Sunday, March 12, 2006
Accents
I saw the article in the most recent Star Tribune about Rep. Heidgerken's bill to restrict college teachers to speakers without strong accents.
I disagree with this legislation on several grounds. It limits the potential educators to a narrower field, instead of getting the best possible educators from around the world.
And as someone with a degree in the sciences, and as such have encountered a variety of accents both as part of my educational background and in my professional career, I believe that one of the valuable side-effects of my college education has been to better understand English speakers with a veriety of different accents on technical matters.
Yes, it might be something that one complains about -- but in the same way that one complains about the difficulty in coursework generally.
I disagree with this legislation on several grounds. It limits the potential educators to a narrower field, instead of getting the best possible educators from around the world.
And as someone with a degree in the sciences, and as such have encountered a variety of accents both as part of my educational background and in my professional career, I believe that one of the valuable side-effects of my college education has been to better understand English speakers with a veriety of different accents on technical matters.
Yes, it might be something that one complains about -- but in the same way that one complains about the difficulty in coursework generally.
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