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Forbes
27-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
AI Education Won't Future-Proof The American Workforce. Here's Why
U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order to advance AI education for American youth. But ... More is interest and expertise in AI technology what the next generation needs to future-proof the American workforce? WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 23, 2025 (Photo by Chip Somodevilla) 'Early training in AI will demystify this technology and prepare America's students to be confident participants in the AI-assisted workforce, propelling our nation to new heights of scientific and economic achievement.' This is how The White House motivated President Donald J. Trump's signing of an executive order to advance AI education for American youth earlier this week. But is a Task Force 'fostering interest and expertise in AI technology from an early age' really what the next generation needs most? Or is there something more urgent for young Americans to demystify and foster an early interest and expertise in? 'Our future depends on our ability to engage with the rest of the world, and right now Americans have a very tough time doing that,' said Marty Abbott, the executive director of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in 2019. A 2018 study suggests that Abbott is right: While an average of 92% of European students study at least one foreign language in school, only 20% of K–12 students in the United States are enrolled in foreign language classes. According to the Committee for Economic Development, a non-partisan, non-political, non-profit independent research organization, this one-way linguistic and cultural isolation from the world community has significant implications for the future opportunities of American K-12 students as they exit school. And the fact that U.S. students lack the linguistic and cultural skills of their peers in other nations has a negative impact not only on national security, but on the nation's ability to progress economically in the global marketplace: 'From small businesses to multi-nationals, the ability to effectively communicate in the languages and cultures of international consumers, business partners, and employees is crucial' (CED, 2006). Diwan schools are a federation of Breton-medium schools allowing children to learn French and Breton ... More through language immersion, France on June 17, 2021. (Photo by Fred TANNEAU / AFP) Other studies show that bilinguals outperform their monolingual counterparts on cognitive tasks that require ignoring irrelevant information, task switching, and resolving conflict. In other words, early training in AI may enable American students to utilize artificial intelligence. But early training in a foreign language enables their peers in other countries to tap into their own thinking skills, activating a range of other skills that are crucial for people, nations, and the world to benefit from AI. A scientific paper of the cognitive benefits of being bilingual highlights that bilingual people often perform better on tasks that require the ability to: The paper concludes that even for very young children, navigating a multilingual environment imparts advantages that transfer beyond language. And older bilingual people enjoy improved memory and executive control relative to older monolingual people, which can lead to real-world health benefits. Across the political spectrum, fears have been expressed that American students will fall behind other nations, particularly China, as technology becomes more advanced and integrated into the workforce. And if the question is 'How do we make AI part of every child's upbringing?', signing an executive order to advance AI education for American youth can indeed seem like the right answer. But the question shouldn't be 'How do we make AI part of every child's upbringing?' Rather, political and corporate leaders should ask themselves, 'How do we cultivate the skills everyone needs to navigate an uncertain future with rapid changes in technology, geopolitics, health, climate, etc.?' Being able to adapt to change, focus on what's relevant, switch between tasks, manage conflict, and recognize systems that may be different are all important aspects of the answer to this question. And maybe AI is too. But while we have lots of research showing that learning a foreign language fosters these cognitive, neural, and social skills in children and young adults, we don't know how AI will impact our ability to navigate the future. We have teachers who worry we're going to have a generation that follows AI blindly and that their students will be taken advantage of 'by employers, landlords or the government' if they don't know how to think critically on their own. But as always with the future, we don't know if they will be right. All we know is that we get what we ask for. And when we ask for AI education, we get AI education. Even when there is something far more urgent for all of us to navigate the future.
Chicago Tribune
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Annie Abbott: Multilingualism not a threat. It belongs in our country.
When Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde spoke to President Donald Trump and the congregation on the day after his inauguration, she asked him 'to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.' For many of those people, that fear is pronounced miedo, and speaking Spanish (or any language other than English) is now part of what makes them feel like targets. The recent 'Day Without Immigrants,' launched as protests in Chicago and cities across the country, was the national response to attacks on Spanish-speaking immigrants especially. Now reports indicate Trump will sign an executive order declaring English the official language of the U.S. and rescinding requirements that programs that receive federal funds provide language assistance for non-English speakers. In the current fearmongering against immigrants, language is used as a proxy for who belongs in the United States — or who does not. This misunderstanding of the vital role of multilingualism in our communities, our economy and our government helps drive the anti-immigrant attitude and actions that will only weaken our country. One week after Trump took office for the second time, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) spoke to this language connection in a message to its members: 'In light of the recent wave of Executive Orders issued by the new Trump administration, it is more important than ever to reaffirm the critical role that world language educators serve in our multilingual communities, here and abroad. … As the world becomes more interdependent, the demand for multilingual and culturally competent individuals will only grow.' As a language educator with more than 30 years experience teaching Spanish at the university level, I know, and research shows, that embracing all languages enriches schools, communities and businesses. Yet deeply ingrained in U.S. culture is the problematic notion that being a monolingual English speaker should be the norm. Indeed, an overwhelming majority of people (78.3%) in the U.S. speak English only, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, a majority of those who speak languages other than English are bilingual and speak English 'very well.' And a full 17% of immigrants in the U.S. speak English only. Clearly, English is in no danger in this country from the presence of people who also speak many other languages. A recent international survey of more than 20 countries, conducted by the Pew Research Center, asked what makes a person truly belong to a country. The top response (91%) was 'being able to speak their country's most common language.' The response of participants from the U.S. was lower (78%) but still high. Trump — who is monolingual — has espoused throughout his career that speaking English equals belonging. In a 2015 Republican presidential primary debate, he said, 'This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.' Nine years later, at a 2024 rally in Phoenix, he went further, claiming that non-English-speaking immigrants push out those who truly belong: 'There are a lot of languages that we don't have here. … And they're sitting down in a school, taking a student's place that might be a hardworking good citizen, the child of citizens. And they're taking their place.' That is not how public schools work, obviously; one student's presence does not shove out another. School is precisely where immigrant youths need to be to learn English. In the fall of 2021, 10.6% of public school students in the United States were English learners, equaling 5.3 million students. The deeper implication resonating from this administration is clear: If you do not speak English, even if you are learning it, you cannot be a 'good citizen.' You do not belong. It is not surprising, then, that the Spanish version of the White House's website and social media accounts disappeared the day Trump took office. Even if it is true that a Spanish version is in the works, that stands in stark contrast to the preparedness with which this administration launched its priorities in the first hours and days with a spray of prewritten executive orders and policy plans. The bigger problem is that these beliefs about languages translate into action. Research shows that negative attitudes about the way people speak English, let alone another language, results in bias and discrimination, '(exacerbating) existing prejudices towards minority communities.' Studies have found discriminatory hiring practices against job candidates with 'nonstandard' accents and bias in artificial intelligence against nonnative English writers. Even worse, this conflation of language and belonging is tied to deportation efforts. This is not new. During Trump's first presidency, a Manhattan lawyer was recorded threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement on workers who spoke Spanish, and two women in Montana were detained by a Border Patrol agent for speaking Spanish. The official mechanisms for raids, detention and deportation have recently ramped up even more. At the top of the ICE website, in red, a button encourages people to 'Report Crime' and provides a phone number for reporting 'suspicious activity.' The problem is that speaking Spanish has so thoroughly been cast as a 'suspicious activity' that fears swirl around claims that U.S. citizens are detained for speaking it in public. To be sure, speaking English in the U.S. benefits immigrants. That is why around 900,000 adults in the U.S. are enrolled in English classes. But if learning a language were quick and easy, far fewer Americans would be monolingual themselves. On the first day of this new semester at my university, and the second day of Trump's administration, a student emailed me to say she would miss class while she and her family huddled in Chicago where a massive federal deportation operation was announced. That same day, a former student reached out to me and wrote that 'speaking Spanish is a core part of my career as a humanitarian immigration attorney in Chicago — where 90% of my clients speak exclusively Spanish.' Speaking Spanish and other languages in the U.S. must be a point of orgullo — pride — not a cause of terror. Annie Abbott is an associate teaching professor of Spanish at the University of Illinois and a public voices fellow of The OpEd Project.
