The Willow Glen Resident

School revels in diversity with poetry and dancing

Celtic mandolins and Mexican folk dancers entertain students at WG Middle School

By Sarah Quelland

Middle school students aren't known to balk at the opportunity to get out of class. This week, many classrooms at Willow Glen Middle School have been empty to incorporate an important celebration into the curriculum. The week of March 30 through April 3 marks the school's second "Celebrating Diversity" week.

Principal Larry Laird is the primary coordinator of this event, which he says he hopes will give students an awareness and an understanding of different cultures and lifestyles. "It was very exciting when we did it two years ago," he says. Diversity week is scheduled to occur every other year. "If you did it every year, it would lose some of its sparkle. You want to wow [the students]."

This year offers at least 13 different cultural performances, including Aztec, African and Scottish dance, Celtic and Norwegian music and dance, Russian and Chinese folk dancers, Jewish and Japanese storytellers, traditional Irish dancers and percussionists.

"We're a diverse school," Laird says, citing a student population that's about 50 percent Hispanic, 30 percent white, 7 to 8 percent Vietnamese and the remaining percentage a mix of ethnicities.

Caliban, a lively Celtic and Norwegian acoustic band, was part of the 1996 celebration and returns this year. Vocalist and mandolin player Lief Sorbye says, "I enjoyed it [last time], because the kids were really alert.

"We show [the students] how much fun it is to play music," he says. "Music is the language that starts when words stop. We try to make every note count," he says. "We're enjoying what we're doing, [and] the students pick up on that."

On Friday, April 3, the school's own Chichen-Itza, made up of students in Willow Glen middle and high schools' Ballet Folklorico program, will perform Mexican folk and modern Banda dancing in authentic costumes. Gloria Hernandez teaches the Ballet Folklorico program and says it's as important for students to have the chance to acknowledge and express their own cultures as it is to be exposed to other cultures.

She says the middle school students most enjoy Chichen-Itza's modern dancing and the end of the performance when the dancers bring children and adults from the audience to dance. "The kids go crazy," she says.

Because performances are held in the school's "Little Theater," which holds a maximum of 325 students per assembly, not every one of the school's 1,150 students can attend every performance. However, more than half of the entertainers are offering two performances to accommodate a larger percentage of the school. "Everything is at capacity," Laird says.

To spread the cultural wealth, the diversity celebration will share the performers with Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, where Laird's wife is assistant principal.

At Willow Glen Middle School, there will also be supplemental activities available for classroom work. Among these are two lessons from Norine Dresser's book, I Felt Like I Was From Another Planet.

Both begin with a story told in the first person--the first by a woman from Cambodia about her first day in an American school, the second by a woman from Mexico who unwittingly violated America's traffic laws as a young girl.

Laird says he is also excited about a poem titled "Diversity at Our School" which will be read over the P.A. system. The writer uses candles to represent each race until a candle for every race is lit. The poem concludes, "As you pass my window/World, please take this test/Does any single candle/Burn brighter than the rest?"

The candle imagery is effective, and Laird says the poem has strong meaning to him. "I think we're all equal. No candle burns brighter than any other."

[ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ]