The faculty at Dyersburg High School has encouraged students at their school to dream big for many years. Recently, with new mandates initiated by the state changing the face of education in Tennessee, Superintendent Lloyd Ramer has returned the favor.

"Mr. Ramer came to us and said, 'What would you offer to make our school world class if you could offer anything at all?'" said DHS Curriculum Coordinator Kim Worley at a recent school board meeting. "I said, 'Mandarin Chinese.' We have industries in Dyersburg with other plants in China and that is a need (we can meet locally.)"

Beginning in the 2008-2009 school year, Dyersburg High School will be the only high school in the state to offer Mandarin Chinese as a foreign language.

Although the road to offer the subject may have begun with an innocent question, the path to reach that goal would have been a much harder one without the help of Michigan State University's Confucius Institute, a program which has allowed a small school district like Dyersburg to take its place at the forefront of a growing worldwide initiative.

Why Mandarin?

The U.S. is one of the nations seeking to offer Mandarin Chinese as a second language to its students, a goal made difficult by a lack of teachers certified to teach the subject.

"All we are doing is saying that it is more relevant in today's world for students to learn Mandarin Chinese than French," said Ramer, who said that statistics show that in five years, Mandarin Chinese will be the language most spoken in the world. "We think it will open more doors for us. What we've decided to do is to let the Confucius Institute take care of (the details) for us."

The Confucius Institute will help with that challenge in a program established in collaboration with China Central Radio and TV University. Under the authorization and sponsorship of China's National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, the program links learning between the U.S. to China and encourages steps to a global community.

"Our institutions (US-China Center and Confucius Institution) have been developing Chinese language programs at different age levels for the past four to five years," said Nancy Romig, who serves as senior project director of the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence at Michigan State University. "Next year will be the first year that we will be sending teachers out of state. Tennessee is the first state to commit."

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Romig said examples of the programs provided by the institute include Chinese immersion, Chinese language and culture and Chinese as a second language. The institute has also opened 3E International Kindergarten, its first school for English/Chinese immersion in Beijing, China.

"For that program, we have been exporting U.S.-certified teachers to work in China," said Romig. "Two years ago, we assisted the Lansing School District (Lansing, Mich.) with opening the first Chinese immersion program in mid-Michigan. With the expansion of Chinese programs across the state of Michigan, both face-to-face classroom and (the) online Michigan Virtual University, we brought 18 teachers from China to work in the various programs."

According to Romig, Confucius Institute will supply teachers for Dyersburg and other states interested in implementing a Mandarin Chinese program.

"Currently there are two other interested states," said Romig, who said a commitment for the program is not required until March.

Teaching for the future

Ramer first found out about the program while attending a national seminar for superintendents. The organization allows him the opportunity to network and seek advice from leaders of other school systems who have already implemented the program and are further along in the process to bring Mandarin Chinese to the students they serve.

"For a long time, we've known that French is not being spoken by a large number of people," said Ramer, who said that recent seminars by Doug Reaves and Bill Daggett had local educators looking closely at their curriculum. "[They asked] 'Are you teaching for something in the past or something in the future?' We became so convinced that the cut was one that was necessary. But, there are some costs to doing that."

Principal Mickey Mahon remembers his impression of changes in Shanghai from a slideshow in Bill Daggett's presentation. The seminar featured the landscape of a fishing village quickly growing to a big-city skyline in only a decade's time.

"It's an attention-getter," said Mahon. "We are the first ones to do (a Mandarin Chinese class) across the state and if it goes well, we'll probably become a pilot. We are excited about that. It's going to be interesting. We think it will be good for our students."

From Shanghai to Dyersburg

The Dyersburg system will bring two teachers to the area; one to teach a Mandarin Chinese course at DHS, another to provide language and cultural awareness classes or activities to lower grade levels. The educators are expected to arrive in the U.S. in April or May and complete courses at MSU before joining the Dyersburg community around the beginning of July.

"For a number of years, we've been wanting to teach a foreign language in our elementary schools," said Ramer. "Everything we read tells us the earlier we start a student in a language, the better they do. So, by bringing two teachers it not only provides them with companionship, but it gives us an opportunity to enhance our gifted program by offering a language in our primary or elementary schools."

"Benefits vary across programs implemented and the ages of the students," said Romig. "I do believe our immersion youngsters starting at pre-K/K develop language at a phenomenal rate."

"Our goal, starting probably with first grade, is to take our best and brightest and allow them that opportunity if they want it," said Ramer. "We'll ask the parents, 'Do you want your child to participate in this program?' We will not put anyone in it that doesn't want to be included. The challenge, or the opportunity, is that we don't know how much coverage we'll have. What we may have to do is some awareness instruction instead of articulation. To feature household phrases and learn about the culture as an activity class at the middle or intermediate school. We think it will definitely enhance our program for our better students."

Dyersburg Middle School offers instruction in Spanish.

"We are already teaching awareness of Spanish in our middle school," said Ramer. "We may continue that. That's a coverage issue."

Creating global citizens

"We are trying to respond to [state curriculum changes[ ahead of time," said Ramer. "We are hoping to put those things in place before they are required. We think that we've always had the rigor. This is more of a challenge, more of an opportunity. A lot of the things we are doing, using the tech center, offering more dual-credit and more AP courses, go right along with those new state guidelines. It's a tremendous challenge when you have students who are mainly [from low] economic [levels]. That is the challenge. That is what is fun."

"The language acquisition has been amazing," said Romig. "But also, students must have the skills necessary to work in a global society that may be very linguistically and culturally different than their own heritage. Our students, by participating in our programs are developing such skills. We are looking at students having the skills to become global citizens."

"It's not necessarily the easiest language to learn," said Ramer. "I think it's going to be a positive thing."