Mountain Ridge High School is home to people of many different cultures. To celebrate the diversity on campus, volunteers from the Culture Club ran a Culture Festival with help from foreign language teachers on Wednesday, February 28th. Students in French and Spanish classes were able to play fun games, purchase delicious foreign foods, and learn more about many cultures from around the world.
Many different people were responsible for preparing the Culture Festival. “Miss Romero was basically the brains behind the operation,” says Miss Turk, a Spanish 3-4 teacher. Turk notes that Ms. Romero–another Spanish teacher–helped put the festival together with the Culture Club: “She went ahead and put together all the presentations, she talked to the kids in the culture club, and a lot of kids from the Culture Club volunteered to put on the booths.” Although the teachers put the festival together, the stands were all run by student volunteers from the Culture Club. Without the volunteers from the Culture Club, there would be no Culture Festival.
Foreign language students participated in the festival for a class assignment. Due to the efforts of the Culture Club, students got the opportunity to participate in various activities in order to learn about different cultures. Reyna Patel, a Spanish student at the festival, recalls, “I learned about different soccer teams from Spanish culture and I also learned how to write my name in Korean.” The festival was also an exciting experience for students because they were able to take a break from sitting in class. Marlowe Dockter, another Spanish student who attended the festival, exclaims, “It was the highlight of my day, and I expect it to continue to be the highlight of my day.”
The Culture Festival allowed students to learn and have fun outside the normal structure of the classroom. Students were able to learn about foreign cultures through fun activities, whether through writing their names in a different language or answering trivia questions about another country. Culture Club students were able to celebrate their own heritage and teach other students something new and exciting. The Culture Festival left students with newfound knowledge, wonderful memories, and a reminder that diversity is something to be celebrated.
