Bilingual schools

You might think that it is too early to be thinking about Sasha's education when he is just a year old. In case of our family, just choosing a good school is not enough. It is critical that the school that we choose does not discourage bilingualism.

Why would I say "discourage bilingualism"? Well, the widespread ELA programs (English Language Acquisition) discourage the use of any language other than English in a school setting. Kids who speak some other language more fluently than English are called English Language Learners and are told to take ELA classes, as well as some of them are paired up with English native speakers for improving their English communication skills. Apparently, legally, public schools are supposed to provide everyone with equal access to education, and that is why those ELA programs started appearing everywhere. It may be a great program for newcomers to America, but at the same time it sends a message that kids should deny their identity and that all other languages are not acceptable.

Fortunately, there is also a movement for dual language immersion education. Dual language immersion schooling starts out at Kindergarten or 1st grade level with kids spending 50% of every school day in a language other than English. That means that half of their classes (including math, history, etc) are taught in a language other than English. And in many cases you need to have special educational materials, because you cannot just use English language math books when you are using Spanish as a medium. These programs slowly introduce more and more English, and generally immersion programs end in the 8th grade. The logic behind K-8 immersion programs is that there is a critical period for language learning which closes at approximately 14 years of age. After that, it takes more effort to learn new languages. (Which is true, if you think about all those youngsters that take in languages like a sponge, while their parents struggle to learn a few hundred words for years).

While there are many immersion school, public, charter and private ones, around the US, it is actually very difficult to find a Russian immersion program. There is not enough community need and not enough general interest in Russian. The most wide spread immersion programs are the ones in Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and French. There is also a new interest in Arabic. And there are some regional specifics, for example, Hawaii has several immersion programs for Hawaiian language.

In Denver, there is no Russian immersion program currently. However, Global Village Academy - a charter school in Aurora, CO - has applied for a new school in a suburb north of Denver. Their new school, if approved, will offer the Dual Russian-English Immersion program. We live quite far from that suburb, but we have already put Sasha on a waiting list with this new, not-yet-existent school. If it does not open, we will have no options for immersion education in Denver for him. So let's hope it will.