Bilingual education victim

Who am I?

Bilingual education victim? What does it mean to be a victim of a multicultural society? And how to live when knowing a lot of languages, you can’t form your thoughts in any language?

I was born in Latvia in a family of the Ukrainian-Rumanian woman and the Moldavian man on that side of Latvia where people talk Russian and Belarussian, in school I was taught in Latvian and later in Russian and English, then I studied Swedish and German. So what my nationality is? How should I identify myself? What means to be a Russian or Rumanian? Am I Latvian?

I can't answer this question, because I don’t think that it matters – first of all, I am a human. Yes, messed up, without full mentality or cultural identity. I am a 21-century human. Despite all my beliefs my nationality often plays an important role. When I first got unto the school - it was Latvian school I learned Latvian as a native, despite the fact I didn’t know anything in Latvian, we haven’t got Russian until sixth grade, but we had English already in third. Do you see? As a native Russian speaker, I haven’t got a chance to speak in my language and learn it (almost half of Latvia population are Russian-speaking people), so it sounds illogical. After sixth grade, I was able to change school to a bilingual school.

The essence of bilingual education is the bilingual presentation of school disciplines. It is not limited to grammar classes, as my history teacher tried to explain we are doing everything 1:1 proportions – half in Latvian, half in Rusian. So, mathematics, art history, foreign literature, physics, and chemistry, are taught in both Latvian(books, tests, exams, notes) and Russian(mostly everything else), but it gets pretty hard when the majority of teachers also speak weak Latvian. The Russian language should sound only in the Russian language lesson, but no matter how hard governments and people want minorities to speak one language always don’t see the matter of time – how long it would take in a proper situation to make someone to start speak in any language.

"Hundreds of years ago, Livonia, present-day Latvia, was a multinational entity. Latvians, Germans, Russians, Poles, Belarusians, and representatives of other nationalities lived in these territories. The first law in the First Republic of Latvia was called" On educational institutions, " children in schools should learn the language of the family. Article 40: parents indicate the language of the family, arranging a child to school. And article 41 of the law stated that for minorities it is necessary to open as many schools and classes as their children need. At that time, it was the most democratic law on education in Europe.

Children can be taught in any language, but best of all, the child develops and learns in the language of the family. Before the war, they taught in 8 languages ​​in Latvia: Latvian, Russian, Jewish (Yiddish or Hebrew), Belarusian ... In order for foreigners to also know the Latvian language - history, geography of Latvia and military affairs were taught in Latvian, and there was also a good level of teaching of Latvian itself, therefore most foreigners were fluent in the state language. Now everything changed – a year ago appeared a statement that even won't allow teaching in any language (in private higher institutions) besides official language - Latvian, even English has been limited.

At my school, we did not make any revolutions. I know that in Finland and Sweden are one of the best education systems in the, however, in my home country it is a very painful theme.

And here I am – not capable to form my thoughts properly. Mostly I am really glad, that I was born in Latvia and that I can speak and understand more than two languages, but sometimes it gets really hard to think. It may sound, as I am complaining to my own education - but seriously, I'm not - I can see where sustem can be improved.

 1. It was fun. 

2. It was crazy. 

3. It is useful. 

Every time I say that I speak Russian people somehow think that I automatically don't know anything besides it - no, dude, I know what you are saying, even though you speak Latvian, Latgalian, Rumanian, Ukrainian or English. And yeah, my mistake I don't remember anything in German and Swedish, even though I learned both for three years. Perhaps, I have some limits. I like to be that multicultural collage.

P.S.It is funny how we speak within family: one word in russian, one in latvian, two in english and in distorted rumanian manner.