We have begun the year in fine form throughout the district in all of our world language classes. Recently I read a post (by George Couros) about ten ways to create amazing classroom culture. I re-tweeted the post and pointed out that our World Languages and Cultures teachers do some of these every day (Greet kids at the door, play music, make our first interactions positive, and have them ask questions everyday). There are others and we do all of these from time to time, but these four are stand outs for our department. I guess this is no surprise as we have the word "Cultures" in our title.
Latin students at Induction Cermonies
Not long ago, in October, the high school celebrated their students with a formal ceremony -or four ceremonies to be more exact, to celebrate our students in all four languages. We organized and evening with four inductions ceremonies for French, Latin, Chinese, and Spanish for honor our most passionate and highest achieving students. In total, we welcomed approximately 70 new students to our societies. It was a great evening as we came together to celebrate the many talents of the various students in our World Languages and Cultures Department at MHS. We divided the ceremony into two parts. The French National Honor Society and the Latin National Honor Society presented their certificates and conducted their ceremonies.
student jazz musicians at honor night
We then had a 20 minutes intermission with refreshments and live entertainment by a group of students musician who volunteered to play for our occasion. We were thrilled that they came and performed. They added a measure of elegance and true international flavor, as they serenaded the parents and students with jazz compositions from a variety of world music. After our intermission, the Chinese and Spanish National Honor Societies held their ceremonies. The similarities between the honor groups is striking. They all talked about making connections through the study of the languages and cultures. Both students and teachers spoke about carrying forth their passions for learning about and understanding cultures that our different and unique, yet connecting with others. Our goal is always to help encourage students to continue their studies and pursue their curiosities in order to promote their own learning.
Under the leadership of Ms. Goodrow-Trach, the students collaborated to create a video that represented this idea as the formal "entertainment" for the evening. We are proud of Madame's (merci @curlyfrenchgirl production) editing skills and the creative ideas that she brought to the table. The students were all offered an opportunity to participate in the video and we showed this music video during each section of the evening (with original credit to We are the World USA/ Africa and all the original, amazing musicians from the 80's). Please enjoy the video below. We Are the World!
