A computer science-focused early college high school could come to western Wake County

From the News & Observer

Nov. 26, 2019

In the face of increasing charter school competition, the Wake County school system wants to add a specialized high school in Morrisville and additional language immersion elementary schools across the district.

Wake County school administrators said this week they’re hoping to open an early college high school focused on computer sciences on Wake Technical Community College’s RTP Campus in Morrisville in 2021. Also that year, Wake is looking at boosting the number of elementary schools where students can take all their academic classes in Mandarin Chinese or Spanish.

“We want to offer choice for students,” Edward McFarland, Wake’s chief academic advancement officer, said in an interview after Monday’s student achievement committee meeting. “We want to offer lots of opportunities in various settings, various ways and not just in the same mold.”

From the Fort Collins Coloradoan

By Kelly Ragan

Oct. 22, 2018

Kari Anne Calarco didn’t grow up learning a second language. Now, as she works to learn French as an adult, she hopes to make it easier for her two young sons.

Calarco’s oldest son, 7, began learning French and some Mandarin while he attended school in Washington, D.C. When Calarco and her husband, Chris, moved to Fort Collins, they wanted him to keep learning French, so they tried another local language immersion school, but it didn’t quite fit their needs, Calarco said.

So Calarco decided to start her own. She teamed up with Jenny Whitaker to found AXIS Colorado and AXIS International Academy.

Please read more here.

And here’s another storyabout the new school.

Note that the space that had been occupied by Global Village Academy was acquired by another immersion charter school, AXIS International Academy, which opened its doors in September. 

From the Fort Collins Coloradoan

By Kelly Ragan

Dec. 12, 2018

After years of turnover and turmoil, Global Village Academy in Fort Collins will have to fight to stay open after June 30 — otherwise about 177 students will have to find new schools.

On Tuesday, the Colorado Charter School Institute that oversees the school’s state charter said it would begin coordinating a closure after deeming that Global Village fell short of the mutually agreed upon conditions in its 2017 contract.

Julie Rossi, Global Village Academy principal, wrote in an email statement the school planned to appeal the decision.

Global Village Academy is one of three state-sponsored charter schools in Fort Collins. The dual language immersion school that opened in 2013 is also part of the Global Village Charter Collaborative, which includes five schools in Colorado.

Please read more here.

Takeaways from a Presentation at the 2019 National Chinese Language Conference

Editors Note: At the National Chinese Language Conference in San Diego, CA, five Chinese language instructors boldly presented their findings and recommendations on race, sex, and gender in the American Chinese language classroom. Following is a summary of the author’s takeaways.

By Eleise Jones

Every language has potential for funny or uncomforable moments when taken out of context. Natually, these are perfect moments for learning! Much of language is shaped and enforced by cultural values, and many teachers admirably want to be aware of potential pitfalls and equipped to address sensitive issues when their students have questions.

Addressing Discriminations and Stereotypes in the Chinese Language
Like most Chinese language teachers, Ruan Ye of York Prep in New York, NY teaches Chinese characters through radicals. For instance, there is the radical 女, meaning female. We find this radical in the compound characters 她 (she/her), 妈妈 (mother), 姐姐 (younger sister), and 妹妹 (older sister). These all make immediate sense as they refer to the female sex.

But when we teach 嫉妒 (jealousy) and 姦 (evil), students may ask: Why do these two characters both contain female radicals? Why do three females together connote evil? Furthermore, why does the 男 (male) always appear before 女 in compound characters?

Please read more here.

一， 二， 三， 四，五，六。。。

From the BBC

By Anand Jagatia

22nd November 2019

Learning numbers in a European language has probably affected your early maths ability. It turns out there are better ways to count.

If I asked you to write down the number “ninety-two”, you wouldn’t have to think twice. By the time we’re adults, the connection between numerals and their names is almost automatic, so we barely give them a second thought. Which is why it might surprise you to hear that the English for 92 isn’t a great way to describe the number, and some languages are even worse.

Other languages do a much better job of describing digits. But it’s not just a matter of semantics – as early as 1798 scientists suggested that that the language we learn to count in could impact our numerical ability. In fact, one Western country actually overhauled its entire counting system within the last century, to make it easier to teach and do mathematics.

So what is the best way to count?

Nearly all cultures today use the same decimal, or base-10, number system, which arranges the digits 0-9 into units, tens and hundreds, and so on. The most logical counting systems use words that reflect the structure of this system and have regular, straightforward rules – but many languages use complicated and messy conventions instead.

For example, in French, 92 is quatre-vingt douze or “four twenties and twelve”. And in Danish, the word for 92 is to og halv fems, where halvfems, meaning 90,is an abbreviation of the Old Norse word halv fems inds tyve, or “four and a half times twenty”.

Please read more here.