How much more work is Mandarin immersion than General Education?
We’re going to be honest with you – it’s more work for you as a parent. Mandarin immersion is not a cake walk. You could drop your kid in a GE program in Kindergarten and pick them up in 5th grade and they’d do fine. Of course they’ll do better if you put time in doing homework with them and taking an interest in their school work, but in general they’d do fine. That’s not the case in Mandarin. Any child living in a home where Chinese is not spoken and read is going to have to work harder to get the most out of the program. You can drop your kid off in Kindergarten and come back in 5th grade and they’ll know a lot of Mandarin, but if you really want them to get the full benefit from this amazing opportunity being offered to us by the San Francisco Unified School District, you’re going to have to work at it.
