Chinese students schedule visit to Tesseract School

PARADISE VALLEY - Students and administrators from China's Guilin Zhongshan Middle School next week will be visiting Tesseract School, a non-profit, independent private school.

Tesseract serves students in preschool through ninth grade and will add a 10th grade class next fall. It has campuses in Paradise Valley and northeast Phoenix. Tesseract families are hosting the Chinese visitors.

This visit comes about 18 months after Nigel Taplin, Tesseract's head of school, visited China after being selected to participate in the U.S. Educator Chinese Bridge Delegation. The objective of this delegation, organized in cooperation between the Chinese Language Council International and the Chinese Language Association for Secondary Elementary Schools, was for educators from the United States to make connections with Chinese schools, learn more about China and find out about the unique challenges of starting a Mandarin program.

While in China, Taplin and the principal of Guilin Zhongshan Middle School signed an agreement over the focus of exchange visits of students and teachers. Examples are English and Chinese language programs, curriculum enrichment in language learning, development of links in subject areas and expansion of opportunities for students to communicate via e-resources.

Tesseract is the first American school with which Guilin Zhongshan Middle School has established a partnership. Through its visit to Tesseract, the students and administrators will learn about the U.S. education system and American teaching methods. Tesseract's Mandarin class will be the students' hosts on campus.

Tesseract School maintains a concentration on foreign language, which includes Spanish in its core curriculum, as part of its dedication to provide an education that prepares students to be citizens with a global perspective.

Mandarin has been part of Tesseract's curriculum since 2006. At Tesseract, all students in preschool through middle school learn Spanish; in high school, students may choose to learn Mandarin or to continue to learn Spanish.

In addition to joining classes at Tesseract's lower school campus and its middle and high school campus, Guilin Zhongshan's students and administrators will learn about Arizona's culture and history, visit the Heard and Pueblo Grande museums, take a tour of Arizona State University and its Arizona Biodesign Institute Buildings, visit the Arizona Capitol and take a trip to the Grand Canyon and Montezuma's Castle.

Information: www.tesseractschool.org, 480-991-1770.