Elementary Students celebrate diversity

The Elbridge Elementary School finds it best to try to celebrate as many different cultures as they can and introduce these cultures to all their students.  The latest celebration that commenced was the Chinese New Year.  The school brought in The Fabulous Chinese Acrobats to perform stunts, feats, balance, and more.  The principal, Mr. R. J. Hartwell, stated "Giving children access to different cultural performances develops their understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity."

Just as the principal was stating how this is a great movement for the school an ELL teacher also agreed and was quoted "Embracing the diversity of students and teachers is the first step on the roadmap to success. "  I would have to tend to agree with what this ELL teacher was saying.  In order for the students to fully understand the English Language, they must understand our culture.  But the understanding of cultures should be reciprocal.   Just as ELL students should fully understand the English culture, we should understand other cultures.

Understanding the culture will only improve the progress that the ELL students will make.  As Goldman stated in the article, "All students make significant progress when they are engaged in collaborative activities all day long.  Common goals and common language helps everyone collaborate.'  This could not be any more correct.  Collaboration goes a long way and when students are ELL students, collaborating with others will only help them understand the language better. 

I personally like the idea of the cultural observations this school provides its students with.  It's amazing to see that this school would do this and it makes me think that its a great step towards many goals in education and in social settings.  I wish other schools would follow this model.  Having students learn about different cultures is a step in the right direction of cultural acceptance.  Also, it will show the ELL students that English speaking students are just as interested in learning about their culture as the ELL students are with the English culture.  This will go a long way to understanding the language and the social skills.