Language Police to Force Children to Speak French During Recess

[Barrister]

This nonsense shows what cultural insecurity can do to a society.  Why couldnt they have just tell children that it would be a good idea to practice speaking french on their own time.  Why the need for monitors?  Wouldnt resources be better spent actually teaching?

I'm pretty sure there are already monitors to prevent the kids from harming themselves during recess.  I know we had a few for precisely that purpose.

[viper37]

Walking between classes is spare time.

not really.  If you're caught chatting instead of walking to class, you may have a warning.

[Ideologue]

What?  Really?  That's pretty draconian.  When are you supposed to talk to people?  (If you're not supposed to talk to people, is there significant point to being made to go to a building to be talked at?)

[The Minsky Moment]

Louisiana kids were beaten for speaking french in schools. 

I don't think anyone has spoken real French in Louisiana since de Laussat shipped out of New Orleans.

[crazy canuck]

What monitors? What ressources?

The people employed to monitor the french only school yard rules and the resources used to pay them.

From the article:

"If they are automatically switching to another language, [the monitor] will gently tap them on the shoulder — not on the head — to tell them, 'Remember, we speak French. It's good for you.'

[Ideologue]

Query: What if the kid doesn't know French?

[HVC]

Query: What if the kid doesn't know French?

he sits quielty in the corner as his french teachers look at him with disdain in their eyes.

[crazy canuck]

This nonsense shows what cultural insecurity can do to a society.  Why couldnt they have just tell children that it would be a good idea to practice speaking french on their own time.  Why the need for monitors?  Wouldnt resources be better spent actually teaching?

I'm pretty sure there are already monitors to prevent the kids from harming themselves during recess.  I know we had a few for precisely that purpose.

Yes normally you have one or two people watching a whole school yard - hardly able to be at a distance to listen in to ensure that the french only rule is being followed.  Imagine how much it would cost to have enough monitors out to enforce this rule. 

Creating a rule which is unenforceable brings such a system into disrepute.

[HVC]

Louisiana kids were beaten for speaking french in schools. 

I don't think anyone has spoken real French in Louisiana since de Laussat shipped out of New Orleans.

Viper has a long memory.

[viper37]

If you are arguing that Quebec is the cultural or educational equivalent of Louisiana in the 919th C  or Massachusetts at the turn of the 20th, I'd have to say I think you are totally full of shit.  You cannot justify actions today based on repudiated actions of people a century or two ago.

At one point, it was justified to preserve the English language.  But it seems that when it's to protect the French language, and help kids succeed at their French exams by offering total immersion, it's wrong.

Got a cite?  I think you lose the credibility battle here in a rout.  If the head of the board thinks it is a policy and all the counter-argument I have is a naked assertion by somebody who thinks the model for language education was set by people in the 19th C, I know what i am going to believe.

Conditional is used in the French text, everywhere, from the title to the last bits of text

You said it was no different than what worked on you when you were in school.  what has changed?  More kids injured?

We were required to speak proper french in elementary school, even outside class.
What has changed is that in Montreal, french speakers are moving out of the city and immigrants are moving in.  Immigrants don't speak French for the most part.  They speak Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.  Mostly arabic nowadays.

This is why many people see a problem with Montreal, where French is regressing rather than progressing.  And students have an harder time succeeding at french exams because it's their 3rd language.

That wasn't true when you were in school?

Total immigrants of my home town when I attended school: 1 Polish, 1 American who moved out after a few months, 1 Ontarian girl.

As I said, we were required to speak proper French, not used 'slang', absolutely no swearing, but foreign languages weren't an issue.

Of course, there are no beatings in any modern schools system in the world either,

Depends what you define as modern.
By your definition US Southern States are not modern:
ndividual US states have the power to ban corporal punishment in their schools. Currently, it is banned in public schools in 31 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.[95] In two of these states, New Jersey[96] and Iowa,[97] it is illegal in private schools as well. The 19 states that have not banned it are mostly in the South. It is still used to a significant (though declining)[98] degree in some public schools in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.[95]
And a nice piece about Texas:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/education/30punish.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1322514998-TL1MNi0hJ6B5nMK0h31OVg

but you don't seem to mind that "modern" Quebec language policies in education "ain't any different than what was done in Ontario, New Brunswick, various other provinces and the US for non-english speakers" in the remote past.

