Celebrating Cultural Diversity
Living in multicultural Malaysia means we have multiple public holidays (see previous post from September 13, 2018, A Brief Overview of our Host Country) in honour of the various communities.
Every year in our school we celebrate various festivals in honour of the fifty plus nationalities within our school. We honour our whole school community with Global Village Day (previously known as UN Day) celebrated in October and in April our Parents Association hosts Mari Makan (“Let’s eat!” in Bahasa), an international adult only (alcohol is served!) food festival. Throughout the year, individual classrooms celebrate diversity be it parents coming and sharing elements of the home culture (ie. Chuseok [Korean harvest in September], Santa Lucia [Swedish Festival of Lights December 13]) or through events such as the World Language Fair.
Our staff and faculty hold three big after school celebrations. Our Malaysian Malay and Hindu staff host DeepaRaya (a combined Diwali and Hari Raya/Eid celebration) and our Malaysian Chinese staff host a Chinese New Year event in February. Our expat faculty members/staff host an expat event in April with various themes such as Tex-Mex. With everyone dressed in traditional clothes (ie. shalwar kameez or saris for women and kurta or baju melayu for men for DeepaRaya or Cheongsam for Chinese New Year), one of the members of the community will give - especially pertinent for new members to our school community - a brief presentation. This usually entails a description of the history of the festival and cultural elements (ie. traditional Indian dancing, lighting of the diyas for Diwali, decorative features such as ketupat raya for Hari Raya/Eid, and Lion Dancing) for Chinese New Year. For each of the communities, the celebration includes traditional food (ie. Yee Sang during our Chinese New Year celebrations and curries during DeepaRaya).
As both a parent and educator, I very much value not just the diversity, but also the respect for difference and yearning to learn more about each other that is palpable throughout campus on a daily basis and especially during these various cultural celebrations.
How do you celebrate the cultural diversity within your school setting not only at times of celebration, but throughout?