| News - Friday, March 31, 2006
Celebrating diversity
Many schools learn about other countries with multicultural week activities
by Rebecca Guyon
As Pleasanton's population has grown to include people from different countries and heritages, many schools have chosen to celebrate their diversity through multicultural events and activities.
"The main goal for the event is to create a community environment for the school by recognizing the different heritages and cultures at our school," said Jennifer Shreve, the financial secretary for the Fairlands Elementary School PTA and the co-chair of the Fairlands Multicultural Day, which was March 10.
Five of Pleasanton's elementary schools, all three middle schools and both comprehensive high schools hold either a multicultural day or week during the spring semester. The number of events speaks to Pleasanton's growing diversity, said Lauren Kelly, vice-principal for Harvest Park Middle School who is the adult organizer for the school's Multicultural Week.
Most recently, Mohr Elementary School, which has one of the most diverse student populations in the district, held its Fifth Annual Multicultural Event March 13-17. Parent volunteers set up booths around the multi-purpose room displaying information about their home country and students put on an assembly featuring dances and songs from their heritage. Multicultural Week activities were also integrated into the school day with the playing of international music in the mornings. Students then tried to identify what country the songs came from. Fairlands held a similar program, opting for an evening event that included performances and booths, as well as food, and got students involved during the week by playing games from other countries during lunchtime.
"When we did games from around the world, the kids were really interested in the countries the games were from," Shreve said.
At the middle and high school levels, in addition to learning about other cultures, students also learn about civil rights struggles from our nation's past and the importance of diversity and unity.
"I went to school in the South in the 60's and experienced a lot of racism and segregation," said Faye Gabriel, a career planning teacher at Foothill High School and adviser to the Multicultural Club. She started organizing Multicultural Week at Foothill 16 years ago, and it was the first time such an event was organized at a Pleasanton school. "I know what it feels like to not feel connected to something. My whole thing is to bring about cultural awareness so we have respect for each others' cultures because that's not what I had growing up."
This year, Multicultural Week, which is organized by students in the Multicultural Club, was March 6-10. During the week, students viewed a student-written play titled "In Our Own Skin" that dealt with stereotypes, attended a "cultural fest" that featured displays from 40 different countries, enjoyed ethnic foods from 16 different countries, discussed unity and diversity in workshops and watched dance and music performances from a variety of different cultures.
In addition to the activities, students were asked to sign a pledge saying "I support a hate free school." More than 1,000 students signed the pledge and each one received a wrist band. Foothill plans on having all incoming freshmen sign this same pledge during their orientation, Gabriel said.
"We don't want any Foothill student to say anything negative to anyone because they are from a different culture," Gabriel said. "We want them to learn about other cultures so that they won't make stereotypical remarks, and if they hear someone make that remark, that they'll step in and say, 'We'll not have that at Foothill.'"
Harvest Park also takes a serious look at civil rights and racism during its Multicultural Week. In fact, the school actually takes two weeks starting with a Civil Rights Week held the same week as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day followed by the Multicultural Week. The two weeks are led by members of the Patriot Pack, a student club that organizes school events, and includes activities such as the "I Have a Dream" Walk where students meditate on the meaning of King's "I Have a Dream" speech and are served lunches from different countries every day. Teachers also try to include multicultural themes in their lessons that week and the librarians put up displays highlighting literature from other cultures. One of the highlights from this year's week was an assembly by motivational speaker Keith Hawkins who talked about the importance of uniqueness, individuality and standing for who you are. The Harvest Park PTA sponsored his appearance.
Hearst held a two-day Multicultural Festival Feb. 22-23, and in the coming months Valley View and Vintage Hills are also holding events that will include activities similar to the other elementary schools. Hart and Pleasanton Middle School are both holding a multicultural-themed assembly on April 13 and 26, respectively, and Amador Valley High School is scheduled to have a Multicultural Day at the end of May. The Pleasanton PTA Council is hosting its second city-wide multicultural festival, "Passport to Pleasanton," on April 29 at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. Last year was the first time the PTA Council held the event and it was such a big success that it was moved from the Amador gym to the Fairgrounds this year.
"It really opens kids' eyes to what is around them and what countries are at the school," Shreve said.
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