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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are at least two in 9th grade at Sidwell. I'm told that they struggle in humanities subjects as a general rule. Their weakest link is languages because they didn't do elementary school immersion and weren't allowed to study a modern language at BASIS until 7th or 8th grades. Sidwell starts serious language study in the upper elementary grades.[/quote]

Makes no sense, perhaps anecdotal by choice.  ES language immersion is not as common as you'd suggest, and where it exists, is extremely limited in scope.  Also, it's a disjointed comparison as BASIS doesn't start at ES, it starts at MS.  DS had quite a bit of language immersion at BASIS prior to 9th grade to include several years of Latin at BASIS in middle school and graduated from BASIS with 5 years of Mandarin Chinese, which is among the hardest languages to learn, and which, unlike common European languages like Spanish, French or German, is one of the least frequently taught in American schools due to its difficulty.  As for humanities, DS is deeply steeped in classics, history and political science and could probably run circles around any Sidwell grad.[/quote]

Mandarin instruction is no longer uncommon in American public schools, at least not in areas attracting sizeable Asian immigrant communities. Teaching modern languages in middle school has become standard in high-performing school systems nationwide. BASIS is behind the times on language instruction, but mainly attracts monolingual parents who don't mind. If you can afford to move on to a school offering a better-rounded education without difficulty, you leave.[/quote]

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