Keeping the Essence of What Makes Us Humane:

The Beauty and Brilliance of the Humanities in All Educational Institutions and Its Importance to the World

Guest Blogger: Nicole Stephens

I walked down the street yesterday morning and I saw a yellow flower and the flower began to dance!
I looked out the window and the tree that greets me every morning started to sing!!
I was sitting in the park and a blue bird started speaking French to me!
Each time I experienced those profound meetings, I smiled, and my heart was filled with glee!!
Oh -where would I be if I did not have that flower, tree, bird- dance, sing, and speak French to me!!

I’m simply tired of the disrespect-the disrespect of what makes us humane! As educators, I often ponder- do we really examine what makes our students (us) get up in the morning and what helps them (us) go to sleep at night? My current blog will help some understand my deep and profound concern about how the humanities and liberal arts education at the university level, K-12 education, and even the world is embraced-I mean truly embraced on a level that helps us understand the importance of what makes us human.

I was reading the New York Times just the other day and I wanted to scream. I had to take a deep breath. The headline under the opinion section read: Do Colleges Need French Departments (October 17, 2010)? It caught my attention, mainly because I majored in International Studies (French) and studied Biology as an undergraduate at North Carolina A & T in Greensboro and I wanted to know what issue they had now about this important major. The article went on to explain that The State University of New York at Albany is cutting most all their foreign language degree majors (French, Italian, Classics, and Russian) and their theatre program. The article focused on cutting the humanities in general from educational institutions not only at this particular university, but universities and colleges all over the United States, because of budget issues.

In my humble opinion, nothing that makes us humane should be cut from the budget from higher education or K-12 educational institutions. Many reading this blog may say that this is not realistic or even sensible when you consider the fact that we are in a technologically driven world that must focus mainly on math, sciences, business, and other majors that are “more important” and bring in more money to the institution. These STEM majors and skills related to them are vitally and profoundly important if we are to survive in this century and beyond. However, I am a firm believer that the humanities are what make us competent, creative, interesting, and even wonderfully profound for all that teach them, take them, or just even embrace them.

At NC A & T, my soul became more beautiful (full of knowledge and deep hunger about many different things) and so did all my other peers that took a similar path. I did not major in education as an undergraduate. However, I took the PRAXIS (formerly NTE) exam and passed with flying colors, simply because of the make-up of the test during that time. The test focused on how much I knew about the Liberal Arts. I passed not because of brilliance or because I belong to MENSA but because of my education in the humanities. My interests grew in many areas including business and biology. Creativity is needed for marketing. The body is a creative gift that moves in lovely ways. I took French, Spanish, History, Art, Music, Philosophy, and any thing that made me smile and then I was able to understand those things that made me marketable for the world today.

This takes me back to my opening blog statement-what makes our students (us) get up in the morning. It is the music that greets us on our alarm clocks and cell phones. It is the dance that we (our students) cannot wait to get to on Friday night, but know that we must be successful on the Chemistry test or finish checking the test so we can enjoy our “night of creative flow.” How many of us cannot wait until we see that special play on Broadway or that basketball player fly poetically to the basket net?

As educators, do we take the time to tell our students to look out the window and admire the natural beauty that the Creator has given us for free?

Educational institutions must find a way to keep humanities in our arenas. It is what keeps us sane and it is what keeps the world humane.

Learning A Language

Guest Writer, Maribel Charle Poza

My first experience with foreign languages was not a very pleasant one. It was September of 1986 and I had just started sixth grade in my native country of Spain when I got sick and had to stay home from school. Needless to say, I missed what would have been my first ever English lesson. The events of the next day, when I returned to school, have stuck to my memory until today.

Class time arrived and Don Javier, the school’s new English teacher, walked into the classroom, put his books down, and immediately started to ask a series of unintelligible questions to the students. To my surprise, my classmates had no problem understanding and answering his questions in English. As I prayed that Don Javier would not call on me, I looked at my classmates in astonishment. I could not believe that after only a day of class, they were already communicating in another language!

Rather than having a discouraging effect, that first experience instilled in me a deep desire to master the English language. This desire led me to live in three different English-speaking countries, and to become a foreign-language professor in the United States. Today, I have no doubt that learning a language has changed my life in ways that I could never have imagined.

Similarly, I am convinced that language-learning can be life-changing to American students in both their professional careers and their personal lives. Being fluent in another language not only opens doors in a job market that is more competitive than ever before, but also gives students greater insight into their own language and opens their minds to a world that is culturally and linguistically diverse.

In 1996, the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning were published as an answer to a concern from educators and the government about the role of foreign languages in American education. Furthermore, in 2006 the government called for an increase in the number of Americans that are fluent in critical-need languages. Surprisingly, and in spite of the emphasis at the federal level, foreign language study has not received the attention that it deserves in American education. Furthermore, over the past three decades, scholars in the language profession have called attention to the low numbers of African American students in foreign language programs in the United States. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), only 4.1% of the bachelor’s degrees in foreign languages were awarded to African Americans in 2006.

Personally, I believe that we, at Lincoln University, have a unique opportunity to turn this state of affairs around by increasing the percentage of African Americans who are fluent in a foreign language. At the departmental level, we are constantly looking for innovative ways to recruit new students. We emphasize the importance of language study not only in the classroom, but also on the entire campus with events such as Language Day, Language Night, the International Food Festival, and the Study Abroad Convocation. Over the years, we have shaped our curriculum so that it matches the latest research on language-teaching methods, and we have established ourselves as a vibrant, open, and friendly department. However, we cannot do this alone. We need the help of the entire Faculty and Administration to change the NCES gloomy figures. Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to achieve this goal, and only through collaboration will we succeed in this endeavor.

Many in the Faculty have experienced learning another language, either by taking courses, traveling abroad, or talking to immigrants in their communities. For many, English is their second (or third, maybe fourth) language and they use it to conduct their professional life in the United States. I think that it would be very enriching if we all shared our thoughts and experiences about language learning in this blog. I’m very interested in reading your comments to this post. As a final point, I would like to thank Nancy Evans and Linda Stine for making the discussion possible through the creation of this blog.