Should Hindi be taught in the WW-P school district? On Tuesday, May 22, parents from the non-profit Hindi USA language school showed up at the West Windsor-Plainsboro school board at its meeting, starting a dialogue on integrating Hindi into the district’s curriculum. Although 25 people showed up in noticeable green T-shirts that read “I Support Hindi in WW-P,” the effort was purposely scaled back to be less intrusive.
“We first had plans to have 200 parents show up, but we thought that would be too much,” said Gulshan Mirg, coordinator of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Hindi USA school. “We made up a plan that, one-by-one, four or five of us will talk. Since we had already met the superintendent (Martin Smith, assistant superintendent for curriculum and assessment) it was time to come to before the board meeting and make our case.”
The next opportunity for parents to advocate for Hindi in WW-P will come on Monday, June 4 at 10 a.m., as the board’s curriculum will meet in the district’s central office, across from Dutch Neck Elementary School.
Finding a place for Hindi among WW-P’s language electives isn’t a novel concept, but the group that attended the May 22 board meeting has some specifics in mind, and their efforts are a decade in the making as the Indian population has expanded in Central New Jersey.
“Hindi USA was started 11 years ago in New Jersey with three main goals: to teach Hindi to kids living in America, to prepare Hindi teachers to instruct students, and to spread Hindi in public schools. First, we have enough teachers ready to teach Hindi as they’ve been doing this for 10 years. Number two we have an established curriculum and we will be glad to help our public schools out and lend our teachers and professionals who can work with them to develop a formal world language curriculum,” Mirg said.
The Hindi USA school, which is held every Friday night at Grover Middle School, was started five years ago. Although the location is in West Windsor, on Hindi USA’s website it’s listed as the Plainsboro branch. There are 14 other locations of Hindi USA in the state including nearby schools in Montgomery, Lawrenceville, and South Brunswick, as well as one Connecticut location in Norwalk. The organization is based in Pemberton.
Today Hindi USA in West Windsor-Plainsboro has grown to include 180 students, 27 teachers, and five volunteer teachers. Parents say the time is right to approach Hindi being a part of WW-P schools.
“We needed to meet the superintendent and board members and make them aware that there is a growing population of Indians here, and they need to do something for the language,” Mirg says.
In April parents from Hindi USA reached out to the two newly-elected school board members, Michele Kaish and Yibao Xu; Finance Committee Chairman Tony Fleres, who was recently re-elected, Rachelle Feldman-Hurwitz and Board President Hemant Marathe. (Mirg is actually a neighbor of both Xu and Feldman-Hurwitz in Plainsboro’s Walker Gordon Farms neighborhood.)
All five of these board members recently paid visits to Hindi USA’s Friday night classes at Grover, bearing witness to how many parents stand outside the school while their children continue working hard once the school week is done. According to Mirg, Hindi USA’s enrollment at Grover is 179 students in 10 different Hindi classes, as some levels have two divisions.
Hindi USA’s first initiative in West Windsor-Plainsboro was circulating a petition, which is still available on HindiUSA.org. But that yielded little feedback, so the parents decided to talk with the district leadership face-to-face. Next came a meeting with Russell Lasevick, the superintendent for curriculum and assessment last year (Martin Smith’s predecessor) in May of 2011.
“He told us the district was looking at incorporating more languages, and Hindi was definitely one of the languages being considered, Mirg says. That meeting, however, did not get the ball rolling. Lasevick is now the superintendent of the school district in Nutley.
“He had already resigned, but he said whatever information he collected from us, he would pass it down to next assistant superintendent for curriculum, Mirg said.
Lasevick never met or knew about Smith as his replacement, and the school district did not hire Smith to fill that role until the school year started last fall. Smith then began the job following Thanksgiving recess (WW-P News, October 7, 2011). Seeing an opportunity to connect with the educator who played a key role in instituting Hindi in Edison, Hindi USA parents decided to take up the idea with him.
“After Smith started, we met with him within his first month. We had a discussion where he told us that he came here from Edison schools (with a high Indian population) and he spoke about traveling to India for his work. Even though he (Smith) would want to support it here he cited budgetary issues as one obstacle,” Mirg says.
Hindi USA is far from discouraged. Mirg stated that if the school district can spend over $150 million each year, taking out around $200,000 for Hindi instruction and courses “should not be a big deal.”
Hindi USA has seen success in its five years in WW-P, and while Mirg recognizes that asking for Hindi to become part of the school curriculum would reduce the need for his school’s operation, he says Hindi USA classes can also serve as complimentary courses.
In a phone interview, Mirg described the current school’s operation from its introductory level up through the high school age. “We have a complete eight-year-long defined curriculum with text books. Parents enroll their students at the age of five or six and it takes them eight years to master the language,” he said.
