It was thought provoking to read the Estonian Integration Monitoring 2023 report, and reflect on my personal experiences with language, learning and looking at things from different perspectives.

And it started me thinking. Is there anything which shapes and creates our identity as much as our native language. The main factor which ascribes smaller nations their uniqueness, where in larger nations something that consumes and attracts people from other speaking countries. In the last 100 years, an increasingly mobile population has led to English becoming the default language of the world. From the internet to popular music and movies, English dominates. Some may regard it as a blessing to be born into a nation with English as the national language, yet there is a downsize to belonging to the biggest language club in the world.

As a native Englishman, it is embarrassing how my country has the lowest level of bilingual speakers, at 34.6 percent, in Europe. Compared to Estonia with 91.2 percent. And 34.6 is deceptively high as the 14.5 percent of the population were born outside of the U.K.,  so bringing a second language with them.

Switching between languages, while hard at first, regularly exercises the brain, improves concentration, develops problem solving skills and enhances memory and creativity. The health benefits of bilingualism are increasingly well studied and documented. One Canadian study showed the reduction of the onset of Alzheimer's, a neurological degenerative disease, by 4.5 years, in bilinguals.

High school years with the Lafayettes

Year one of high school is when compulsory French lessons began in an historic English countryside school. As a 12-year-old, Mr. H was my first French teacher, and he made learning French interesting, exotic and exciting to our young minds, many of us who had never left the country. I recall a brand new green exercise book open before me about the Lafayette family, and my introduction to a new language and a new country. I did well and my grades were good. I still recall how gorgeous new French words played around in my head like autumn leaves in a soft autumn breeze. The joy of learning, imagination and memory working together.

By the time I was 15, I had quit French, and unwittingly had already internalized a belief that I was not very smart, and French was for the more well off kids. How did this happen? Our French teacher changed to Mrs. S. She was spiky, critical and delivered the lessons with none of the style, panache and enthusiasm of the beloved Mr. H. And then came the school skiing trip to the French alps. Alas, I was unable to go on the trip due to the expense.

The two week trip was designed to intensely expose the class to real French, and rather than two lessons per week, it would be spoken continually. On their return, in addition to the adventures and experiences glowingly shared, I was discovered myself outpaced by my classmates, feeling stigmatized, on bad terms with my teacher, and I shrank from the classroom reverie, and sank into books, music and movies.

Errors in perception

You may have missed the passing in June 2021 of one of the most influential thinkers and luminaries of the 20th century. Maltese born Edward de Bono, coined the term lateral thinking, and his thinking tools have been used in from the boardrooms of McDonalds to the platinum mines of South Africa. De Bono famously said:

"Studies have shown that 90 percent of error in thinking is due to error in perception. If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas."

Perhaps his most famous contribution, or most visibly striking, fun and easily digestible is the six thinking hats. The six hats is a technique which not only allows you to look at a problem from another perspective, it also provides the tools to develop new and laterally minded solutions. In summary, groups are allocated 6 different colored hats which represent unique approaches to thinking and problem solving. The red hat is to describe emotions, black hat judgements, obstacles and problems, the white hat just the facts, the green hat concerns creative ideas, and the yellow to generate the most optimistic and sunny options. The blue hat is to coordinate collate and summarize.

Hostile working environments don't come much more intense than the K mines in South Africa during the 1990s

De Bono thinking techniques were implemented during extremely tense and volatile post-Apartheid reconciliation procedures during the 1990s, and six hats was rolled out throughout the country and implemented in educational, business and government establishments. The Karee platinum mines in South Africa's northwest province are a frequently referenced case study. With over 12 different languages spoken, including the mutually antagonistic Xhosa and Zulu tribes, there were a reported seven fights per day, often resulting in death or serious injury. In 1996, the mine owners took the decision to invest in training their 16,000 employees, many of whom were illiterate, and the results were astounding. Incidents dropped to four per month, productivity increased 20 percent and most importantly the mood, mindset and morale in the mine improved as a culture of learning was established.

Between a rock and a hard place

"We are Russian native speakers, and we are Estonian," talking informally with twentysomethings who all learned Estonian in their late teens. Their overwhelming attitude, this is the language of our country. And to get on, one must speak it. A sea change has been rapidly expedited since Ukraine took center stage in the theater of geopolitics . Perhaps, with the threat of invasion palpable, a reanimated specter of Russian expansionism and recent documented atrocities have galvanized not only a European ideal but a very new appreciation for freedoms in the West seen to be rapidly vanishing in the East. And people do not want to go back to that in Estonia.

Yet, another friend who I interviewed who grew up outside of Tallinn and attended all Russian school, shared that until he was a teenager he rarely met any Estonian speakers, let alone have any friends who spoke the national tongue. And in the early 2000s, his mother paid for a private tutor from when he was four years old – to teach him English.

An expectation of oneself, to be more, better. Accessing this drive, and growing from this store. Stepping up because you cannot step back. Overwhelmingly, when I have posed the difficult language question, these are the main sentiments I now hear.

Less complaining and more training approach

Necessity and common sense indicate that if you want people to learn effectively, then first understanding them, and then helping people realize their aspirations, in contrast to coercion, is the optimal and most effective approach. And as with everything, opportunity and circumstance play their role. When parents are bilingual then the chance for their kids to be trilingual increases.

Smaller countries are able to implement changes and reforms more rapidly. Hence Estonia's mighty leap from a 70s soviet backwater to today's tech unicorn capital progressive society and neoliberal economy. Estonia has noticeably blossomed financially in the last 30 years. It's educational system lauded and academic excellence acknowledged as one of the best in Europe.

The current fashion in the media and mainstream political narrative seems to champion confrontation rather than cooperation; and national and international narratives of aggression and triumphalism which effect mental health and learning ability.

Already, a lot of education can be online, home schooling is growing, or even a tutor for the more well off. And the benefits of a youthful trilingual population are generous, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have some of the best living standards and job opportunities in the world. Opportunities for everyone when done right – perhaps it is time in light of recent revisions to the language syllabus to use some six hat thinking. As not all teachers are great, school trips affordable, tutors findable, or ones parents bilingual or even better, trilingual.

Looking at the EIM 2023 data, Estonia's fortunes have improved along with the language capabilities of the inhabitants. As learning is a lifelong occupation, and perhaps the most worthwhile, the more tools, resources and focus any society places on creating such an environment, the better for everyone. It seems to me.

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