Quote, then discuss

"...The move comes as figures show the rate of year 12 students graduating with a second language has dropped from 40 per cent in the 1960s to 13 per cent today — with Australian students spending less time learning a language than all other countries in the OECD*. (Source) This saddens me. But I guess, come your senior years, you have the liberty to choose what subjects you want to study, and so if you don't want to learn German, or French, or Cantonese, then that's your choice. Languages (from memory) aren't marked up as much as, say, Chemistry, so if you're banking on a high TER (or whatever they call it now) then you'd be inclined to pass in favour of harder sciences. (This saddens me too - but that's another subject). It would depend on the school too. Fully qualified languages teachers are becoming rarer these days. I only got the chance to study it because the teacher was (ahem)....a more mature lady...and had been doing so for years. Kids are missing out. There's something wholly cerebral about learning another language: it's about culture, rhyme, rhythm, manners, structure. There's something humbling about a child/ teenager having to stumble across the words for the first time "I need to go to the bathroom" or the equally embarrassing "How do I get to the public rest rooms?" I had difficulty (as most do) in elementary French, but there's something so damn sexy about the pronunciation and knowing the difference between 'Tu' and - eh- I forget the other one. 'Vu'? The dividends start paying out once you're out on the party scene (more so for blokes though, I believe) when you can impress your peers by reciting a full stanza of Goethe's "Der Erlenkoenig". Whether or not after a few drinks your diction is 100% correct is another matter. Still, the benefits fully outnumber the deficits. What do you think? Did you learn a language? Or were you deprived of the challenge? Did it bother you? Does the statistic bother you? *Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Don't ask me what this is, I have no idea.