Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

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  • When kids whine about studying, tell them they’ll be happier in the end

    No pain, no gain: Mastering a skill makes us stressed in the moment, happy long term

    (From San Francisco State University) No pain, no gain applies to happiness, too, according to new research published online this week in the Journal of Happiness Studies. People who work hard at improving a skill or ability, such as mastering a math problem or learning to drive, may experience stress in the moment, but experience greater happiness on a daily basis and longer term, the study suggests.

    “No pain, no gain is the rule when it comes to gaining happiness from increasing our competence at something,” said Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University. “People often give up their goals because they are stressful, but we found that there is benefit at the end of the day from learning to do something well. And what’s striking is that you don’t have to reach your goal to see the benefits to your happiness and well-being.”

    Contrary to previous research, the study found that people who engage in behaviors that increase competency, for example at work, school or the gym, experience decreased happiness in the moment, lower levels of enjoyment and higher levels of momentary stress. Despite the negative effects felt on an hourly basis, participants reported that these same activities made them feel happy and satisfied when they looked back on their day as a whole. This surprising find suggests that in the process of becoming proficient at something, individuals may need to endure temporary stress to reap the happiness benefits associated with increased competency.

    The study examined whether people who spend time on activities that fulfill certain psychological needs, believed to be necessary for growth and well-being, experience greater happiness. In addition to the need to be competent, the study focused on the need to feel connected to others and to be autonomous or self-directed, and it examined how fulfilling these three needs affects a person’s happiness moment by moment within a day.

    For two days, participants reported how they spent each hour, the enjoyment and stress experienced in that hour, and whether the activity met their need for competency, connectedness to others or autonomy. A second group of participants completed a similar survey, but reported on the day as a whole.

    While behaviors that increase competency were associated with decreased happiness in the moment, people who spent time on activities that met the need for autonomy or feeling connected to others experienced increased happiness both an hourly and daily basis. The greatest increase in momentary happiness was experienced by participants who engaged in something that met their need for autonomy – any behavior that a person feels they have chosen, rather than ought to do, and that helps them further their interests and goals.

    The authors suggest that shifting the balance of needs met in a day could help people find ways to cope with short term stress in the workplace.

    “Our results suggest that you can decrease the momentary stress associated with improving your skill or ability by ensuring you are also meeting the need for autonomy and connectedness, for example performing the activity alongside other people or making sure it is something you have chosen to do and is true to who you are,” Howell said.

    Relating these momentary gains in happiness to people’s long term life satisfaction, the study found that those who are already satisfied with their life in the long term stand to gain most from the momentary happiness that is derived from feeling connected to others and a sense of autonomy.

    “Like a wine connoisseur whose experience means they can appreciate a fine wine more than a novice, people who are already satisfied with their life may have learned how to glean the satisfaction of these needs from their daily activities,” Howell said.

    ###

    “Momentary Happiness: The Role of Psychological Need Satisfaction” was published online Oct. 28, 2009 in the Journal of Happiness Studies. Co-authors include David Chenot of CSU, Fullerton, Graham Hill, former graduate student at San Francisco State University and Colleen Howell of University of California, Riverside

  • Dueling Chinese Scripts

    On October 18, the Los Angeles Times ran a story about the disagreement over whether educators should use traditional or simplified  characters when teaching Chinese in American schools.  The answer varies even within the San Francisco Unified School District; Jose Ortega and Starr King use simplified characters while Alice Fong Yu, West Portal, and the CIS De Avila use traditional.

    Schools a battleground over dueling Chinese scripts

    Decisions over teaching the simplified characters used in mainland China versus the traditional ones used in Taiwan stir passions among parents over politics and cultural pride

    By Raja Abdulrahim

    Los Angeles Times, October 18, 2009

    For nine years, Sutoyo Lim’s son studied Chinese with private tutors and at language schools. He learned to write in “simplified script,” characters with thinly spread strokes commonly used in mainland China.

