Cave Creek Unified and why the teaching of Mandarin is a failure for the students

Thanks to Katharine Beals, who runs the Out in Left Field blog, for articulating exactly why teaching Mandarin is hard and why we think it is a waste of resources and precious seat time for the elementary students in Cave Creek Unified…

Why we switched from Chinese to French

In comparison with French and other Indoeuropean languages, Chinese presents two disadvantages. One is its writing system. Mastering the thousands of Chinese characters required for basic literacy demands hours of daily practice. I've seen first hand how a short hiatus can result in massive forgetting. One simply cannot learn to read anything of substance in Chinese without a long-term commitment to significant daily practice. Another is its vocabulary. Chinese words are especially challenging for English speakers to remember because they bear no resemblance to English words.

Our district leaders make it seem that a few minutes of speaking Mandarin a week is going to prepare our students for international job opportunities, but like most things in Cave Creek, this World Language program comes no where close to requiring significant practice or mastery.

If you don’t believe us or Ms. Beal, then read this from The Economists…

The craze for teaching Chinese may be a misguided fad

Of course FAD is the basis for all of the ‘reform’ in CCUSD, so it fits right in.
Gullible parents and board members fall for these FADS, but parents who know better have already left the district taking their vote with them.