The parents who attended the May 22 board meeting said a key for mastering the language is giving kids experience with it early on. They contend that starting students with Hindi in high school years will be too little, too late. Hindi USA’s vantage point differs from any other Hindi offerings currently in the U.S.
“We suggest that schools should start Hindi earlier and begin offering it in the fourth grade. In the first year (fourth grade) the kids can begin, and then each year they will slowly proceed up one level. So by the time they reach the later stages of high school, they have up to eight years of Hindi under their belts,” Mirg said. Taking eight years to learn Hindi to a proficient level coincides with the fundamental structure of Hindi USA’s curriculum,” he says.
Mirg added that with the lower grades such as fourth grade, just one Hindi teacher would be necessary for the West Windsor-Plainsboro district. Apparently Martin Smith also confirmed their conclusion on the right time to introduce Hindi to students.
“Smith told us that in Edison when they started Hindi in high school, by that time in a student’s life there was enough pressure and no parent or the students themselves wanted to take up another language. We also met Neelam Mishra, the Hindi teacher in Edison, and also parents from that district. Everybody said the same thing — they don’t want their children to change their language studies in high school. Had it been started at an earlier stage they would have definitely chosen Hindi,” Mirg says.
He has heard the same sentiment expressed from many parents in West Windsor-Plainsboro as well — if kids can learn Hindi early on, they’re all for it. In high school, the teenage years are filled with expectations for preparing to apply to college. Therefore, most kids’ activities and academic pursuits should reflect some things that will stand out on an application to a top college for most WW-P students, whether that be AP or honors courses, high SAT scores, extracurricular activities such as scouts, sports, and music, or independent work. For many families the focus during the four high school years would shift away from developing Hindi skills, especially from a raw start in a ninth grade class.
“It’s important that we introduce Hindi language in elementary school like Spanish and Mandarin, not in high school like it was done in Edison and in Franklin Township,” Mirg says.
At the May 22 board meeting, another parent mentioned that Hindi is slated to start in Bensalem, Pa. high schools this fall. But Mirg’s group feels that Hindi starting in high school becomes a case of too little, too late.
Mirg says Hindi USA is now primed to help the district evaluate a curriculum, interview and hire Hindi teachers and learn the process of Hindi language education. He says that a pilot program can be instituted in the upcoming school year, 2012-’13, and that finding one to two state-certified Hindi teachers would be fairly feasible.
Creating a Hindi charter school has never crossed Hindi USA’s collective mind. Mindful of the unsuccessful PIACS charter school or teaching Mandarin, Mirg says his personal belief is that charter schools are not a fair use of public (taxpayer) money. He believes the few should not benefit on the backs of the majority.
“I will never support that. The money for charter schools come from the public. Whatever we do, we have to think about all the residents,” he said.
Mirg’s father ran a transportation business in India while his mother was a homemaker. Aside from working on organization and resources for Hindi USA and its West Windsor and Plainsboro families, Mirg works full-time as an IT professional. He earned his bachelor’s degree in finance from Delhi University.
In 2000 Mirg and his family came to the U.S. and originally lived in South Edison. In 2009 he and his wife made a decision to buy a home, and they were attracted to Plainsboro and the Walker Gordon Farms community, with the WW-P school district as a traditional big draw.
After working in the U.S. and in American companies for a few years, Mirg attended Rutgers Business School to earn an executive MBA. He says despite the notion of some Indians, Hindi can play a role in better business communications for students.
“I have seen a need when people go from here to India. On one project I worked on, a high-level executive hired a Hindi tutor and was learning Hindi there, as he worked in India for a period of two years,” Mirg said.
Parents who spoke at the May 22 board meeting also brought up the advantages of learning Hindi to acquire new contacts, work possibilities, and internships, as well as expand students’ opportunities to study abroad.
The online petition to bring Hindi to school districts across the nation states that, in effect, to advocate for Hindi in American schools is part of global commerce. “The United States and India have come closer in the last decade and economic and cultural collaborations between these two countries have also increased. Many joint ventures in the field of information technology have virtually bonded the two largest democracies in the world. Many students from American universities visit India for internships and higher studies. Learning Hindi will only help in cementing close bonds the two countries are forming,” the petition reads.
Hindi USA’s petition also reflects on the timing and development of foreign language curricula used by most American schools.
“Before 1970 more people from France, Germany, and other European countries immigrated to the United States and demanded that their kids be taught the languages of their parents. There was more economic and cultural collaboration between United States and those European countries then. At the present time, there are more Hindi-speaking people living in the United States compared to French and German speaking communities, and it makes greater sense to make efforts to help institute Hindi as an elective language in American schools now.”
Hindi USA may soon have its day.