    But that all changed when Lim’s 15-year-old son began taking Chinese classes at Arcadia High School this year. He was given two months to make the transition from “simplified” to the more intricate “traditional” script used in Taiwan.

    Once the grace period is over, homework and exam answers written in simplified script will be disqualified — regardless of accuracy. “To me, it does not seem right,” Lim said. “I’m not happy with being forced to choose the language that’s going to be obsolete.”

    Click here to read the whole article.

    FOCUSED
    Kristine Shen, left, and Jasmine Wu study at the Westside Chinese School. Backers of simplified script say it will be more practical for children to know, while supporters of the traditional form cherish it as an ancient tradition. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

    Graphic: Dueling scripts Graphic: Dueling scripts

  • Nov 2, 2009 MIPC Meeting

    The next meeting of the Mandarin Immersion Parents Council will be on Monday, Nov. 2nd at Starr King from 5:30 – 7:30pm.
    We’ll cover:

    • How to Use A Chinese Dictionary (please bring the one your child’s teacher should have given you)
    • Chinese 101 – A quick, parent-led romp through the basics of Chinese grammar and the ways in which is is different from English
    • Time for questions about the programs, the future and whatever other concerns you may have

    We’ll be offering child care on a sliding-scale basis and a snack for the kids. Please email if you’re coming. If you’re bringing kids, tell us how many so we can arrange for enough child care. We look forward to seeing you there.

    Starr King is at 1215 Carolina St, San Francisco, CA 94107 on Potrero Hill.
    The meeting will be held in the auditorium/lunchroom on the play yard, which is behind the school.

  • Mandarin Begins to Eclipse Cantonese in New York

    From The New York Times

    By Kirk Semple

    He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears. 

    Paul Lee, a longtime resident of Chinatown, near his home on Mott Street. He said that Cantonese “may be a dying language.”

    Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants

    read more at:

    www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/nyregion/22chinese.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=cantonese&st=cse

  • New Rules for our Schools

    San Francisco public schools “New Rule” #3…

    “Our children need to speak the language or languages of the 21st Century”

    So says Margaret Peterson as she and Beth Weise talk about multilingual education in this KALW public service announcement…

    Learn more about how you can support San Francisco’s future at yoursfpublicschools.org.

  • Bilinguals and Multi-tasking

    From a great article on the ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ phenomenon by Dan Vergano at

    www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2009-10-18-tip-tongue_N.htm

    It’s mostly about bilingual sign language speakers, but he’s got a bit of interesting data on bilingual people:

    Pyers and other have shown that people who speak more than one language possess advantages that make a difference, beyond just fluency in another tongue.

    In the current Cognition, for example, a study led by Albert Costa of Spain’s Universitat Pompeu Fabra, finds that “when the task at hand recruits a good deal of monitoring resources, bilinguals outperform monolinguals.”

    In other words, multiple language speakers possess a better attention span for hard tasks. And they seem to be better at switching their focus from one task to the next, a real advantage in our era of multi-tasking emails, cellphones and occupations.

    “The explanation is that they practice controlling their languages, repressing one at the expense of the other, constantly,” Pyers says. “So they are just better at controlling their focus.” Turns out, you just have to practice paying attention, too.

  • Does someone at Wired have kids in Mandarin immersion?

    http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-10/st_best

    In this month’s issue of Wired magazine, number six on the list of  “The 10 Best Things We’ll Say to Our Grandkids” is

    *

    (“English used to be the dominant language. Crazy, huh?”)

    And a couple of years ago in a Wired feature article on the costs of raising a world-dominating child, the only school suggested was the Chinese American International School, so as to have little Johnny be fluent in Mandarin. Of course that was before there were dozens of Mandarin immersion public schools around the nation.

    Not that we’re out after world-dominating children, merely happily bilingual ones. But we’re clearly more and more part of the Zeitgeist, or at least one of them.