Adequate Precedent Exists for an 'Appropriate' Approach

Submitted by Jack Berger (United States), Mar 16, 2007 at 11:57

As someone who received his elementary and secondary education in NYC, the framework of the Regents Examination provides a good model for how to introduce the study of Arabic in a benign manner.

In my time, I have sat for Regents exams in both Hebrew and French. I have no doubt that countless students of Latin American origin take advantage of their facility in Spanish to sit for the Spanish Regents.

In the course of a half century, I have never hear so much as a peep about these elements of the curriculum being 'politicized.'

Surely the curriculum design should be extensible to Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, or whatever you like. I find the notion of an 'Arabic School' absurd.

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