grad students/ outreach

[Olga Yokoyama]

Welcome to another great idea! Third graders should not be beneath
anybody. I have done presentations to elementary school kids and it's
rewarding. In the editorial paper in Journal of Slavic Linguistics that
is due to come out any day now (I suppose - isn't it, George?) I invite
all the Slavists to "donate" a day of service to local pre-college
institutions, just as we donate to he local charity in December. S miru
po nitke - golomu rubashka. It takes many people to affect the
youngsters' ideas about foreign lgs: in my daughter's public school in
Cambridge, MA, kids insists that there are only 3 lgs in the world:
English (for white people), Spanish (for dark people with not slanted
eyes) and Chinese (for darker people with slanted eyes)! With a "kartina
mire" of this sort, little can be expected in terms of college
enrlollments in Russian, forget Polish or Bulgarian!
I hope more people join in with your suggestion.

Olga T. Yokoyama