Yu Ming Impresses

Yu Ming Impresses

Young public charter embraces Mandarin immersion for connecting students with cultural heritage and improved learning.

Many past immigrants tended to focus on assimilation. Children were to speak only in English, and as the years went by, grandchildren and subsequent generations became further disconnected from the culture of origin.

Times, attitudes, and philosophies have changed. Pride in one’s cultural identity has gained greater emphasis. Multilingualism has gained wider acceptance and become more greatly valued in an era of increased global awareness.

Today, some parents opt to send their children to bilingual schools. Many of these schools are private. Then there’s the Yu Ming Charter School, located at 1086 Alcatraz Ave. in Oakland.

Yu Ming, described on the Oakland Unified School District’s website as one of six “county-approved charter schools operating in Oakland,” also is the only public Mandarin-immersion school in the East Bay.

Opened in August 2011 in Oakland’s Chinatown before moving to its present location, Yu Ming is described as kindergarten-through-eighth grade school, even though it only served K–3 students in the 2013-14 school year. However, the school will add a grade each year until last year’s third graders eventually become eighth graders (class of 2019).

For 2013–14, Yu Ming had an enrollment of 212 students. As a K–4 school for 2014–15, the school expected an additional 56 kindergarteners to enter.

Those who send their children to Yu Ming believe that Mandarin-based instruction will pay off down the road.

“My daughter feels in the future that speaking Mandarin will open up a lot of doors,” said Ernie Wong, as he prepared to pick up his granddaughter, kindergartener Audrey Hoffman, at afternoon dismissal in June.

“Immersion education is beneficial to the development of the mind,” added Christine Wu-Dittmar, the school’s parent association president, whose sons Nikolas and Lukas were a third-grader and kindergartener, respectively, in the 2013–14 school year.

Yu Ming families have much justification for their optimism. Academically, Yu Ming students have astounded. Standardized testing results released in August 2013 by the California Department of Education showed Yu Ming students scoring more than 96 points above the statewide average in mathematics and nearly 83 points higher than all students in Alameda County for the same subject.

Overall, 80 percent of Yu Ming’s students fell into the “advanced” category for math, while the other 20 percent were graded as “proficient.”

Despite having the vast majority of their instruction in Mandarin, Yu Ming students were ahead of their peers in English Language Arts, as well, testing at an average score of 390.6, compared to 368.2 throughout Alameda County and 357.5 statewide. In all, some 78 percent of Yu Ming students performed well enough to earn either advanced or proficient classifications in ELA.

Though California schools have begun to phase out the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program and phase in Common Core, the more rigorous federal initiative for English and math, the results make a convincing argument in Yu Ming’s favor.

Yu Ming’s Mandarin-immersion actually works as a kind of dual immersion. As kindergarteners, some of the students come from Mandarin-speaking backgrounds, while others hail from non-Mandarin households. Under this model, the students function as unofficial teachers to one another, as the Mandarin speakers learn English from the English speakers and vice versa.

At the same time, all the students receive the majority of their formal instruction in Mandarin.

“You’re teaching them all the basic subjects, but you’re teaching them in Mandarin,” Wu-Dittmar said.

“We try to make the kids literate in both languages,” added second-grade teacher Wei Shen. “We use Mandarin to teach all the subjects. They learn both English and Chinese characters. We teach math, social studies, and science, too. It’s a most helpful way to develop bilingual and bi-literature skills.”

As the students make their way up the grade levels, the amount of Mandarin-based and English-based instruction becomes more balanced.

“From K–2, 90 percent of the class is in Mandarin,” Wu-Dittmar said. “In third and fourth grade, it’s 70-30 [Mandarin-to-English instruction]. Every year, the percentage decreases after that until it’s 50-50.”

Kindergarten students needn’t know Mandarin to enroll. Those transferring into the school as first-graders needn’t know much, either. From second grade and up, Mandarin skills requirements increase for new students hoping to enter.

“If they don’t have any [Mandarin-speaking skills], it’s hard for them to catch up,” Wu-Dittmar said.

Nonetheless, even some of the kindergarteners will struggle, especially early in the school year.

“Initially, the experience can be a bit overwhelming,” said school principal Laura Ross. “It can be a little confusing at first. But kids are so adaptable, and they settle in pretty quickly.”

Wong observed that aspect of the school firsthand with his granddaughter, who came to Yu Ming with little to no knowledge of Mandarin.

“The first week she was here, when I picked her up at the end of the day, she said, ‘I didn’t like it,’ but she picked up on it,” Wong said. “By the second week, she wasn’t dreading coming to class; she was looking forward to it, and it’s grown from there.”

