Language champions

This is an inspiring little collection of pages at Asia Education FOundation. The quotes from Major Michael Stone are brilliant, especially from a humane military man. It would be good to get school students to debate these claims, shake students out of apathy. Michael Stone and Gen. Peter Cogsgrove ask, how do we avoid the obscenity and stupidity of war except by intelligence, respect and responsibility? We in advanced countries have responsibility to forestall misunderstanding by being able to communicate with different others in their languages. To be educated to high levels only in technical and economic matters is to deny that human cultures are rich, complex and diverse, so of course cross-cultural relationships are challenging. To refuse to make the persistent effort is obstinate ignorance that leads to the deaths in war of our children. Debate that.

Two only sample quotes:

Language skills form the foundation for ‘relationship building’, life’s greatest skill and ‘force multiplier’.

Many of the world’s problems could be dealt with peacefully if we had the skills to listen to each other. Learning each other’s Languages is critical in this regard.