new points of view

Yesterday my eyes were opened to a new way of looking at things. We are taking a German class, which is the only class with a teacher not from Lipscomb. She is a native Austrian and is a very sweet woman in her 50's. Somehow she gave me a new perspective on Americans, not a thing that I expected to gain from this experience. She asked the class how many of us spoke languages other than English. A couple people here and there raised their hands and said French or Spanish, but even those were not fluent in their languages. While this annoyed me and made me think of how silly Americans are for not learning more languages when we are children, she smiled and said, "I thought so." I was so taken aback and she then had my full attention. She continued to say that it made perfect sense to her that we did not speak more because we do not have the proximity to other languages as Europeans. While they are possibly 2-3 hours away from many different languages, Americans can drive for many miles before they find somewhere there is another prominent language. I was completely floored to understand this in a new light. Now, I say all of that to say, yes, Americans do need to teach their kids as they are young to speak other languages and new cultures, but perhaps we are not completely ignorant as I thought before. Also, this gives me hope that not all Europeans think badly of all Americans. I am so thankful to Frau Wertzl for opening my eyes to something that seems so obvious to her.