Despite a relatively small enrollment, Yu Ming serves a broad cross-section of the community.

“People enter into immersion programs for a variety of reasons,” Ross said. “We have many Asians and mixed-race students with one Asian parent. But we want to serve a diversity of students.”

Ross herself embodies the school’s diversity. Originally from England, she lived a year in Hong Kong and four in Beijing.

“We serve African Americans, Hispanic, and mixed race,” said Ross, who holds a master’s degree in geography from Oxford and an MBA from Peking University. “Our students speak a lot of different languages, too—Cantonese, Vietnamese, Spanish, Yiddish, Japanese and Dutch.”

And more.

Erin Coyne and third-grade daughter Myra speak Russian at home. Coyne’s husband and Myra’s father, an ethnic Ukrainian, grew up in the Soviet era, and Russian became his primary language even though his family spoke Ukrainian.

“I’m a linguist, and learning languages is a big part of my life,” Coyne said. “Languages, cultures, I wanted [Myra] to experience that. It’s a wonderful opportunity. As good as the schools are where we live, they’re not able to offer this.”

Yu Ming also reflects the diversity within the Chinese-American community itself.

Wong, for one, grew up in Arkansas. Wu-Dittmar, a Texas native of Taiwanese heritage, came to the Bay Area in 1990.

“Because of my heritage, I believe [my sons] should have closer ties—for them to learn where my family came from,” Wu-Dittmar said. “[Through this], they are able to relate to [my family] in a different way.”

“A lot of the reason for coming here is for heritage reasons,” agreed Tom Humphreys, father of second-grade student Jasper. “My wife, Jasper’s mother, was born in Taiwan, and Mandarin is her first language.”

Besides, many find learning a new language both challenging and fun.

“As a kid in Hawaii, I grew up learning Japanese,” Humphreys said. “It gave me an interest in learning new languages.”

Foreign-language immersion education has its critics.But Yu Ming’s success speaks for itself. And families of Yu Ming students couldn’t be happier to send their children there. Ultimately, the school’s state test scores and overall happiness exuded by its students best complete the story: Yu Ming is a positive experience for its students and their families.

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Freelance writer Mike McGreehan is a native and lifelong resident of the East Bay. He previously was a staff writer with the Bay Area News Group.

But parents must be able and willing to pay

New meets old at Oakland’s Yu Ming Charter School.

New, as in the concept of Mandarin-immersion education, especially when offered at a Bay Area public school, but old in the sense of a traditional language with a long history.

And though Yu Ming only started in 2011, it occupies a facility that opened in 1925. For many years, the building housed St. Columba Elementary School and had been used by Civicorps Middle School, the tenant that occupied the property—still owned by the Diocese of Oakland—immediately before Yu Ming.

In its short history, Yu Ming (which moved from its original Oakland Chinatown location at 321 10th St. in February 2013) has served its students well.

And the children aren’t the only ones who benefit.

“My Chinese has improved since my [oldest] son was born and has continued to improve so I can help him with his homework,” said Christine Wu-Dittmar, mother of students Nikolas and Lukas and president of the school’s parents association.

Yu Ming is the only Mandarin-immersion public charter school in the area, but families have choices if they wish their children to have a Mandarin-immersion education. Of course, the families will have to be able and willing to pay for these choices, as all the nearest schools are private.

Pacific Rim International School of Emeryville serves students from kindergarten through 12th grade, and the Shu Ren International School of Berkeley goes K–8. Two Berkeley-based Montessori schools, Global Montessori International and American International Montessori, both serve K–6.

Mandarin speakers in other parts of the East Bay have no public charter school to serve their language and cultural needs, but some school districts look to reach out in other ways.

Quail Run Elementary School of San Ramon and Stonebrae Elementary School of Hayward each provide a Mandarin-immersion option for students. In Fremont, Azevada Elementary School has immersion programs in both Mandarin and Spanish.

Almost unheard of until the 1980s, immersion education has gained greater traction in recent years. And as Mandarin has gained stature in a more globally-aware society, some schools—such as St. Joseph Notre Dame High School of Alameda—have begun to include it among their foreign-language offerings.

Advocates of early-age immersion, however, maintain that a curriculum taught in a foreign language at a young age helps students become more proficient in problem-solving and critical thinking. And for some families, it’s the only route to take.

“Today, it’s about getting in touch with your culture, your roots,” Wu-Dittmar said. “I believe in immersion education. I wanted to send my children to Spanish immersion if [Yu Ming] wasn’t here.”

Faces of the East Bay