Inside Education
and Hotels & Travel Special Sections Education A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 10
Speaking Same Language
Experts, Educators Say Benefits
Caribbean Islands Reel Under Barrage of Deadly Hurricanes Over a dozen Caribbean nations have been ravaged by a string of deadly hurricanes this year. From Antigua and Barbuda to Puerto Rico to St. Maarten, storms of monstrous size and intensity have ripped apart homes, shops, hotels and airports — upending the lives of millions of people. / PAGE 4
October 2017
OCTOBER 2017
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magine if students didn’t learn math until late middle school. They’d and long division. The be starting from scratch, majority would probably pre-times tables never make it past algebra, Greek mathematician Pythagoras might roll let alone pre-calculus over in his grave knowing or geometry. that his triangle theorem was being lost.
In most states, that’s the case for “I think we’d have a revolution foreign language education. ecutive director for the American on our hands,” said Martha Abbott, exCouncil on the Teaching of guages (ACTFL), referring Foreign Lanto how math the way they treat languages.parents might respond if schools treated Foreign language education standards are in need of a a country that should be promoting bilingualism, Abbottmajor update in and a panel of
professionals said at a June event hosted by the Council tions (CFR) that examined on Foreign Relathe link between foreign languages and U.S. national security. From a global perspective, Americans lag far behind in language learning. Children in most other countries have started learning a second lanSEE LANGUAGES t PAGE 24
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BEST FRIENDS FOREVER?
United States
H-1B Foreign Worker Visas Come Under Fire by White House The immigration debate that roiled the 2016 election initially centered around President Trump’s “beautiful” wall with Mexico, then shifted to his controversial travel ban and is now focused on “Dreamers.” But there’s a quieter, though no less consequential, debate taking place over the H-1B guest worker visa program. / PAGE 8
Culture
Edvard Munch In Full Color The National Gallery of Art sheds light on Edvard Munch’s transcendent body of work. / PAGE 38
Canadian Ambassador David MacNaughton proudly calls the U.S. his country’s “best friend” and “closest ally.” But he warns that friendship is a two-way street — and should not be taken for granted. Like any relationship, it needs work. So Canada has launched a full-court charm offensive to remind Americans how much they need their neighbor to the north, which is bound to them by geography, values, security and trade — a lot of it. PAGE 13
Social Media
Diplomatic Spouses
Technology Giants Take on Terrorists
Czech Wife is More Than a ‘Wife’
Social media has revolutionized how people connect and interact. But the darker side of this revolution is that it has made it easier for terrorist ideology to take root around the world, a dilemma governments and tech giants are struggling to grapple with as they balance the privacy rights of billions with the need to protect lives. / PAGE 18
Indira Gumarova’s business card reads “wife of the Ambassador and more.” It’s an apropos description of an Uzbek-born Tartar who works in PR and blogs about food, fashion and folklore. / PAGE 39