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the different idioms they have in German and Spanish for the things we say in English.

And it just it unlocks this part of your mind.

And I think especially with what's happening right now with AI where it's going to do a bunch of the work that we used to do.

And you know, we could just outsource all these math equations to it and stuff like this.

The most important thing is going to be to teach kids how to think and how to be excited by knowledge.

And if we're taking that away, what is even the point of having high school?

>> I agree with you and we did not have to take a language to graduate high school when I was in high school.

Okay, when the girls were at Kirkwood High School they did and they had to take like 2 years of it.

I could compromise and maybe one was enough.

But I'm I don't think you should retract it because one thing about learning another language is kind of like learning like mathematics.

It kind of makes your brain do things that it needs to learn how to do and that's part of education as well.

And then when I got to college like to to get your degree even in journalism you had to like have a you know, a foreign language which you could fulfill with computer science at that time.

Okay, and I don't know if you can do that anymore but it was such a new thing.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

I I don't know any of my friends from high school who took you know, we had to take a foreign language remember any of it.

And I love the thing about idioms.

Like you know uh what the in Spanish at least in Mexico the word for handcuffs esposas.

Wives.

I I love stuff like that.

But [laughter] I I don't think most kids in high school retain much of the language they learned.

And I took Latin and uh we had to like do you know write out the assignment, you know, the all Gaul is three parts and I would write out the first couple sentences and then I'd do the Cubs one yesterday and da da da and the teacher didn't read any of it because if you turned in four pages you got a check.

So in other words Bill you had a bad experience with languages in high school and now you're taking it out on the children of Illinois.

>> and then I flunked out of college.

I was taking French and Chinese for reasons I can't even explain.

You were going to be an ambassador.

Right.

I don't think that language in high school is very >> I love the way though that they were talking about this particular you know, where this elective they could use for industrial arts or vocational you know, training and that I I hate to see it going away because all of so much of our arts programs you know, whether it's foreign language or you know, the arts arts that is just a that's a tragedy.

But when you talk about kids who really have you know, maybe they have they have some talent when it comes to vocational arts or industrial arts.

I I I I think you're right.

You can live a perfectly good life and not speak another language.

But as Sarah and Alvin point out it does have mental benefits.

Helps you with literature literacy.

Helps you with your language.

It helps memory.

Some people have discovered that it actually increases empathy because you're learning about another culture.

And if you're in Illinois and if you want to go to Northwestern, UChicago or Illinois you have to have language.

>> That was one that yeah most of the colleges are like that now.

So you're creating a separate vocational track.

You're basically saying like we're not even going to let you dabble you don't have to dabble in this thing.

You don't have to try it and see if you might have aptitude.

You can just go take your shop class.

I think that's a mistake.

We should try to expose kids to as much as possible while there's still a chance that they may realize holy cow I have this huge talent for this.

>> There you go.

The word for warning in Spanish is advertisement.

>> [laughter] >> Also amazing.

Okay, Sarah I'm going to go to you on this one as well.

The National Blues Museum has been shut down in the city of St.

Louis unexpectedly.

Um not really good.

It started what 10 years ago with casino money.

When they put one of the casinos on the landing they had to make a community benefits contribution of 5 to 10 million dollars and that's what started it.

I I never found blues to be all that popular.

So I'm not too surprised that the museum went under.

>> Oh, I think blues are wildly popular.

If you look at the little triangle over by the stadium.

These were like the the happeningest bars in town and now we're down to like two of them there.

But it's still it's it's the place to go and it's this important heritage for St.

Louis that I think we should build on.

I don't know the people who were personally involved with running the Blues Museum.

But I will say it wasn't a shock to me when it closed because I'm somebody who's constantly trying to go out see what's going on in town connect with stuff.

I never felt like they were trying to connect with me.

As a journalist I would never get information about here's programming we're doing.

I would never have there's a collaboration with this arts group that you like.

I don't know if it just was my own unique myopia and they were connecting with other people instead.

>> No, they weren't.

No, they weren't.

It didn't feel plugged into the the cultural fabric in the way that you see the people who run one arts arts organization work together and support others.

They didn't network into that and I think that there were some missed opportunities with something that could have been a big boon to downtown.

I'm not sure I saw the management there that would have made it work.

>> And I remember at the time and I think if you've been to the Kingston Mines in Chicago.

I mean are are they still open because that was like one of that was the one of the biggest blues clubs in in anywhere in the world.

Um but I think it is a very popular art form.

But when they first started kicking around this idea of a National Blues Museum I think the expectations were so high.

They they was going to be tandem out to the Ryman in Nashville and people were going to come from all over the world.

So there was no way that they could deliver.

>> But hang on a moment.

There's no blues radio station.

You don't have people friends who say oh I love this blues song and I'm singing it now.

There's a lot of rock and roll that comes from blues.

That's the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is hugely successful in Cleveland.

But blues just is not up there.

All right.

One some people pointed out that KDHX's demise I'm not saying led to this but that was a blues fix.

But when it first opened and I love St.

Louis but my first thought was I think the National Blues Museum would do better in Chicago or Memphis maybe even New Orleans.

I'm sorry because more dense population and thus you have more blues lovers.

Buddy Guy still has a club that operates and he plays in Chicago.

I don't think it got enough support from the like the regional arts commission is that you know, the National Endowment for the Arts they're making $225,000.

>> don't know how much money they gave them though.

I wouldn't I wouldn't go down that path.

But but when you have the CEO of the chairman of the regional arts commission getting trips to Uganda to study women's Okay.

What if what if wait wait wait a minute Bill.

Wait wait wait.

What if rack was the biggest contributor to the to the Blues Museum?

See we don't know that.

So I can't I would not I can't make that statement cuz I don't know what it Okay, I got I got one for you.

This week Gary Cohen of the Mets he's an announcer with Todd Zeile.

He says look at downtown St.

Louis.

There is nobody there.

There's no never anybody there.

What led did like the closing of the Blues Museum and other things create an empty downtown or did an empty downtown result in the closing of the National Blues Museum?

This is a great Chicken or the egg or crime or the perception of crime.

I wonder hearing that the roots of this came from the casino money.

If you're thinking okay, we've got some casino money.

You don't maybe work as hard to get the donors and then you don't work as hard to get people to come in and you're sort of resting on your laurels at a point when you need to be out there hustling getting every single person you can to come in there.

And it just maybe was doomed from the start because it was it was the velvet handcuffs.

>> Yeah.

Now granted the schedule was probably set up this way.

But if the Mets had been here 2 weeks ago when the regionals were here then downtown would have been packed.

What would they have said then?

I just they didn't have anything to talk about that day.

Cuz the Mets suck.

And then the Mets lost.

Yeah, they did show a photo and there was nobody there.

Oops.

>> [laughter] >> But okay, let's work on it.

Let's improve this region and we'll start with next week's program.

[laughter] Thank you so much for joining us.

Don't forget Donny Bash on the 16th 9pbs.org for your tickets.

See you.