LETTER: Student says ‘these teachers have helped us understand our world’
May 24, 2024Dear Dr. Mike Leichliter & School Board,
I have heard through the grapevine that people will be cut due to the fact that our budget failed. I understand the need to cut costs so you can pass this budget, but I would also like to add that I think cutting language teachers is a step too far.
It is said that learning, or simply hearing a language at a younger age, will help you learn other languages later on in life, but it also gives us perspective on the world. We live in a union that, clearly stated, isn't very culturally diverse. If you have this sort of an option for children to hear a language and maybe get a sense of the culture, it could give them some very needed views of the world. In other words, a way to understand other children who come into the school district not originally speaking English and how difficult it could be to change over.
I understand that having multiple language teachers in this district for elementary alone, two for the middle schools, and one for the high school is a lot of teachers, but it doesn't seem right to cut back to the ways of the 20th century with language only starting in the 7th and 8th grade. A possible other way could be to have two elementary school teachers rotating around the five elementary schools in our district, and possibly only one for both middle schools. Or maybe even the high school language teacher teaches language to the 7th and 8th graders at Harwood and Crossett stays with the same teacher.
I am speaking of this for my first-ever French teacher, Madame Weidel, who started a small French club at the Waterbury Congregational Church. Then my elementary French teacher, Madame Chartrand, who started about halfway through my years at Brookside Elementary. She introduced us to the motion of really speaking another language, and for my current French teacher, Madame Sophie, who has expanded my interest and love of the French language.
If I had not started learning this language so early on, I wouldn't have had as much time as I've had to really decide that I wanted to learn French. If I had started only last year, I would've still been unsure because I hadn't had as much time in all of the language options.
These teachers, each in their own ways, have given me so much perspective and knowledge, especially my current French teacher who has not only expanded my knowledge in a literate and linguistic sense, but also in a geographical and historical sense as well. If these women hadn't been a part of my education, I would've gone through school without as much knowledge as I could've had.
I do understand that cuts have to be made, but I feel that language is not the department to tamper with, as it can be so useful and enjoyable and eye-opening. If nothing else, please take into account the effect this would have on children, as every single child in Crossett Brook, at the very least, is taking a language, and for the ways that these teachers have helped us understand our world.
Thank you for hearing me out,
Hazel Rost
Duxbury
8th grade student at CBMS