Kim asked: Does that mean you can only have parties with store bought stuff?? Do you even have parties? What about cultural celebrations?? In my world, Hmong, Lao, etc food just isn't available in the grocery store.? Have they just outlawed all the celebrations all together? I DO know of schools that have outlawed all traditional holiday celebrations.
Pam replies: I can only answer from the perspective of a teacher at my school and as the parent at 2 other schools (elementary & high school) in my district. At my childrens' elementary school, for the first 10 years (same principal all that time) celebrations were not only very frowned upon, kids weren't even permitted to bring candy in their lunches from home!!? Seriously, my oldest daughter was sent to school with a note from Mommy with 2 hugs & 2 kisses.? They confiscated her candy in the lunch room.? I was big time bent, but figured that sending a note expressing my "disappointment" was the best recourse as I was a first year teacher just next door.? Happily that has changed some.? Homemade goodies are still frowned upon (we are told & tell the parents "no homemade, only store-bought").? However, all of the elementary classes have 1 or 2 rooms in their team area with a fully functioning kitchen and they cook weekly or bi-weekly (usually on Friday).??All 3 of my elementary age children are on the?"Spanish" teams (where they teach using?Spanish part of the day part of the week).? They tend to have a lot more cooking as it is a great culture exposure.? An aside, they also had a super cool fashion show that the kids modeled an outfit (child's choice).? The kids all took turns describing the clothes in Spanish & English to the audience.? They selected the music they walked?on the cat walk to.??The kids really did a great?job of selecting very different clothes (from formal wear to beach wear).? It was very exciting!? These were?the intermediate students, not primary.? At my school, same message.? No homemade.? The catch is, kids can bring mixes or ingredients to school and we can prepare it at school.? If it's microwave friendly, I've got it covered.? For anything big, I have to use the home ec. kitchen.? Happily, they don't spend tons of time cooking (she has sooo many other life skills to cover), so I have swapped rooms with her for a day or two.? However, I'm not a home ec. teacher and I found it VERY stressful with kids using knives, hot burners, etc. (although the "sploosh" came out fantastic - recipe from Holes).? I play it by ear now.? Last year's group, you couldn't pay me enough to get into a kitchen with them as a whole group!!? The previous year, we cooked together twice.? Everything else was store bought.? We don't have too much to worry about with ethnic celebrations.? Our school is 96% white, not quite 2% hispanic, less than 1% black, and a smattering of asian/other ethnicities.? That is actually a change.??My first year?there, we had ONE black student, ONE chinese (spoke no?English) student,?NO other mixes!? I?found it bizarre as I came from a very racially diverse middle school to a sea of white.? This was out of a student body of around 1,000 (maybe 1,100).? We are encouraged to be sure that all celebrations are tied to lesson plans, but we have a community partnership with our local Publix and they are awesome.? They donate so much stuff it is?unreal.?? I just asked my?oldest daughter about celebrations in high school.? She is a sophmore this coming year and saw NO?celebrations of any kind last year.? Kind of sad...they could?certainly use some type of motivation and maybe celebrating their successes would help. ;o) Pam/6th Gr./FL? ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
