Arlington Heights High School

A taste of China at Plainfield North

PLAINFIELD — Susie Lara, 13, already knew Portuguese, Spanish, English and a little bit of French, but she wanted to learn Mandarin Chinese.

“Chinese is an amazing country and culture and I wanted to learn more about it,” she said. “I love all the dances and stories related to food. Every food that they eat has some kind of story behind it.”

Susie, an incoming freshman at Plainfield South High School, was one of 28 students who took a 14-day Chinese immersion course this summer at Plainfield North High School through a federal grant. The noncredit class, which cost $50, was a first for Plainfield School District and gave students a little taste of the Chinese culture.

Susie, who has lived in Brazil and Mexico, particularly liked learning that the Chinese used mooncakes when rebelling against the Mongolians who took over not only China, but adopted their culture as well.

“They didn’t know how to spread the word around so what they did was they made these cakes and they stuck a message inside a cake saying they were going to rebel,” Susie said.

Susie thought speaking Chinese was pretty easy, but found it difficult to write the characters.

“I’m going to keep finding ways to learn about it, reading books, getting more private lessons. … I want to learn more,” said Susie, who wants to be either a reporter for National Geographic or a lawyer.

Language initiative

Teacher Lilian Blecha hopes more schools add Chinese to their foreign language curriculum since more and more U.S. businesses travel to China for work. She was thrilled when Plainfield agreed to the summer program. If it can’t offer it during the school day, she hopes Plainfield has it available after school.

This summer, there are 146 students learning Chinese and 54 are learning Hindi in seven school districts, said Fred Yungshen Lu, director of the STARTALK Nurture Program. Each teacher has 250 hours of training over three years.

STARTALK is the newest of the component programs of the National Security Language Initiative, seeking to expand and improve the teaching and learning of important world languages that are not widely taught in the United States, including Persian, Arabic, Pakistani (Urdu), Indian (Hindi) and Chinese.

Nominee From The Peoples' Bank Wins Statewide Scholarship Contest ...

DeLaney Harter, a senior at Walnut School for the Arts has been chosen as the 2011 statewide Community Bankers Association of Illinois (CBAI) scholarship winner. The scholarship was awarded to one student in Illinois who has an understanding of how a community bank helps a community to grow. Harter’s essay on the topic was submitted to the statewide contest by The Peoples’ Bank of Arlington Heights. The $1,000 prize was awarded to one high school senior in the state of Illinois and is renewable for four years. The winner’s high school also receives a $500 prize.DeLaney Harter was a scholar AP after finishing his second year of high school and studied violin since the age of three years. DeLaney studied with Betty Haag-Kuhnke of Arlington Heights for thirteen years. DeLaney also studied with Peter Zazofsky in Boston, Chicago and David Yonan. She was a member of the Philharmonic Youth Orchestra at the New England Conservatory in Boston. His studies and performances have led her to many countries around the world. She was recently accepted into the program Pinchas Zukerman Young Artist at the National Arts Centre in Canada. DeLaney was thrilled to be chosen as this year’s statewide winner. “I feel honored to have been chosen as the scholarship winner and I am so grateful for the help and support that the staff at the Peoples’ Bank supplied.” In her college studies, DeLaney will continue to pursue violin performance and study with world renowned violinist Aaron Rosand.

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