I was reminded today of how fabulous it is to have teachers who have high standards and hold up high targets for the kids to reach. Even if they don't reach those high targets, it is incredibly important that the kids get exposed to what that looks like.
Unfortunately, there are programs out there that are holding up low standards and low targets with the idea that kids should be given an easier path for learning Mandarin Chinese language, so that they feel good while walking that path and don't get too frustrated. There are even parent groups out there who are aggressively raising money to fund low standards programs. One such program is desperately trying to get a 6th grade history textbook translated to a lower level. Instead of bringing the kids up to speed, the solution is presented as bringing the materials downward to the kids' lower level.
And while that might sound like a reasonable thing to do, it begs many questions across the board. First and foremost, if this was happening in the English language, people would be very upset in many directions. Second, it is clear that during all the years prior to 6th grade, the kids are not being expected to do enough in order to be prepared to do what they should be able to do by 6th grade. This problem keeps reappearing as you look at 5th grade, then 4th, then 3rd... and all the way back to K and pre-K.
I've read quite a bit now about "the research." By and large, language immersion programs in the U.S. and Canada are tracking themselves no more than 2 grades of difference between the actual grade that the kids are in and the level of language for the one that they did not start out knowing when they are in K, sometimes called the "target language."
Any more of a difference, and the model reverts to the Foreign Language Model. As it should.
But once middle school starts, then things go to single-subject, and the setting of targets and standards becomes very different. More focus is on the content, itself. So that is when kids from early immersion programs can get into trouble.
Insisting that the entire pathway upward from 6th through 12th somehow should be a specially catered path for these kids is the wrong idea altogether. These kids should test in, just as international programs around the world do it. If they don't test in, then they should be presented with a choice: continue along the Foreign Language path, or spend a year brushing up on language skills in order to test again.
Of course, this is all easier said than done. But it goes to show how much education in America remains embattled.
Educated Chinese parents then say, well, time to do a trip to China or Taiwan. And then our kids will see the reality. But if the message is getting warped at the school level, with even the teachers getting co-opted into this lowering of standards in order to hang onto their jobs... It's a total disservice to everyone, but especially to the kids who are not being given honest feedback because their parents are so desperate to hang onto something.
Lowering standards is not the answer. Choosing the non-immersion path is the answer if you don't want to keep working so hard, or if your child has determined that they no longer want to work so hard. But before you get to that point? There is so much you can be doing so that you don't face that absurd moment when what you're fighting for so defies the basic standards that are already in place that you are trying to move mountains in order to reinvent the wheel.
High standards show the way. Show the high standards early enough in your child's education and often enough while s/he continues on her/his path, then you will be rewarded with a hard-working child who delights in achieving something, and continues wanting to achieve because the natural high from having that experience continues to propel her/him. But if the standards are too low, then the rewards of achievement will simply be too easy, too easily won. And that also leaves you open to boredom and a lack of engagement. Then, later on down the road, if things emerge as truly being too hard, well, too much water under the bridge. Too much time has passed. Your kid will have to struggle with things that they see "little kids" struggling with, and socially, they won't want to cooperate.
High standards solves this social dilemma.
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