Why students do not study Russian anymore

[Alina Israeli]

>  However, I am surprised
>that nobody yet pointed out that the lack of interest in Russian, as well
>as in everything else requiring effort, is a part of the overall dismal state
>of our educational system.

I doubt that one can make such a blanket statement. There are students who
work hard and there those who don't. In addition, most of my students work
at least 20 hours a week.

>Try to assign your students a short poem to memorize -- let's say, Ya vas
>lyubil -- and you'll see that a tiny fraction will be able to do it.

This is a separate issue: learning poetry by heart is not part of American
culture, like choral singing is not part of Russian culture to the same
extent it is part of the American culture. Where Russians quote poets ("kak
skazal poet", never mind which one), Americans quote the Bible.

>There is yet another issue:
>US students don't read any more. They just don't. According to CNN, an
>average 16-year-old in the late 90's has a vocabulary of 10,000 words
>whereas an average 16-year-old in the early fifties had a vocabulary of
>25,000 words.

How did they measure this? Was it active vocabulary or passive? Those kids
in the fifties were almost as good as Pushkin.

>Television and computers have taken their toll.
>Several years ago I was looking for the museum of O'Henry (William Porter)
>in Austin , Texas. Though the museum is located in the center of the city,
>next to the popular 6th street, no one of the people I asked could recall
>anything about the museum. In fact, very few people had ever heard the name
>of O'Henry.

O.Henry is one of the three most popular American writers in Russia of all
times (the other two are Jack London and Hemingway). He does not have the
same rating at home. Next time try E.A. Poe's museum.

>Names like Truman Capote or even Kurt Vonnegut embarrassed most students I
>spoke with.

But somebody must have heard of them. K.V. was the MIT keynote graduation
speaker a couple of years ago, and T.C. was all over Broadway.

**************************************************************
Alina Israeli
LFS, American University                phone:  (202) 885-2387
4400 Mass. Ave., NW                     fax:    (202) 885-1076
Washington, DC 20016

aisrael at american.edu

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