Defining Multiculturalism

Friday afternoon I went with the Met Schools Program Director to see some students in The Bronx perform a short opera that they wrote. The school was a pretty nice building so that surprised me - clean, 4 floors, decorated hallways - more normal than I thought it would be for a school in The Bronx. There were several student groups performing that afternoon and hanging from the stage was a poster that said "Celebrating Multiculturalism". Well every single act was a dance act and each one was done to a hip-hop song with inappropriate lyrics. The exception to this was kindergarten who danced to a hip-hop Elmo Sesame Street song - it was actually really cute. So pretty much the program did not have anything to do with Multiculturalism. It only had to do with their own culture and what they wanted to do -what they thought was "cool". It was a celebration of their culture which is fine but don't call it multiculturalism if all you are going to do is display your own culture. I also wish the teachers would have taken a stand regarding the music - if you want to dance to hip hop then great, go for it, but pick cool songs with appropriate lyrics. I was explaining to Maggie, the director I was with, about the Cinco De Mayo program that we have each year at my school and it is more of a representation of multiculturalism because we try to incorporate dances and music from various countries. The mini-opera the 4th graders performed was really cute. It was about a principal who took the junk food away from the cafeteria and made all the kids eat vegetables instead. The students caught the principal in the office eating a big chocolate cake so they protested to get their junk food back. hopefully I will be able to see a couple more school programs this week.