Going Chinese

More American students are learning Chinese:

Some 50,000 U.S. students are studying Chinese in U.S. elementary and secondary schools, many in New York and San Francisco.

These numbers reflect public schools teaching the Chinese language during school hours, not programs to serve those of Chinese descent, reported the New York Times Saturday. For many years, Chinese-American students have taken lessons after school or on weekends.

After about 2,400 schools expressed interest, Advanced Placement Chinese classes will be offered in U.S. high schools next year.

"Chinese is our new baby," said David J. Domovic, the principal of one of the 20 New York City school schools offering instruction in Mandarin. "Everybody just wants in."

With China rapidly becoming a major player on the world's political and economic stages, a good working knowledge of Mandarin would definately be an asset for any forward-thinking young person to have in his or her skill-set.

Several years ago, our now 13-year-old daughter, the TeenWonk, expressed a high degree of interest in learning Mandarin. But here in California's "Imperial" Valley, the local high schools offer only the "traditional" foreign languages. It looks as though she's going to be studying French in order to satisfy the second language requirement of the University of California system. ------------------------- Get entry guidelines for the next edition of The Carnival Of Education right here. See our latest posts over there.