----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Tarr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 8:23 AM Subject: Unqualified was DoftW
> The reality of the matter is that multiculturalism enriches few people > (at > least as it sounds like you are describing it), it is Balkanisation in > the > long run. There has to be a lingua franca, a method of communication > everyone uses, in order to keep a lot of bright people from becoming > janitors and tree trimmers. > I work around an english speaking Mexican born fellow who was denied a > chance to advance to a better job because he didnt spell very well. > Crap, > his spelling was atrocious. He was fairly well spoken, albeit with an > accent > and some poor grammer, but his writing skills were poor because he spoke > spanish mostly when not on the job. > *I* know for a fact he was the best choice for the job. I work with his > department all the time. But when he wrote a departmental memo he made > terrible and obvious mistakes and this made him appear to be > ................. hmmm.....unqualified, if I may be kind. > This is what bilingual education gets people, and bilingual education is > an > aspect of multiculturalism. > > xponent > > Want to ask something along those lines. I have a friend who has > dyslexia. It wasn't really discovered until late in HS. He is smart; he > scored as high as me on standardized test when he had the questions read > to him. He has a two year degree in business. He is really dissatisfied > with his job* so his wife and I have been helping him. His problem is > that he still has trouble reading and from that, I hope, his writing and > spelling skills are poor. He has taken some placement exams with > assistance. One prospective employer told him, in a round-about not > breaking the law way, 'sure you can do great on a placement test but the > business can't have someone reading to you all day'. (This is > paraphrasing and heard third hand). > > I am just venting but also wondering about how to get around this > obstacle not just for him but for a lot of people. > > Kevin T. > > * He is a mechanic, which I was for ten years. To move into a higher pay > range, to just receive a raise for the past year, he had to take a test > "Factory Mathematics". One of the questions was "What is the name of the > first result of a large multiplication problem?" > > like: > 76 > x67 > ------ > 532 <---- What is this first result called? > 4560 > ------ > 5092 > > I didn't know it had a name; more important what does it matter? Its the product. And I dont think it matters much either. xponent Mechanical Skills Maru rob
