As West Michigan grows more culturally diverse, some parents have opted
to enroll their kindergartners in a new Chinese immersion program. The
experience connects many students with their heritage, as well as with
the future as more American companies seek to do business with China.
According to excerpts from the story:
Flynn Lyon does not remember Shanghai
because his family moved to the United States when he was just 2 1/2
years old. Now, at age 5, he recently looked at a picture of a Chinese
streetscape and nonchalantly translated the street sign, thanks to the
Forest Hills school district's Chinese immersion kindergarten at Meadow Brook Elementary.
That
made Maureen Lyon, his mother, very happy. She and her husband, Dirck,
lived in the Pacific Rim while working for U.S. companies. Now in West
Michigan, they enrolled Flynn in the Forest Hills program, hoping his
young mind would absorb Chinese easier than their adult brains could.
Read the complete story here.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.