By: Gino Pallotta, Ariana Rojak, and Danielle Shehee
February 18, 2020
Last Wednesday, Brooklyn High School held the annual international festival with so many students celebrating different cultures.
This is BHS’s fifth consecutive international festival.
The beginning of the school day started normally, as the first two classes were regular, but in third period, all of the students were called down to the auditorium to watch the parade of nations.
The parade of nations started with an assembly, introducing all of the different cultures being represented.
During fourth period, cultural trivia games were played. After that, the groups got together and went to the four different stations.
Station one was international cooking where many staff members made food. Mr. Ross made Italian pasta, Ms. Narouze made stuffed grape leaves, Ms. Barber and Mr. Verba made crepes, Mr. Rademaker made an Irish dessert, and finally, Mrs. Jones made Swedish meatballs.
Station two was the African-American presentation, talking about the importance of respecting African-American culture and its roots. Games were played to help those involved get a deeper understanding of the topic.
Station three were the country presentations where students walked around with a “passport” book and had to write three facts about 12 different countries of their choice. These countries had presenters who gave out information to write down.
Lastly, station four was dancing. Many students learned how to do many cultural dances; the tango and salsa were crowd favorites.
Science and ESL teacher Mr. Len Piechowski (event organizer) answered a few questions on the importance of this festival.
*How can the festival be a benefit to the students?
“We are living in a world that is becoming more and more global, and it is important for us to compete with other people in the world and also learn more about other people’s cultures.”
*How has the festival changed over the years?
“It has gotten bigger with more participants and more exciting and fun activities. It started off with just my ESL students, but it has grown to more of the other students as well.”
Thanks to Mr. P and the other staff members, as well as all student participants, for making this day possible.
THE RETURN OF THE EYE 