Asian/Pacific Islander Culture & History Assembly
a full 50% of the students at my school are Asian-American or Pacific Islander. most of the outreach and diversity stuff that we do (assemblies, presentations, lessons) are about the African-American students or the Latino students. as i'm sure you all know, i believe deeply in honoring all of my students and their cultures. however, i do feel like my API kids get short shrift a lot of the time.
in January, there was an Asian History Assembly scheduled for the week after we got back from christmas break. when i asked if it was happening, the word was that if someone stepped forward to coordinate it would happen. of course no one did. the day passed.
today, there was supposed to be a Latino History Assembly. about two weeks ago, i was at my committee meeting when we realized that the assembly was coming up and nothing was prepared. we discussed that maybe we could turn it into the asian history assembly, so we got permission from the higher ups to do so.
it's one thing to say that you're going to have an assembly. it's another thing altogether to plan one. when they announced at the staff meeting 8 days ago that we were going to make the assembly into asian history, i (for some reason that i only partly understand) volunteered to be the coordinator. okay, the real reason is that i believe that students should feel represented and there are so many asian cultures at our school that should be celebrated. so i worked with the counselor, and about 30 students, to pull an assembly together. here's how it went:
1) slideshow from a colleague about asian-american women artists (it's women's history month)
2) Six different students sharing little bits of information about their culture (food, language, sports, what is unique, favorite holidays). this was: Mien, Cambodian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, and Tongan (although there are actually 13 Asian/PI cultures represented at our school, these are the biggest ones). Each student was accompanied by a powerpoint slide that said the name of their culture, had a flag, and pictures of food, clothing, and customs from their culture. I changed the slide each time the student rotated.
3) Vietnamese Hat Dance. Coordinated by one of our counseling interns--the girls had straw hats and traditional Vietnamese outfits and beautiful music.
4) A Cambodian sixth grader talked about her experience immigrating to the United States all alone.
5) Two Tongan 6th graders did a dance, and then one of them sang a traditional Tongan song a Capella. I was on the phone with these girls at 10 pm last night, trying to make sure that we had the music for their dance. Luckily, it was on itunes so we got it all ironed out! These girls were gutsy and awesome.
6) Chinese Jumprope. (okay, when I first heard about this, I said "Is that like "french" toast?) We ultimately decided it didn't matter if Chinese jumprope was actually Chinese . It turns out that it is. They also had some great music.
7) the Crazy Clown Walkers--a group of Asian boys breakdancing. This was coordinated by another counseling intern. Great Music!
One of my students "MC-eed" the event and was great. We did the assembly three times (for the three different grades) and for two of them there was barely any adult talking at all--the 8th graders were incredibly respectful and great, and the 6th graders only had to be quieted down by an adult once. The 7th grade assembly was in the afternoon, so they were a little rowdier. But I know that they liked it. My MC student was awesome, too. In general, I loved that it was so student-driven. Kids listen to adults all the time (or they're supposed to). This assembly allowed them to watch their peers, and if they were performing, to show off their skills and culture. It was kind of a hodge-podge, but I've gotten a lot of compliments from my colleagues and the administrators about the assembly. Especially considering that we did it on short notice and I ran the AV all day, it was very successful. I'm so relieved that it came together, and it was really all because the kids were so polished, ready, and together. They were proud and knew what they were doing. Maybe I'm biased because it was my assembly, but I really felt like it was a lesson for all of us. Have lots of music and action, visual as well as audio if people are talking, and don't make the kids listen to people drone on and on forever.
i was sooooo proud of them all, and just really pleased with the whole thing. I'm glad that we did it. I hope that we accomplished our goal of acknowledging and honoring some of the myriad asian cultures at our school. And I finished my first assembly!
in January, there was an Asian History Assembly scheduled for the week after we got back from christmas break. when i asked if it was happening, the word was that if someone stepped forward to coordinate it would happen. of course no one did. the day passed.
today, there was supposed to be a Latino History Assembly. about two weeks ago, i was at my committee meeting when we realized that the assembly was coming up and nothing was prepared. we discussed that maybe we could turn it into the asian history assembly, so we got permission from the higher ups to do so.
it's one thing to say that you're going to have an assembly. it's another thing altogether to plan one. when they announced at the staff meeting 8 days ago that we were going to make the assembly into asian history, i (for some reason that i only partly understand) volunteered to be the coordinator. okay, the real reason is that i believe that students should feel represented and there are so many asian cultures at our school that should be celebrated. so i worked with the counselor, and about 30 students, to pull an assembly together. here's how it went:
1) slideshow from a colleague about asian-american women artists (it's women's history month)
2) Six different students sharing little bits of information about their culture (food, language, sports, what is unique, favorite holidays). this was: Mien, Cambodian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, and Tongan (although there are actually 13 Asian/PI cultures represented at our school, these are the biggest ones). Each student was accompanied by a powerpoint slide that said the name of their culture, had a flag, and pictures of food, clothing, and customs from their culture. I changed the slide each time the student rotated.
3) Vietnamese Hat Dance. Coordinated by one of our counseling interns--the girls had straw hats and traditional Vietnamese outfits and beautiful music.
4) A Cambodian sixth grader talked about her experience immigrating to the United States all alone.
5) Two Tongan 6th graders did a dance, and then one of them sang a traditional Tongan song a Capella. I was on the phone with these girls at 10 pm last night, trying to make sure that we had the music for their dance. Luckily, it was on itunes so we got it all ironed out! These girls were gutsy and awesome.
6) Chinese Jumprope. (okay, when I first heard about this, I said "Is that like "french" toast?) We ultimately decided it didn't matter if Chinese jumprope was actually Chinese . It turns out that it is. They also had some great music.
7) the Crazy Clown Walkers--a group of Asian boys breakdancing. This was coordinated by another counseling intern. Great Music!
One of my students "MC-eed" the event and was great. We did the assembly three times (for the three different grades) and for two of them there was barely any adult talking at all--the 8th graders were incredibly respectful and great, and the 6th graders only had to be quieted down by an adult once. The 7th grade assembly was in the afternoon, so they were a little rowdier. But I know that they liked it. My MC student was awesome, too. In general, I loved that it was so student-driven. Kids listen to adults all the time (or they're supposed to). This assembly allowed them to watch their peers, and if they were performing, to show off their skills and culture. It was kind of a hodge-podge, but I've gotten a lot of compliments from my colleagues and the administrators about the assembly. Especially considering that we did it on short notice and I ran the AV all day, it was very successful. I'm so relieved that it came together, and it was really all because the kids were so polished, ready, and together. They were proud and knew what they were doing. Maybe I'm biased because it was my assembly, but I really felt like it was a lesson for all of us. Have lots of music and action, visual as well as audio if people are talking, and don't make the kids listen to people drone on and on forever.
i was sooooo proud of them all, and just really pleased with the whole thing. I'm glad that we did it. I hope that we accomplished our goal of acknowledging and honoring some of the myriad asian cultures at our school. And I finished my first assembly!
posted by Allyson B. at
2:53 PM
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