Growing up in my earlier schooling, there were a lot of racist attitudes towards language and culture which I think has been addressed in some cases but not all. It's so neat to now have schools teaching the two official languages of New Zealand as English and Maori as well as community languages such as the Pacific languages i.e. Samoan, Tongan, etc. and International languages such as French, Mandarin, German etc.
Ideally, I child should be able to learn English as well as Maori and their cultural language or an international language. The benefits of this is that English is the language of International communication for many Western countries, Maori is the language of the first peoples nations or tangata whenua of New Zealand and learning your heritage or cultural language assists in cultural identity and self esteem.
In being able to speak at least three languages, gives access to differing world views, ideas, philosophies and paradigms. I know this in having learnt Samoan as a child and growing up but being schooled in English and then picking up some Maori literacy informally in my place of work.
Each language holds important keys to the philosophies of each culture and ways of thinking that are often very different from each other and I feel privileged to have had this understanding and exposure to different worldviews.
As it's been said that you can't be bicultural/multicultural if you are monolingual meaning that if you only speak one language, often English, then in a sense you are limited in your understanding of what it means to be able to converse, walk, learn in a bicultural or multicultural setting. Something that we should definitely be encouraging in our children and our children's children etc....
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