have never happened if the Arizona law