Mar 19, 2022 3 min read

More than 30 years ago, a Los Angeles Times columnist decried the ignorance most Americans had about the rest of the world, describing us as “a nation of no-nothings.”

In the three decades since, our understanding of people and societies beyond our borders has barely improved. Canadians know a lot about us, for instance, but we don’t know a whole lot about them, even though Canada is our neighbor, trading partner and close ally. The same goes for France, Sweden, Japan, Thailand, India, you name it. Some of it surely has to do with geography, and some of it could be credited to isolationism and arrogance. Whatever the causes, our ignorance does nothing to help us in an increasingly globalized, interconnected world.

Perhaps the greatest reflection of our inward-looking tendencies is the lack of bilingual education in American schools. A 2018 Pew Research Center study found that only 10 states and the District of Columbia make learning a foreign language a requirement for graduation, and only 20% of American students are learning a language other than their own at any given time. That compares to 92% of European students who are learning a foreign language.

Sure, you could counter that Europeans rub shoulders with people all the time who speak different languages, so it’s more of a necessity across the pond. Plus, English has become the language of business and international trade. Why should we waste our time attempting to master German or French or Spanish or any other language when we’ll be understood, at least on a basic level, no matter where we travel?

But learning a foreign language has benefits even if we are not immersed in the societies where those languages are used. Multiple studies have shown that when students learn another language – particularly when they are young and the brain is most receptive to language acquisition – it improves academic performance overall. Learning a second language early means that, if a student continues building those skills, they can be fluent by the time they reach adulthood. Also, there is some indication that knowing a second language has a positive effect on brain health.

This past week, the commonwealth unveiled the Pennsylvania Seal of Biliteracy. It’s designed to recognize students who are proficient in more than one language, either at an intermediate or high level, by the time they receive their high school diplomas. Giselle Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s second lady and a native of Brazil, was on hand for the unveiling at a high school outside York.

Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2019, Swarthmore College student Jamail Khan summed up the reasons why a bilingual education holds such value: “As an immigrant from Pakistan, to the United States myself, being a fluent speaker of Urdu has contributed greatly to my success in excelling at higher education, helping me thrive in a variety of work environments and form lifelong relationships with people from a radically different sociocultural background from me.”

Khan added, “Language is inseparable from culture, from politics, from human identity. To speak another language means having access to a universe of diverse experiences and worldviews of another community of people.”