Why students do not study Russian anymore

[Cheri C Wilson]

On Mon, 5 Jun 2000, Marta Sherwood-Pike wrote:

> Most American students emerge from high schools without the mental
> skills to learn difficult foreign languages, chiefly because they are
> not exposed to a bilingual environment in their childhood.

Marta,

I would have to agree with you on this one.   It appears that the trend
nowadays is to start language training early, such as in Montessori
schools, pre-K programs, etc.  It appears that the language usually taught
at that stage is Spanish.

I am hoping to demonstrate this point through my personal story, which I
hope no one will mind.

I started studying French in the 6th grade and continued it through my
freshman year of college.  I also studied Spanish for three years in high
school.  My high school offered Russian, which I wanted to take my senior
year; but, the guidance counselors said no because I was already taking
two other languages (as if being multilingual is a bad thing).  I was the
only student in my high school taking two languages.

I started taking Russian my 2nd year of college and was immediately
fascinated by how little I knew about the geographical area in
general.  Next, I started taking literature, culture, history, politics,
etc and then changed my major to Slavic and East European Studies.

I transferred schools and had the opportunity to intern for a semester in
a think tank.  I also spent the spring semester of my final year in Russia
where I lived in 4 different cities--Nizhnii Novgorod, Moscow,
Chelyabinsk, and St. Petersburg.  I received a B.A. in Russian language
and literature (with a broader focus on Russian Area Studies, although the
University did not have an official program).  I continued on and
received the M.A. in Russian Area Studies.  Initially, my plan was to
receive the M.A. and then go on to law school, so that I work specifically
with Russia.  My advisor convinced me to apply to the Ph.D. program in
History, so here I am a Ph.D. candidate in Russian history.  The wonderful
thing is that I have been able to combine my passion for Russian, history,
and law into my area of specialization, Russian legal history.

Believe it or not, I still remember much of my French and Spanish from
junior high and high school and use both languages whenever I have the
opportunity as well as for research.  I also managed to pick up a reading
knowledge of German on the side for good measure.

Add to the mix that I happen to be black (not African-American please);
then one really has to ask how did I get interested in all of the
different languages when I don't have any of those ethnicities in my
background?

This leads to a question that I would like to pose to the list.  How does
one get minority students interested in foreign languages, specifically
Slavic languages?  I ask because no one had to use the old Pushkin trick
to try to hook me in.  But, then again, I don't think that you have to be
a particularly ethnicity to study the history or language of a certain
ethnicity.

Just my $.02 kopecks,

Cheri C. Wilson

Cheri C. Wilson
Ph.D. candidate, Russian history
Teaching Fellow
Loyola College in Maryland
Department of History
4501 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210-2699
Office telephone: (410) 617-2017
Fax: (410) 617-2832
E-mail: CWilson3 at loyola.edu
http://www.evergreen.loyola.edu/~CWilson3/

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