Some Georgia Schools Make Mandarin Mandatory

I took some Mandarin in college, my younger brother is a linguist, and my <i>much</i> younger 8 year old sister has been in a Spanish immersion program since she was 5 (in a Georgia public school). I completely support more language education in public schools.<p>However, this superintendent really seems stuck on this "China as the future of the world" idea. It seems a bit short sighted to base policies solely on extrapolated trends.<p>If this were 1995, he'd be insisting that student's learn Japanese or they'd be suffering in a future economy dominated by Japan.<p>From personal experience, the majority of students just aren't going to get as much use from Mandarin as they would from Spanish. Furthermore, Mandarin is <i>much</i> harder for native English speakers to learn than Spanish--It takes much more instruction and practice to get to an equivalent level of competence.

Not sure about the logic of this: "They will live in a world where China and India will have 50 percent of the world GDP. They will live in a world where, if they cannot function successfully in the Asian culture, they will pay a heavy price."<p>Today, the US + EU have about 50% of the world's GDP. Do Chinese kids pay a 'heavy price' because they cannot function successfully in the Western culture? It seems more like the heavy price is paid due to lack of economic integrity and opportunity in China. The importance is in getting a solid education. There will be plenty of work to do here in the US and in China.<p>Related topic: The Hong Kong Chinese don't want their kids to learn about about China: <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/hk-drops-china-education-plans-mass-protests-143452268.html" rel="nofollow">http://news.yahoo.com/hk-drops-china-education-plans-mass-pr...</a>

I started taking Mandarin in college ten years ago. I have lived in Taiwan for six years, and I now speak and read near-native Chinese, an accomplishment I'm somewhat proud of.<p>Now I am teaching myself programming to prepare for a career when I return to the US.<p>Take from my anecdote what you will.

Wow, my old hometown makes HN. Both of my parents have taught public school in Bibb County, so I've followed this with some interest. You can read the entire "Macon Miracle' plan at <a href="http://bibb.k12.ga.us/stplan2.html" rel="nofollow">http://bibb.k12.ga.us/stplan2.html</a>

On a side note, Macon is actually a Code for America city this year (<a href="http://codeforamerica.org/2012-partners/macon/" rel="nofollow">http://codeforamerica.org/2012-partners/macon/</a>) and I'm one of three fellows working with the city. The speech superintendent Dallemand gave earlier this year detailing his plan was great (we spent all of February in Macon) — especially when you consider just how much scrutiny it's been under.

My experience learning languages in high school left me feeling that its a waste of time to learn a language for an hour a day.<p>Its much better to be immersed in a language for a month than spend three years learning it that way. And it takes less time altogether.

I think there's a huge cultural education gap in the US regarding China. Requiring Mandarin at a basic level would help mitigate this while opening opportunities for students.<p>People should get their heads out of the sand..

Requiring a tonal language for young children is a great thing–typically adults that speak only non-tonal languages have a much, much harder time learning the tonal structures. I put this in the same category as teaching music to younger children (higher plasticity)<p>Besides, isnt this the first step to the Mandarin-English pidgin language spoken in Firefly? ;)

It doesn't even really matter if China will become a superpower bigger than the US - since most of the production of physical products is there, it makes a lot of sense to teach children the language - it will make it so much easier to work in the future. I also still think that somewhat advanced economy classes in schools would be a great addition...