The Carpet Cleaner Who Speaks 37 Languages! Is This Story A Tragedy or a Triumph? Do Our Schools & Society Do A Good Job Identifying and Nurturing Talent? How Should Language Fluency Be Determined?

The Best Paragraph I've Read: “Tell me about this stain,” 46-year-old Vaughn Smith asks his clients. “Well,” says one of the homeowners, “Schroeder rubbed his bottom across it.” Vaughn knows just what to do about that, and the couple, Courtney Stamm and Kelly Widelska, know they can trust him to do it. They’d been hiring him for years, once watching him erase even a splattered Pepto Bismol stain. But this time when Vaughn called to confirm their January appointment, he quietly explained that there was something about himself that he’d never told them. That he rarely told anyone. And, well, a reporter was writing a story about it. Could he please bring her along? Now as they listen to Vaughn discuss the porousness of wool, and the difference between Scotchgard and sanitizer, they can’t help but look at him differently. Once the stool stain is solved, Kelly just has to ask. “So, how many languages do you speak?” “Oh, goodness,” Vaughn says. “Eight, fluently.” “Eight?” Kelly marvels. “Eight,” Vaughn confirms. English, Spanish, Bulgarian, Czech, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian and Slovak. “But if you go by like, different grades of how much conversation,” he explains, “I know about 25 more.” Vaughn glances at me. He is still underselling his abilities. By his count, it is actually 37 more languages, with at least 24 he speaks well enough to carry on lengthy conversations. He can read and write in eight alphabets and scripts. He can tell stories in Italian and Finnish and American Sign Language. This paragraph comes from an article in the Washington Post by Jessica Contrera.  The article is titled: "The remarkable brain of a carpet cleaner who speak 24 languages."  You can read the full article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2022/multilingual-hyperpolyglot-brain-languages/ Zac and Don discuss the story of Vaughn Smith and the 37 languages that he is familiar with.  They wonder if his story is a tragedy or a triumph.  They discuss whether public schools and society do a good job identifying talent and helping it reach it's full potential.