First grade and eighth grade students dance during a dress rehearsal for Bristol Consolidated School’s Diversity Week showcase on Friday, March 29. Led by instructors from the New York Chinese Cultural Center, BCS students explored Chinese culture through art, dance, music, history, and food throughout the week leading up to the showcase. (Molly Rains photo)
Students at Bristol Consolidated School enjoyed a whirlwind introduction to Chinese culture involving food, music, dance, and visual art during the last week in March, when the school held its 26th annual Diversity Week.
“I can see how much effort and work the students are putting in,” said Nico Li, artistic director and programs manager at the New York Chinese Cultural Center, based in New York City.
Li and fellow instructor, professional dancer, and choreographer Yuxi Liu visited Bristol during this year’s Diversity Week celebrations to help share Chinese culture with students, working with classes from pre-K to eighth grade. The immersive nature of Diversity Week, Li said, created an opportunity for teachers to engage in “a deeper way of spreading cultural awareness.”
Throughout the week, students at BCS learned about various aspects of Chinese culture. Fifth grade students prepared traditional dishes, and students throughout the school worked on art projects and studied Chinese art. Li and Liu instructed the students in Chinese dance during the week. At a Friday night showcase on March 29, the students capped a week of learning by performing Chinese cultural dances for their families and the BCS community.
“This is a really good opportunity for us, as cultural representatives, to come here and let the students know us more,” said Liu. Introducing children to “real people” from diverse cultural backgrounds, she added, can help counteract the development of harmful stereotypes and implicit bias.
BCS gym teacher Chris Perry said that the idea for Diversity Week arose 26 years ago out of the realization that students were not encountering much variety of cultural perspectives face-to-face during their education. As of the 2020 census, more than 9 in 10 Bristol residents were white.
“A staff member said to me, ‘We don’t have enough diversity at this school,’” Perry said. Diversity Week, he said, was initiated as a step towards addressing that gap.
The program’s goal is to foster acceptance and appreciation of other cultures, Perry said.
“We wanted to help students to understand that we are all the same — whatever color skin we have, however you dress, wherever you’re from,” he said.
Diversity Week has featured a number of different cultures from Puerto Rico, Wabanaki, Scotland, Brazil, Armenia, Quebec, India, and more.
Perry said that Diversity Week has taken off and evolved over the past quarter-century, each year taking a slightly different shape.
Instructors who represent the culture being highlighted at each year’s Diversity Week travel from near and far to share their culture with Bristol’s students, Perry noted. This includes Liu and Li, both of whom are professional dancers and choreographers who traveled from out of state to instruct students this Diversity Week.
Buy-in from teachers at BCS has also been essential to the continued success of Diversity Week, Perry said. A team of teachers is required, he said, to make Diversity Week happen year after year and immerse the students in cultural learning opportunities.
“A lot of teachers have gone above and beyond – and that’s what makes this what it is,” he said.
Li said that the enthusiasm from students, teachers, and staff had helped make the week a success.
“It has been incredibly rewarding to be able to work with the full school community,” she said, adding that Bristol had been “open, warm, and welcoming.”
One of the things that Li said she hoped the students had taken away from this year’s Diversity Week was an appreciation for just how big and diverse China, like the United States, really is.
Now, said Li, the students can retain their open minds and follow their curiosity to learn more about other cultures on their own.
“They can continue learning,” she said.
