Why students do not study Russian anymore

[Ian Chesley]

Kids today!

I'm one of these young whippersnappers who came up in the age of rap and
basketball and god knows what else. I spent hours in front of my Nintendo as
a child. And now I've dedicated my life to scholarship in the humanities,
reading Russian poetry and loving it. Why is this? Because I had great
teachers and professors who knew how to make you fall in love with the stuff
(which meant, in my case, discussing Pushkin's poetry in Russian rather than
memorizing it by heart and reciting it). I'm lucky to have had them as
teachers, because they knew that the mind learns fastest when it's relaxed
and having fun.

Now, why aren't kids today taking Russian? I think it's the simple answer
already given here before - Russia just isn't on the nightly news as much
nowadays, in contrast to Chinese- and Arabic-speaking countries. To those
who believe the reasons are the difficulty of Russian and the lack of
intellectual rigor in today's youth, allow me to point out (having studied
Arabic as well) that Chinese, Arabic, and many other languages are far more
difficult than Russian (for an English speaker), yet these fields are
growing.

As for Spanish, I don't know whether I'd even consider it a "foreign"
language at all. My humble opinion is that it should probably be compulsory,
alongside English, from kindergarten.

BTW: My generation is willing to work hard if it knows why it's working
hard; the reason could be a financial payoff, but it could just as easily be
beauty or justice. It's just a matter of making a good case.

Ian Chesley

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