Languages

The requirement in schools here is that everyone speak three languages, their own, previously called Serbian-Croatian but now named after whatever country you happen to be in. I'm told the language is the same although they say they have regional accents and pronounce words slightly differently. The second language is English which is required from the first grade. I asked why English given the Italian heritage here and the fact that both Austria and France controlled the country for part of it's history and was told English is the language of tourism and of computers. I guess that is true, the Asians I met - quite a few as I walked the wall on Saturday all spoke some level of English. Some I spoke to as we took turns taking pictures of each other weren't exactly fluent but all were able to have a simple conversation. Our hotel has a few tour groups from other countries - one from Italy and two from I believe China and Japan. Back to Croatian schools, a couple years later - around the fourth or fifth grade, everyone starts another language, Italian, German or French. Sometimes chosen by whatever family ties you might have as one does see Austrian-German and Italian names in the region. The result is that everyone is trilingual to some extent, which is amazing to behold. The other thing that impressed me was how book educated many of the people we met were despite the fact that they did not have university degrees. Those of my generation spent those early adult years fighting in a war to keep their nation independent so a university education never really was an option. It is still out of reach to many and even if you received a university education, there are not employment opportunities so many still bypass it to go straight to work. This means they rely on their secondary schools to teach topics like economics, European/world history, science and math, much more than we do in American schools. If you were to put me in a social situation with so many of the people I met on this trip, after a conversation (which would need to take place in my language, not theirs) I would tell you that they all have a university education. One person told me they had a friend who had the privilege of going to school in America. The stories they told about American students were disheartening as the student arrived on campus very prepared and very ready to study and learn only to be confronted with students looking for easier classes and insistent on a party/work balance for their university years. As I edit this a week later, I think this story stuck with me quite a bit. The story teller wasn't telling me about how smart her friend was - just about how disciplined and I realized that in their struggle for success as a nation, this discipline is important - and something that we as a successful nation take for granted quite a bit more than we should.