Who the Heck Speaks Mandarin in Sillicon Valley?!

By Mike | Friday, February 2, 2007 | 2 Comments

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Seriously, why would you want your kids to learn Mandarin in Silicon Valley? It’s only spoken by 867 million people and is fast becoming an important tool for global business. And it’s not like Silicon Valley is a good place for growing a global business either.

So there’s obviously no need to learn Mandarin, right? Right.

So then why the big debate over a Mandarin Immersion Program in Palo Alto’s schools? There’s already a Spanish Immersion Program that starts in kindergarten and ends in sixth grade. Having another language deeply ingrained in these students will only make them more competitive in the global economy. We certainly don’t want that to happen.

Jenny Kiratli organized a petition that over 300 have signed to protest this insane idea. She argues that:

“Just about everybody questioned things like why Mandarin, why one school, why one language, what about language for all? It was the same theme over and over.”

Palo Alto School Board Member Gail Price also had this to add:

“My difficulty is it’s creating a special opportunity. It would be a lottery program for a limited number of students in Palo Alto Unified School District.”

A special opportunity indeed. What was Grace Mah, the champion for this idea, thinking? Why should the students of Palo Alto have an advantage over others?

If you’re a parent in Palo Alto, you should fight this ridiculous program. Don’t give your kids an edge over other kids. Heaven forbid they grow up and found a new billion-dollar company. shudder.

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