"Fortress America"

"Rosenberg's plan, which was discussed Thursday during a federal hearing in Orlando on the future of higher education in America, includes creating a virtual language institute, increasing the number of foreign students studying in Florida, and possibly requiring university students to attend at least one study-abroad program before graduation."

"The idea of fortress America doesn't work anymore and our students need to have a better understanding of that," said Rosenberg, who is fluent in Spanish, and can read and speak some Portuguese and French.


-If the rest of the world is learning more about us than we are learning about them, then they are able to make greater inroads into our economy and we cannot do the same with theirs," Rhodd said.

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- "Fortress America" what a great label for the persons in big government who still endorse outdated concepts and ideals about foreign policy.

America behind in learning about the rest of the world? Definitely. It still amazes me that I'm the only American in my program here. About 75% of my fellow cohorts are from European countries and speak on average 3 languages.

Make studying abroad a prerequisite for graduation? Excellent idea! Imagine the perspective America would gain as a whole. Fresh graduates coming back and working in big business with a broad view and a mentality of how to help America stay globally sucessful.


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A DIFFERENT LOOK

Gabriel Muller, 15, is enrolled in Chinese II at Coral Glades. He started to say that learning the characters is like learning every word in the English dictionary but stopped.

''No, it's not. Because every word in the dictionary is made up of 26 letters. Every Chinese word looks completely different,'' he said.

George Cheng, a junior at Robert Morgan who has studied several languages, said the amount of memorization makes Chinese a little more difficult.

''But it's just like memorizing streets,'' said George, 16. ``Once you start driving, you just know where the streets are.''

Brehm now believes signing up was the right decision.

''As you write more, everything becomes a lot easier and you don't really need to use your eraser that much,'' she said.

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- My ability to write characters that I've learned are becoming less and less a distant third and more close to a second natured ability, at times it feels as natural as jotting down 'A' 'B' and 'C' on a paper.