[lg policy] reactions to NYTimes article about Russian in Estonia

Wed Jun 9 14:38:49 UTC 2010

New York Times on Estonia: “Schools as Linguistic Battlegrounds”
Today’s New York Times explores the situation of Estonia’s
Russian-language learning schools, describing how the teachers are
forced to learn Estonian language and this could be slowly becoming
the sector where Estonian society will suffer the most for its
internal division..

Interviewing some teachers from Pae Gymnasium, one of the best schools
in Tallinn, NYT reporters discovered that they are openly afraid of
language inspectors who have the right to fine or discipline public
employees who do not speak competent Estonian.

The fear, felt in schools as in many other segments of Estonian
society, comes from the general impression that language inspectors
would not be particularly interested in what people answer to their
questions rather than how they do it – or, at least, this is what the
columns of the New York Times reported.

Estonia has been mounting a determined campaign to elevate the status
of its native language and to marginalize Russian, the tongue of its
former colonizer and apparently this is the reason why public schools
like Pae Gymnasium, where children have been taught in Russian for
long years, have turned into linguistic battlegrounds.

The National Language Inspectorate is in charge of ensuring the
Russian schools teachers’ knowledge of Estonian language, but
according to the NY Times the local Russians are not pleased with
inspectors’ work: “The agency has only 18 inspectors, it is such a
provocative symbol of the country’s language regulations that even
Amnesty International has criticized its tactics as heavy-handed.”

In December 2008 every third teacher of Pae Gymnasium failed the
language exam. One of them was 57-year-old biology and geography
teacher Olga Muravjova who has to learn devilishly difficult language
at her age. Even the teachers who passed the exam said that it was
difficult. English teacher Natalja Širokova said that it was very
stressful because of the fear of making a mistake.

Ilmar Tomusk, director general of the National Language Inspectorate,
told to the NY Times that the greatest challenge in Estonia’s language
policy is the Russian schools teachers’ level of Estonian language,
because it is lower than what is demanded from students.

The director of the Pae Gymnasium, Izabella Riitsaar, agrees with
Tomusk that a person who lives in this country has to know this
country’s language but, at the same time, she understands the concern
of her employees because no one likes taking exams.

[ Here the article that appeared on NYT Columns]
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/world/europe/08estonia.html?ref=europe

Comments (11)
linda kivi says:
June 8, 2010 at 5:49 pm
this article is rubbish. Im sry to say that but you have no idea what
is going on in estonia. we have russians here and many other non
nationalities who can live here knowing very little of estonian
language.and I do apologise of my lack of english …how do we
discriminate them here? our national language is estonian language and
if you are a civil cervant of especialy a teacher your language should
be perferct… at least close to it. we live here with russians wo have
been here at last 60 years or more and they still cant speak a word of
our language coz we are stupid enough to learn theyrs. they have
everything here to live perfectly good life here. there are jobs for
them, television, radio, nevspapers. they get along with estonians
here as well because we try to speak russian to them. and that
language is not easy to learn eighter. my point is that we dont
discriminate them…we have nothing against them, they are good people
with good values and interesting culture. god knows we want to get
along with them.

Reply
Giovanni Angioni says:
June 8, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Dear Linda,

Far from me to defend Merlyn and the NYT – they can perfectly do it by
themselves – but I totally disagree with you.

I worked on this issue for couple of years now and for many European
papers, going around in Estonia to visit different realities as
meeting with governmental officials and I always found that the
country is doing something wrong.

You claim that there is no discrimination and here I propose you
something: how do you call separating the kids a way before their teen
age only because of the passport they even do not have yet cause they
are too young?

How do you name the fact that the country separate kids for something
they did not choose (roots aka. past) affecting then their future as –
let’s not forget about this – if Russians go to Russian schools…then
everyone who wants to try going for higher education is obliged to
attend university courses in Estonian?

I offer you to read:
http://tallinn.cafebabel.com/en/post/2008/10/26/D... and, honestly, I
would love to have your opinion on what is written there.

Let’s keep this discussion alive! It can only do good to talk about education!

Cordially,

Reply
Liina says:
June 8, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Dear Giovanni,

while I Linda’s comment is more of an emotional, nationalistic take
(Estonia being a small country occupied for some 700 years in the past
and all that) and I can’t take it seriously, I can’t quite agree with
you either.

While I too feel that the state is doing something wrong (or just too
little) I can’t see the discrimination in it from your take. I agree
that it would make sense to lower the standards required of teachers
from some age level (no new tricks for an old dog), given that they
teach their subject in a non- Estonian language, but in general I see
the tough language policy still as a benefit for the Russian community
in Estonia.

There are higher education institutes in Estonia that are Russian
language based (e.g. Cathrine’s College), but studies have shown that
after graduating such a college, you can expect a 36% lower wage than
of those who graduate an Estonian language based curriculum. While
people fluent in both Estonian and Russian are much sought after, a
person only fluent in Russian and say English has not much more to do
in Estonia than become a sales person in a souvenir store or leave the
country.

