Sonya, a German master's student studying English here at Swansea who has befriended our flat, has become thoroughly impressed by the American education system.
Instead of spending our elementary recesses conversing in French and Latin as the Germans might (at least they have the options of taking those classes), we Americans did things like seeing who could put their feet behind their head and/or flare their nostrils the largest and the longest, et cetera, et cetera.
One night last week, over un-American salami-pepperoni-sweet corn pizza and potato wedges with barbecue sauce, my flatmates and I entertained Sonya with our stupid American tricks.
Anne, a student from France, and Farydeh (pronounced fair-day), a student from Ireland, also were amazed at our range of useless abilities.
An outside observer of our conversation might have thought that to be an American, you must know what it means to wiggle your ears, touch your nose with your tongue, curl your tongue, make a clover-leaf shape with your tongue, raise one eyebrow, raise the other eyebrow, lick your elbow, make an oinking noise in your throat without using your nose and pop every joint possible in your body. And, that you must understand that the louder each pop is, the more satisfying and entertaining it is.
Sonya's eyes got bigger and bigger the longer we went on, each person throwing their particular talents into the mix when there were lulls in the conversation. When the popping contest began, my flatmate Leah was the all-out winner. She started with her toes, switched to her knuckles, and then to her wrists, shoulders, hips and of course, her back. It was ridiculous. I've heard a lot of people's backs crack, but hers definitely made the top-five list for raunchiness.
By the end of our show and tell, Sonya had burst out in protest, shouting out Nein! and reverting to her native language at the disgusting nature of it all, particularly Leah's popping. Though it might sound like we were torturing her, the entire time Sonya was giggling and joked she would spend the night thinking and training so the next day we could have the same conversation and she could compete as well.
Before this charade, we Americans had been asking Sonya, Anne and Farydeh about the differences between our school systems. Sonya knows German, French, English and Latin, which she starting learning at or before age 10. Anne knows French and English. Farydeh was born in Wales, but only knows English. And we Americans have taken a smattering of Romance language classes, but barely can piece together full sentences beyond Hello and How are you?
So the joke the whole time was that our tricks were what Americans really learn in school. After all, the evening was entertaining, and that's when Sonya started calling us the Crazy Americans.
But how funny was it, really? What did that conversation say about the American education system, and on a larger scale, what did it say about American attitudes toward being a global nation? Most of the corporate world speaks English, but not teaching foreign languages in elementary school is just one example of how the U.S. systematically alienates itself from the rest of the world. So while our conversation seemed to be fairly irrelevant, it spoke volumes about the relationship between the U.S. and the rest of the world.
17 Archives
Jessica Cuffman
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