No, I do not mind.  Historically, French would have developped differently had it not been forbidden everywhere.  There might have been 50% French population in this country instead of 23% and on the decline.

It's our duty to fight back.  Resistance is not futile.

To most of us moderns, those policies (which we abandoned long ago) appear creepy.  But since we all agree that they are doomed to failure, I guess this is just another case of the public laughing at boneheaded bureaucrats trying to roll boulders up hills.

Corporal punishment appears creepy to me, yet it's still in use in the US.
The language policies, I agree with the principle, I think the execution is stupid, just like many other laws in Quebec (I have to fill forms on "wage equity" now for my company, barely 30 employees, all subjected to union rules outside of my jurisdiction).
This particular measure is simply doomed to fail, if it ever pass.

[Oexmelin]

@ CC: See Barrister's answer. Same people. Hence the reason why De Courcy underlined the fact that there would be no language police, despite the NP's title. In fact, it is pretty clear that it is more akin to a «school pledge» than to the kind of repressive apparatus the NP is hinting at (shocking!).

I'll just note in passing that this eventual policy was grounded in a survey made which comprised more than 2/3 of allophone parents who supported it at 70%, and that one of the school board commissioner who spoke to the press in favour of it was Hungarian-born Akos Verboczy.

Not that it makes that policy less stupid, mind you. But it makes it less of the usual hysterically «OMG those racist Québécois» than what the NP delights in reporting.

[viper37]

What monitors? What ressources?

The people employed to monitor the french only school yard rules and the resources used to pay them.

From the article:

"If they are automatically switching to another language, [the monitor] will gently tap them on the shoulder — not on the head — to tell them, 'Remember, we speak French. It's good for you.'

apparently, our school education systems are very different.  I didn't spend long enough in an Ontarian school to remember that.  In Quebec, you have teachers/monitors watching over kids in the school yard as weel as in the gym, cafeteria corridors.  Teachers or monitors (sometimes retired teachers) watching over kids, warning them if they run, scream/shout, intervening if they fight, if one student is hurt, etc.
At my private school, it was pretty draconian.  Last year I was there, you couldn't even wear jeans during the lunch breaks, you had to keep to the school's clothing policy.
I suppose they don't have these in Canada and US, wich makes it awkward to read, I guess.  I figure it's like the Simpsons and you have students to watch over other students?

[viper37]

Louisiana kids were beaten for speaking french in schools. 

I don't think anyone has spoken real French in Louisiana since de Laussat shipped out of New Orleans.

it nearly disapeared before WWII, started reapearing in the 80s, IIRC.

"In the 1850s white Francophones remained an intact and vibrant  community, maintaining instruction in French in two of the city's four  school districts.^[23]  As the Creole elite feared, however, this changed with the Civil War;  in 1862 French instruction in schools was abolished by Union general Ben  Butler, and teaching of the language was forbidden in schools in 1868.^[23] By the end of the 19th century French usage in the city had faded significantly,^[24] although as late as 1945 one still encountered elderly Creole women who spoke no English"

De Laussat left c.a. 1831.  French was still a vibrant language in Louisiana at the time.

[Valmy]

And a nice piece about Texas:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/education/30punish.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1322514998-TL1MNi0hJ6B5nMK0h31OVg

Well as the article makes clear this sort of thing is not a statewide policy.  Our state government is very weak and most policies are made by local governments.  That makes something like say, a drive to stop corporal punishment, have to be done on a district by district basis.

One point to keep in mind whenever looking at how Texas does things is that our state constitution was written back during the Wild Wild West days when it just made good sense to empower local officials since communications were so bad and distances were so far.  Now those policies are so entrenched, there is just no political will to update it to something more centralized and modern.

[viper37]

What?  Really?  That's pretty draconian.  When are you supposed to talk to people?  (If you're not supposed to talk to people, is there significant point to being made to go to a building to be talked at?)

During lunch break, if you had no activities planned, it was ok.  But during recess, that was the time to go to your locker, change books, get to the other classroom.  Chatting was ok while walking, but very quietly, and absolutely no stopping in the corridors.

At my private school, you were required to have activites 3 days out of a 7 days schedule.  So I worked at the cafeteria the other 4 days of the schedule.