So my take is that the better Russians in Estonia are in Estonian, the
more chances they have of becoming successful there. I’ll end my
comment with a link to the blog of a person who actually took the test
himself, being a native English speaker. I find it an enjoyable read:

http://vellovikerkaar.blogspot.com/2010/02/bardak...

Reply
Kärt says:
June 9, 2010 at 1:11 am
Hmm okay, here comes my take on this.

People’s reactions are indeed emotional, defensive and they sometimes
(or should I say rather often  ) go too far, but there’s a reason for
that. While I can’t understand people who say there’s no
discriminating going on here (honestly, are you saying there aren’t
people who would employ an Estonian rather than a Russian solely
because of their ethnicity, no matter how good their language skills
are? I’m willing to bet there are) and that -is- a serious problem, in
all fairness, our language kind of does need protection.

There are a mere one million Estonian speakers in the whole world,
which means that there’s a constant threat of simply getting run over
by bigger and more widely used languages. Now in the last 800 years,
there have been around four decades when our language has had any kind
of an official status and even now that it’s supposed to be the state
language, we can’t talk to a shopkeeper or a dentist in our own native
tounge. In the only place in the world where it is actually spoken,
mind you. Russian again is pretty far from facing extinction, is it
not?

I’m not saying the system is perfect or that there aren’t problems
caused by too agressive language policies and prejudice between the
two ethnic groups, far from it. But I don’t see what’s wrong with
expecting a good level language competence from people working in the
field of education, and quite frankly that NY Times article does not
do us justice.

Reply
karLos says:
June 9, 2010 at 5:42 am
the fact of the matter is these days estonians arent interested in
learning russian – so if russians don’t finally after so many years
condescend to learning some estonian it’s the russians who will
eventually not be able to get jobs or interact with the majority of
people in the country except a small pocket in the north east.
russians need to realise if they want to live there, go to university
there they’ll need to learn some eesti keel. in 50 years when the
stubborn old russians are all gone this probably wont be an issue, but
teaching the kids estonian now is the best way to include them in
mainstream society tomorrow. expecting their teachers to speak some
estonian is absolutely necessary.

Reply
Gleb2 says:
June 9, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Under the Soviet Communism school and university education in Estonia
was available both in Estonian and Russian languages, there was no
Language Inspectorate. And now, under Democracy Estonian is mandatory
everywhere, not only public sector (here the NYT is wrong). Which is
more oppressive? Estonian propaganda says Communism.

Reply
Mario says:
June 9, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Firstly, I know that there are courses in russian in Tallinn Technical
University, I don’t know about other universities.

Any person who doesn’t know the local language will simply not be
hired to any workplace where any kind of communication with customers
is required or with largely estonian co-workers. That includes
barmaids, hairdressers, waitresses, cashiers, not to speak of any
managerial roles. the locals are not required to speak russian, and
especially the younger generation don’t speak it fluently.

In my mind, schools are the place where children are given the best
possible opportunities to succeed in life and if not knowing the local
language hurts these opportunities so greatly, teachers have the moral
obligation to be ready to prepare children in that aspect and so are
subject to higher requirements. That is nothing new – I recently read
about a school in US that sacked all of its teachers because of high
fallout percentage and low results in childrens’ academic performance.
Some former students spoke out – in favor of the decision.

Reply
Giovanni Angioni says:
June 9, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Fine for me, Mario. But don’t you think we should stop the farce of
Estonian schools and Russian schools getting to, simply, Schools?

Reply
Mario says:
June 9, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Giovanni, I’m not sure that I got the full meaning of your
(rhetorical) question. Why is it a farce?

Something that caught my eye in the article: “Pae Gymnasium, one of
the best schools in Tallinn”. This statement adds credibility and
emphasis on the relevance to the story, but is questionable. There is
not much readily available data on Internet that would prove this nor
is the data always describing the quality of the school, but something
can be found: list of schools, ranked by the state exam results in
2009, and in that list Pae Gymnasium is ranked 174th in Estonia and 62
in Harju County, that’s in the lower half of the 98 schools in Harju.
Perhaps the ranking of Pae Gymnasium would be better if it prepared
its students better in their language skills?

I’m not a convinced proponent of the system, but I strongly believe
that all schools efforts should be aimed towards preparing a student
to be successful in the society and if the school cannot give the
student the language skills that are a key element in that success,
then the school has failed its task.

Reply
mrt says:
June 9, 2010 at 5:37 pm
In my opinion it all comes back to the simple rule of thumb: if you
live in the country, learn the language. Some people learn it in 5
years, some in half a year. When the 57 year old woman was imported
into Estonia during the Soviet era, it must have happened ~40-50 years
ago. How can one excuse herself for not learning the language by that
time?

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