Committee
Eileen
Brittain
Ruth
Lambach
Elia
Lopez
Laura Lopez
tech mentor
MB Guinan
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the curriculum is looking at you |
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Committee |
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Who is in control? |
| Daughter | Daddy, Wy do Frenchmen wave their hands about? | |
| Father | What do you mean | |
| Daughter | I mean, when they talk. why do they wave their arms and all that? | |
| Father | Well, why do you smile? Or, why do you stamp your foot sometimes? | |
| Daughter | But that's not the same thing, Daddy. i don't wave my arms about like a Frenchman does. I don't believe they can stop doing it, Daddy. Can they? | |
| Father | I don't know -- they might find it hard to stop.... Can you stop smiling? | |
| Daughter | But Daddy, I don't smile all the time. It's hard to stop when I feel like smiling. But I don't feel like it all the time. And then I stop. | |
| Father | That's true -- But then a Frenchman doesn't wave his arms in the same way all the time. Sometimes, he waves them in one way an sometimes in another -- and sometimes, I think, he stops waving them. | |
| Daughter | I think it looks silly, Daddy. But I don't suppose it looks like that to another Frenchman. They cannot all look silly to each other. Because if they did, they would stop it. | |
| Father | Well, -- let us suppose you are talking to a Frenchman and he is waving his arms about, and then in the middle of the conversation, after soemthing you said, he suddenly stops waving his arms, and just talks. what would you think then? | |
| Daughter | I'd be frightened. I'd think I had said something that hurt his feelings and perhaps he might be really angry. | |
| Father | Yes, -- and you might be right. | |
| Daughter | Daddy, when they teach us French at school, why don't they teach us to wave our hands? | |
| Father | I don't know. I'm sure I don't know. That is probably one of the reasons why people find learning languages so difficult. | |
| from a Metalogue by Gregory Bateson |