I live in Maine, and many of the high schools here have international programs.
The parents of the foreign students pay as much as $40,000 per year to have their sons and/or daughters attend a public high school in small Maine towns. Many of these kids are from China, but others are from Vietnam, Estonia, Singapore, Japan, and numerous other countries. The American students and their foreign counterparts get along well. Some of the kids live in dorms while others live with host families.
It’s true that many of these students come here to improve their English language skills. Their parents apparently have a very high opinion of the American educational system and have said as much.
The Chinese students have said they prefer the American system. In China, they say, the instructor comes into the room, gives a lecture, the students take notes, and then the instructor leaves. The Chinese students like the give and take in the American classrooms better, where students are encouraged to ask questions and have a discussion. They say this doesn’t happen in China.
At a library book sale in a small Maine town last year, I met a female high school student from China who was helping to collect the money from the sale of books. I started to chat with her.....her English was excellent. She told me that her home town in China has 7 million people, and she chuckled when I told her that the entire State of Maine has a population of only 1.3 million!
Half of them are spies, ever considered this?
You have to ask what their plans are, where their families are, do they plan to stay here, is their family moving here. Americans are just not suspicious enough.
Interesting how you describe how well the foreign students get along in Maine high schools.
You don’t suppose that the fact that ME is lily-white might have something to do with it? It’s usually in conservative outlets that we hear about the systematic abuse and bullying of Asian and foreign students and who the culprits tend to be...