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A few weeks ago in class, we were talking about the English-only debate, and whether educating students in their family languages is a good or bad thing to do. My dad has four younger brothers. They all speak Dutch, but the two youngest speak more standard Dutch as opposed to the dialect that my dad, his two oldest younger brothers, and his father can all speak in. This is because when my middle uncle started going to school (in the Netherlands) he could not understand what the teachers were saying. At home he had learned to speak a dialect, and when standard Dutch was used in school, he could not understand. This prompted my dad's family to speak more standard Dutch when his two youngest brothers were born. While a dialect is not the same thing as a different language and the fact that this story deals with Dutch and not English, this story can still relate to the English only debate. While it would have been easier for my uncle to have been taught in his dialect in school because that was the language that he knew, it would not have helped him very much in life. If he had stayed in The Netherlands, he would have needed to learn the standard Dutch that everyone else spoke. And my dad's family switched to the standard English to make life easier for their children. It really does make sense for schools to teach children the language of the country because that is what they will need to know in order to survive. Taking this statement seriously is a little tricky since the United States does not have an official language. But seeing as how most people in this country speak English, and many people all over the world speak English, children should be taught standard English in school. Granted this is pretty much the case in this country now, the tricky part now is how to teach any and every student English in school.