Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

On a recent morning in Overland Park, Kan., at a school next to a horse pasture in the middle of the country, a kindergartener raised his hand and asked to go to the bathroom — in Mandarin Chinese.

Students sang a Chinese song about family as teacher Claire Pan, a native of Taiwan, pointed to corresponding characters. Later, when Pan gave instructions for a craft project, a young girl spoke quietly to her classmates at a table.

“That means whisper,” she says.

In a Wolf Springs Elementary School classroom with “Chinese Only Zone” signs taped to the walls, kindergarteners are learning their core subjects in the primary language of a global economic superpower located across the world.