On the outside, Betsy Lueth"s school looks like any other in this arty neighborhood of Minneapolis: a sprawling, boxy red brick building with plain steel doors. Yet inside, the blond, friendly Minnesotan presides over an institution unique in the heartland: Yinghua Academy, a chartered public school where elementary students of every ethnicity study subjects ranging from math to American history in Mandarin.
The idea behind Yinghua, as with many immersion programs, is to introduce kids to the language and culture as early as possible—ideally, before age 12, while they"re still absorbing information like sponges. Kindergartners and first-graders are taught exclusively in Mandarin, and a single period of English is introduced in the second grade. By the sixth grade, kids are learning half in English and half in Mandarin, with the expectation of proficiency in both.
The challenges at Yinghua are numerous. Most teachers come from Taiwan or mainland of China, and cultural misunderstandings prevail. Lueth"s instructors are learning to be tolerant of local norms like nontraditional families and boys who cry—as well as a lot more parental input than they"re used to. "In China, teachers are revered. They are not questioned," says Luyi Lien, Yinghua"s Taiwan-born academic director. "In America, parents are more expressive of their opinions. "
Yinghua"s student body, once 70% Asian, is now 50% white, black or Hispanic. The school has more than tripled its enrollment, to 300 kids, many of whom commute an hour each day. Research has shown that in the long run, immersion programs can provide cognitive benefits, including more flexible, creative thinking. Though students from the programs lag for a few years in English, by the fifth grade they perform as well as or better than their monolingual peers on standardized reading and math tests. For multicultural families, the psychological boost can also be important. Lueth"s adopted daughter, Lucy, used to squirm when cousins asked why her skin color was different from theirs. Now, Lucy proudly answers them, "Yeah, I was born in China. "
Lueth recently won an $800,000 grant from the Department of Education to develop a teaching model for immersion middle schools, and she advises educators around the country who are starting their own programs. If Yinghua can make Mandarin a success in Minnesota, so can they. "This is a glorious culture and an increasingly important language that we are meaningfully teaching to our children. And we"re in the middle of nowhere. " In comparison with their counterparts in other schools around, Yinghua"s twelve-year-old Asian children would most probably be ______.