Russian charter - Tolstoy Academy

[Anonymous]

They all work in my building at my government agency in Bethesda/Rockville.

They have taken over the second floor! Wish I knew what they were saying during the many cigarette breaks I've encountered.

[Anonymous]

I'm a US-born person of East European descent, and have lived and worked in Russia for years. I think this charter could be great, if it integrated the best parts of Russian literary, artistic, and academic cultures.

The language piece is kind of secondary to high academic standards, and wanting your child to grow up highly literate.

I'm not sure who the target audience is, though, as there is already a Russian-language school run through the Russian Embassy.

[Anonymous]

I speak Russian but my spouse and child do not. I wish that this school or something like it was an option for us since teaching a child Russian in a home where it isn't spoken has been pretty much impossible (for me, at least).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a US-born person of East European descent, and have lived and worked in Russia for years. I think this charter could be great, if it integrated the best parts of Russian literary, artistic, and academic cultures.

The language piece is kind of secondary to high academic standards, and wanting your child to grow up highly literate.

I'm not sure who the target audience is, though, as there is already a Russian-language school run through the Russian Embassy.

Could you please share more info on this? I thought it only serves embassy kids and not open to the public.

[Anonymous]

There is a long history on DCUM of bashing Russians, Israelis and Asians.

Russian is an incredibly difficult language to learn. Starting kids young makes a lot of sense in terms of neurological connections their young brains are going to make.

Aside from being able to take and pass the AP Russian exam, your kids will have employment advantages from foreign service, to intelligence, to NGOs, etc. A foreign language can only help, and learning a difficult language such as Russian, will allow your children to learn other languages easier.

To those who say that Russian sounds awful, I have not found that at all. it is a soft and melodic language, maybe not as sing songy as Latin languages, but it not a barking language like German and Nordic languages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a long history on DCUM of bashing Russians, Israelis and Asians.

Russian is an incredibly difficult language to learn. Starting kids young makes a lot of sense in terms of neurological connections their young brains are going to make.

Aside from being able to take and pass the AP Russian exam, your kids will have employment advantages from foreign service, to intelligence, to NGOs, etc. A foreign language can only help, and learning a difficult language such as Russian, will allow your children to learn other languages easier.

To those who say that Russian sounds awful, I have not found that at all. it is a soft and melodic language, maybe not as sing songy as Latin languages, but it not a barking language like German and Nordic languages.

There's absolutely no indication that this school will be for young children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a long history on DCUM of bashing Russians, Israelis and Asians.

Russian is an incredibly difficult language to learn. Starting kids young makes a lot of sense in terms of neurological connections their young brains are going to make.

Aside from being able to take and pass the AP Russian exam, your kids will have employment advantages from foreign service, to intelligence, to NGOs, etc. A foreign language can only help, and learning a difficult language such as Russian, will allow your children to learn other languages easier.

To those who say that Russian sounds awful, I have not found that at all. it is a soft and melodic language, maybe not as sing songy as Latin languages, but it not a barking language like German and Nordic languages.

There's absolutely no indication that this school will be for young children.

There are no details right now thus no reason to say it won't be for young children. Anyways, the organizers picked a ... peculiar time to start the school, but I don't think we should assume a malicious intent on their behalf.

[Anonymous]

The USSR divided into 15 countries.
Except for the Baltics (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia), all the other countries still have Russian as their 2nd language.
There are thousands of former Soviet non-Russians in DC who probably st Russian at home.

[jsteele]

Just FYI folks, one of the two DCUM administrators is a native Russian speaker. Consider yourselves lucky that I have removed a number of posts before she saw them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Russian just isn't useful as a language for most people and I can't imagine they will have an easy time hiring for those positions. German is only slightly more useful and would be equally hard to hire for.

actually know. I read a survey once that German as a second language produces the highest paid job opportunities way more than spanish or french. German/English bilingualism means jobs in high tech, automotive, finance, pharmaceuticals etc, as opposed t more development type work with many other languages.

I have a success story! An acquaintance is a Russian heritage speaker who grew up in the USA and minored in German in college (majored in finance). Her parents insisted she kept up her Russian, sent her to classes, took back to Russia, etc. There was an internship in Europe that required the knowledge of all 3 languages, and she was the only one who qualified. She did very well for herself, lives in different countries, works for a bank, and, as far as I know, uses English, German, and Russian all the time

[Anonymous]

Good to know that the "maybe hurts J Steele's feelings" barometer is the gauge of acceptable discourse.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Good to know that the "maybe hurts J Steele's feelings" barometer is the gauge of acceptable discourse.

It's not my feelings. I don't speak Russian. But the posts were rude and off-topic at any rate. Maybe you can figure out what the Sopranos has to do with this thread, but I couldn't.

[Anonymous]

PP 12:56 - My children have attended the Embassy school. It is certainly geared towards the children of diplomats, but there are a handful of non-diplomats who attend. My children went there because we moved to Washington from Moscow unexpectedly and thought it would be more comfortable for them to stick with the system they knew. It is the Russian state curriculum, which as you probably know is a very specific thing. If you're interested for a child older than ?????? ?????, I think it would be very difficult to start.

I also know the people who are trying to start the Tolstoy Academy and they are thinking of it as an immersion program (like many others in the city) that also emphasizes the strengths of the Russian curriculum - math, science, classic literature.

I am happy that my children are bilingual in Russian and I think that, given the state of affairs between Russia and the US, Russian-language skills are likely to be in demand in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP 12:56 - My children have attended the Embassy school. It is certainly geared towards the children of diplomats, but there are a handful of non-diplomats who attend. My children went there because we moved to Washington from Moscow unexpectedly and thought it would be more comfortable for them to stick with the system they knew. It is the Russian state curriculum, which as you probably know is a very specific thing. If you're interested for a child older than ?????? ?????, I think it would be very difficult to start.

I also know the people who are trying to start the Tolstoy Academy and they are thinking of it as an immersion program (like many others in the city) that also emphasizes the strengths of the Russian curriculum - math, science, classic literature.

I am happy that my children are bilingual in Russian and I think that, given the state of affairs between Russia and the US, Russian-language skills are likely to be in demand in the future.

Thank you! Is there an official way to contact someone from the embassy school? I could not find anything on their website. As to the charter, ideally, i'd send my childred to a good Russian after school program rather than a full immersion program. I feel that full immersion will alienate my kids and devoid them of a more traditional American childhood that I can't provide being an immigrant. I do want my kids to be bilingual, but I don't want them to feel foreign in their country of birth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a US-born person of East European descent, and have lived and worked in Russia for years. I think this charter could be great, if it integrated the best parts of Russian literary, artistic, and academic cultures.

The language piece is kind of secondary to high academic standards, and wanting your child to grow up highly literate.

I'm not sure who the target audience is, though, as there is already a Russian-language school run through the Russian Embassy.

Could you please share more info on this? I thought it only serves embassy kids and not open to the public.

PP of the first post upthread here. I've known non-Embassy kids to attend, but I think they had to really work at admission. It's also, as another PP said, a very specific curriculum.

We didn't seek it for our kids because I'd heard the overall attitude was less than nurturing. Which doesn't surprise me, having interacted with the Russian school system. I wanted something a little less rigid for the early elementary years. But you can't argue with success. The Russian education system works - unless it burns you out.