Two days after Labor Day, my elder daughter will don a uniform, sling a backpack over her shoulder, and head off to full-day kindergarten. Cassie won’t be attending our neighborhood school or even a local private one. She’ll be spending her days at a brand new public charter school with a Chinese immersion program. When Yinghua Academy opens its doors to Cassie and up to 100 other kids in kindergarten through grade three, it will become the first Mandarin Chinese immersion school not just in Minnesota but in the entire Midwest; one of only about 10 such schools in the entire country. My daughter and her classmates will be pioneers: While every child in China studies English, only about 50,000 children in the U.S. study Chinese each year. And the number in immersion programs – wherein all instruction occurs in Chinese – is a tiny fraction of that.
That will change if Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has his way. Pawlenty, House Majority Leader Erik Paulson, and Minnesota Education Commissioner Alice Seagren have announced initiatives aimed at bringing more Mandarin to the state’s public schools. While some educators are excited at the prospect, others wonder if the state is ready to dedicate the resources needed to help districts implement Mandarin instruction – and to help children succeed at learning one of the world’s most complex languages.
The ‘unofficial dean’
Although Yinghua Academy is an ambitious effort, Chinese language education is not new to Minnesota. It was nearly 30 years ago that a young French language teacher named Margaret Wong, who had never before taught Chinese (though she was a native Chinese speaker), introduced the language to students at the now-defunct Minneapolis Central High School. Wong remembers, “The Superintendent, Dr. John Davis, was visionary. [President] Nixon had been to China, and Dr. Davis had been to China. [Davis] said, ‘The Minneapolis schools ought to teach Chinese.’ The kids wanted a language that was relevant and so we started a Chinese curriculum, right in the middle of the school year,” says Wong. She started from scratch, drawing on her own resources for a curriculum and her knowledge of what worked in teaching – and learning – other languages (in addition to English, Mandarin Chinese, and French, Wong speaks Spanish and Portuguese).
When Minneapolis Central closed, Wong was offered a full-time position at the Breck School, where she had been teaching part-time. She started the Mandarin program at Breck 28 years ago at the high school level. Eventually, it spread to middle school, and now even kindergarteners at Breck learn Mandarin. It is a hugely popular program, and every year Breck students travel to China.
Many of the Chinese-language programs at Minnesota schools have Margaret Wong’s fingerprints on them. She is the unofficial dean of Chinese teachers and has mentored teachers and helped develop programs throughout the Twin Cities. Though Breck is among the most elite of the state’s private schools, she says, “My heart is in public education.” One of the programs Wong helped develop is at Highland Park High School in St. Paul. When the program was established more than 10 years ago, with funding help from the Saint Paul Foundation, it was a success. Today, however, it is foundering.
Current programs
Four schools in the St. Paul public school system teach Mandarin: Ramsey Junior High, Highland Junior High, St. Paul Central High School, and Highland Park High School. Efe Agbamu, principal at Highland Park High School, admits that her school’s program is “struggling … Last year, [the number of students enrolled in Mandarin] took a nosedive, and this year we’re struggling again. I don’t know if students truly understand the significance of learning Chinese.” Just 100 of the school’s 1,500 students are enrolled in Mandarin; this year, the highest levels of the language won’t be offered, as the small number of students interested in taking them makes it hard for the school to justify the expense.
Edina and Minnetonka are two of the suburban districts that offer Mandarin. Minnetonka’s program provides Mandarin instruction in grades eight through 12. Dr. Mike Lovett, Minnetonka’s assistant superintendent, stresses that it’s the vision of the administrators who originally implemented the program and the excellence of the teachers that makes the program a success. “We originally offered Mandarin in grades six through 12. [Instruction in] grades six through eight every other day.” When the district was forced to cut its budget by 6 percent in 2004, Mandarin instruction in sixth and seventh grade was dropped. Lovett says that as a result, the Mandarin program was made “more rigorous” for eighth through 12th graders. The district also offers Spanish, French, and German. Mandarin is the smallest program, with about 40 students per grade enrolled.
The Minneapolis district offers Mandarin at a smattering of schools. One of the most exciting programs is at Elizabeth Hall International Elementary, a prekindergarten-through-grade-five magnet school on the city’s North Side. All of the school’s 230 students from kindergarten on up study the language, says Principal Bennice Young. It is a poor area; every year, 90-95 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. But the program is flourishing, and Young credits the teacher. “Feng Yi Wang is extraordinary,” she raves. “She teaches the language and culture, and the children, the babies … the kinds of things they can say and understand, it’s extraordinary.” Young hopes that her students can continue with their Mandarin studies; Northeast Middle School is in the planning stages of developing a Mandarin curriculum, but for now, there’s no way for the children to continue beyond grade five.
