Reply to Yu Yang--is the student body predominately African American, does Yu Yang have a non-Chinese track..

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Reply to "Yu Yang--is the student body predominately African American, does Yu Yang have a non-Chinese track.."

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[quote=helencon]You might be missing the point of what this mom is arguing.  She's saying that Yu Ying's mission would be far better served, and parents like me more likely to stay, if the Chinese learning component was more effective, and had a more authentic feel.  The basis for arguing this not chauvenism, it's pragmatism.  My college roommate's boy attends a PS in NYC's Chinatown with a Chinese immersion track, so we like to compare the programs.  In her kid's case, most of his classmates are being raised bilingual.  He's a year behind my kid in school, but his Mandarin is far ahead (and my boy's teachers tell me that he's one of the best Mandarin speakers in his class).  I'm convinced that my friend's child is making more rapid strides in learning Mandarin than my kid mainly because he's surrounded by Chinese speakers outside the classroom, on the playground, in gym class, and in his afterschool clubs and sports.  I attended a school event with her at which dozens of Chinese parents were buzzing around teaching kids to cook dishes and make traditional handicrafts - nothing like a Yu Ying event.  The school screens kids whose parents wish to enter them in the Chinese lottery for admission by interviewing them in their native dialect before entering their names.  What the mom you're blasting is asserting is that the cultural and language learning process suffers from PC approaches like Yu Ying's, and DC tax payers shouldn't be afraid to challenge, even if they're flamed as a result (case in point).   Parents like her are not trying to tear the program down; they're trying to to improve it in practical ways.   I, a non-Chinese Yu Ying parent, don't like the fact that school is turning down bilingual applicants in favor of taking kids with no connection to the Chinese-speaking world any more than she does.  You get into PC modes of speaking in DC charter schools circles because you tend to get clobbered for stating the obvious.  You don't need to be an ABC, or married to one, to have woken up to this reality. [/quote]

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