Short essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Short - Essay Example Of course students need to know these subjects, if for no other reason than it makes them a well-rounded thinker. However, a better case can be made that teaching them a different language is even more important to their cognitive capacity and their ability to find employment in today’s global economy. Enrollment in foreign language studies today is at its highest level since 1968. Parents and students are realizing the importance of communicating with both allies and adversaries, to interact with them on their terms, not just our own. People in foreign countries appreciate being spoken to in their naà ¯ve language, at least an attempt to and resent the arrogance of some Americans who expect them to speak English. More than half of Europeans speak at least two languages fluently but less than 20 percent of Americans. Until just recently, enrollment in foreign languages classes had been dropping dramatically in public schools reaching a low point in 2008 when only 25 percent of students were taking a foreign language class, only 15 percent of students in rural areas. Only about half of colleges require foreign language credits to graduate, down from two-thirds just a decade previous. This foreign language discrepancy should be concerning. The U.S. needs diplomats, entrepreneurs, b usiness leaders, physicians, technicians, intelligence and military officials, politicians, historians, scientists, artists, managers and writers who can effectively communicate in other languages. Foreign policy experts, vital to the nation’s security, will always be needed and must be able to speak in a variety of languages particularly Farsi (Iran), Mandarin (China) and Arabic, Russian, Bengali (India) among others in emerging economic and military nations. The National Defense Education Act was passed during the height of the Cold war following the launch of Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, by the Russians in 1957. The Act provided federal funds to public schools

What strategies were used by those that are exploited to strike a blow Essay

What strategies were used by those that are exploited to strike a blow agains the system Tie your response to how also Dubois relate to this situation - Essay Example evident to the oppressed people and they may be not able to communicate in mainstream political discourse because of discrimination, disenfranchisement, economics, or other reasons. At this point, many oppressed groups such as Native Americans, Marxists, or anti-Colonial liberation movements may organize armed response through guerrilla movements or armies organized to resist oppression. In America, the non-violent path is represented by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the path or armed resistance by Malcolm X, in the context of the African-American liberation struggle. But in that same context, W.E.B. Dubois life and activism in organizing responses to oppression shows a different division in methods: between the religious and the secular. For both Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. both organized their critiques of repression around a religious base, Islam and Christianity, but Dubois organizes his critiques on more secular themes of humanitarianism, socialism and communism. Thus, we can conclude that there are not only non-violent and violent responses to oppression, but also responses that are based on religious or secular values as fundamental categorizations of resistance types. For example, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. organized resistance responses from the pulpit of a church, through sermons. From there he led greater movements and demonstrations in the larger secular society. Malcolm X organized from the prisons, gangs, and street level of society, where outside minorities felt the crush of oppression through police violence, and he decided on a response based on armed opposition. When he organized from a religious base, it was not from the mosque in the same degree as King, but nevertheless his pilgrimage to Mecca and the Nation of Islam are examples of the inseparability of religion from his philosophy of resistance. With Dubois, we see an organization of resistance from the position of labor movements and trade unions. As Robin Kelley