Bulldog News

Celebrating diversity

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Paying tribute to one of its strongest assets, the Hillside School community participated in its Diversity Day program on April 8.

Members of the Hillside School community were able to visit highly creative student displays, located in the Academic & Health Center’s multi-purpose room, featuring information about more than 20 nations throughout the world. True to Hillside’s diverse nature, many students native to these countries helped create the informative exhibits.

In most cases, these presentations had compelling multi-media dimensions. The Korean exhibit proved to be very popular as students and others sampled offerings of kim chi, a hot and sweet cabbage dish native to that Asian nation.

Also welcoming many visitors was the Bermuda table, with its tasty samples of cod cakes; the Switzerland exhibit’s samples of Swiss cheese and white chocolate; date pastries at the Pakistan presentation, and a delicious cheese and onion tart presented courtesy of the Ireland exhibit.

Enthusiastic drumming from the Uganda table could be heard throughout the event as students took their turns on djembes, drums native to that African nation.

Several exhibits also featured ambitious audio-visual productions such as documentary film about the history of Korea and photographs depicting colorful Nigerian art work and music.

As part of the event, students completed questionnaires that required them to visit and gather information from each of the displays.

Reaction to the event was highly positive. “It was really cool,” said Leo Blavin ’10, a first time participant in Diversity Day. “I learned a lot about other countries and we made some really cool t-shirts.”

Expressing themselves on djembes at the Uganda table were (clockwise from top left): Justin Wickman '10, music teacher Shah Salmi, Idris Taqqee '11, Nick Walukevich '09, Calvin Clapp '09 and Ho Bin Kim '12.

Celebrating Bermuda (left to right): Jack Humsey '09; Matt Kowalchick, associate director of admission; Ryan Powell '10 and Carter Smith '13.