A number of districts are exploring or actively planning to add Mandarin to their offerings, among them Anoka-Hennepin, Fridley, North St. Paul, St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Wayzata, Westonka, and Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan, whose superintendent, John Currie, was one of the educators in the delegation Education Commissioner Alice Seagren took to China in June.
“We’re just starting to think and plan,” says Currie. “In 2007, we’ll start with one Mandarin/Chinese culture magnet elementary school.” Currie says that a recent survey of 2,500 parents (his district is the state’s fourth-largest) found that there is “strong interest” in having children start Mandarin at an early age.
Breck’s Wong thinks that starting Mandarin at a young age – young children, she says, actually hear differently – is important. She also says that class size is a crucial factor. “Chinese is a difficult language to learn,” she explains. “You need to learn it verbally, first, before you learn to read and write it is. There is no phonetic relationship between the characters and the sound. Only after you have acquired a lot of Chinese can you see the link.” Another challenge is finding good teachers, especially those who can teach American children, who are used to more freedom and participatory learning than their Chinese counterparts.
Wong hears frustration when she talks to public school teachers struggling with large class sizes and the lack of resources dedicated to teaching what is one of the most difficult of the world’s languages. “Schools want the reputation of teaching Chinese, but they put in a less-than-half-hearted effort,” she notes. “Is there such a thing as ‘quarter-hearted?'” She decries large classes where, she says, a student may be able to speak in Chinese only once during a class period. “Copying characters is not learning Chinese,” she points out.
Pinning hopes on Yinghua
Wong has not given up on Chinese in public schools, though. Wong is a board member of Yinghua Academy and is convinced that the school, with handpicked teachers and administrators, dedicated parents, and a well-thought-out curriculum, has a good chance at
success.
Zhining Chin, who is head of testing and evaluation for the Hopkins district, is a colleague of Wong’s on the Yinghua board and is convinced that the immersion school model is best for learning Chinese. Chin helped found Eden Prairie’s Minhua, a “Saturday school” teaching Chinese mostly to the children of native speakers. Her own daughter, now an adult, attended the school. “Saturday schools are not so successful,” she says. “My own daughter can speak [Chinese] but not read and write [the language], and she attended Minhua.”
Like Wong, she’s pinning her hopes on Yinghua. “The parents are so dedicated,” she says, “And that’s so important.” The school is carefully planning its curriculum and handpicking teachers and staff.
It’s not just insiders who are enthusiastic about the school. Joan Brzezinski, assistant director of the University of Minnesota’s China Center, is eager to see Yinghua succeed. “I’m very excited about Yinghua,” she says, “And I think immersion education in Chinese is going to be very successful.”
Yinghua’s director, Betsy Leuth, traveled to China as part of Seagren’s delegation. Leuth has a background in immersion education – she previously taught at Academia Cesar Chavez – and in financial management, which is key to the success of a charter school. And she has a strong motivation to see the school succeed: Her daughter Lucy, who was adopted from China, will be in Yinghua’s first-grade class. She is conscious of the spotlight on Yinghua. She says that the support of parents is key in making immersion education work. “Every child can succeed in an immersion environment. It’s not just for gifted kids,” she stresses. “If a child struggles in an immersion school, they will probably struggle in any school.”
The initial enrollment in Yinghua is primarily children of Chinese descent – both those whose families speak Mandarin at home and those who were adopted from China. There are also biracial and a smattering of non-Chinese children enrolled. “As we grow, we will spread our wings to attract everyone,” she says confidently. Leuth and board members hope to add a grade each year until the schools offers K-8 education.
Leuth says Yinghua has gotten good support from the Minnesota Department of Education. Seagren is rooting for the school. “Betsy is working so hard,” she says. “Everything we hear about Yinghua is positive.”
Chin thinks that as Yinghua students master the language, the school will grow. She says that some in the Chinese community and the community at large are a bit cautious about the new enterprise, preferring to take a wait-and-see attitude.
“We are the pioneers here,” she says, “We are taking risks, Every day, I ask myself, ‘How can we make Yinghua a better school?’ At the same time, I know that we are going to be successful. If we cannot succeed, who will?”
