Harmony Day At My School (reposted from Livejournal)

Yesterday was Harmony Day. Our celebrations were organised by our EAL teacher, Lily. We're a small campus of a four campus school, just a couple of hundred very multicultural students from Year 7 to 10. It used to be a full day celebration, but that just hasn't been possible in recent years, so we had an afternoon instead. We had a wonderful guest speaker, a lady who is half Iranian, half Mauritian, whose family had escaped to Australia just before the Shah was deposed, with a warning from a friend in the know. She spoke of music and culture and of her time in Brazil and the joyousness of Brazilian music culture. Then she got out her feathered Rio style costume and there were drums and she handed rattles to students and got them all up celebrating. The Year 8 students did African drumming, which they learn in music(a far cry from the days when for me, music meant an American teacher trying to get us to learn our own folk songs or, before her, a lady who told us entertaining stories about the composers).

In the past, we have had some amazing Islander students agreeing to perform dances, in costume - something they still do for the annual school concert - but this time they were all off playing volleyball for the school. So there was only one incredibly brave young man in Year 8 agreeing to do a haka, of which more in a minute.

Because we were so short of entertainment, not enough for the planned afternoon, I offered to do a telling of the story of Purim, which is next week. The nice thing about this is that it's interactive. The kids had full permission to cheer the good guys and boo the villain, and one of my colleagues, who suggested holding up boo and cheer cards, was roped in to assist me. Lily encouraged me to ham it up, asking for a PowerPoint to go with it. I found various pictures online to use, and discovered that the truly dreadful Joan Collins/Richard Egan sword and sandal epic wasn't the only retelling of the tale and that John Rhys Davies actually played Mordecai in one of the later versions.

I began by explaining some of the various traditions(I left out the one about getting drunk!) such as costuming, partying, sharing food, giving to charity and amateur drama - and telling the story with audience participation. I then offered them a choice of a tinsel wig or a Harpo wig, telling them it was the only costuming they were going to get out of me. They cheered for the Harpo wig, which I put on, telling my colleague he would have been asked to wear it if they'd chosen the tinsel one for me. ;-)

We actually have a student called Hadassah(Esther's real name) and I had considered getting her into the act, but reluctantly decided against it - that particular girl would have cringed. Pity.

I think it went over well and the boo/cheer cards added a nice touch. I let them know that there would be a traditional Purim chocolate frog for them all at home time.

Now for our brave Year 8 lad. Really, a haka needs to be done by a group. If there had been some other boys to join him, I think he would have managed it. But after a short performance, he put his head in his hands and ran off, muttering, "Oh, I can't!"

It told me something about the young man I hadn't realised: he is terribly shy. He's in my English class and I used to teach him Literacy in Year 7, before he was promoted out of my class. He has some issues, but in class he is very good at class discussions and picks up some things about the film text the others haven't noticed. He talks loudly and laughs a lot.Nevertheless, he's shy - and I've just realised. Maybe the loud talk is to hide it. Despite that, he agreed to stand up in front of two hundred people, classmates and teachers alike, and perform. That took guts, facing his fear.

As the kids left, collecting their chocolate, I whispered to him that I was proud of him.

And I've learned a bit more about how I can help him in class.