Kids celebrate culture at St. Mary’s
It’s getting on toward that part of the school year when a young student’s thoughts turn toward anything but schoolwork. And as News Five’s Arreini Palacio discovered, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
A normal day at St. Mary’s Primary School would include reading, writing and arithmetic but today the students decided to add a little twist.
It was the school’s annual culture day that had the students moving grooving and actually learning. Each class chose a culture and researched it fully before the final presentation.
Shelleen Grant, Standard 4
“I did a project on the East Indians. I learned about what they eat and what they do.”
Davina Griffith, Standard 6
“The Arabs dress in gowns and they cover their entire body and they eat meat and milk products. They eat meat from sheep and camel only and milk products: butter cheese, yogurt.”
Shantel Belezaire, Standard 3
“I learn that the Mayas they come from Asia and they build all kind of temples and they have all kind of rooms and like that.”
Michelle Lord, Standard 4
“This dah rice and fish, cashew, cashew stew, white rice, stew beans and plantain.”
According to a standard three teacher, Culture Day is more than just learning the food, dance and religion of the various ethnic groups.
Sonia Bennett, Standard 3 Teacher
“Well it is important because it was a part of our Belizean culture. They live, they migrated here so the children need to know the different cultures of their environment.”
Cynthia Reneau, Principal
“Belize has a rich diversity of culture and we thought that to help the students to understand and appreciate the cultures that we would have a culture day.”
And obviously these students understood and appreciated this Culture Day.
Davina Griffith
(counting in Arab)“alif… moon, how yan”
Genis Chez, Standard 2
“uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, dies”
Carnellie Fritz, Standard 3
“Cup a ataza, priest a padre, football a bal, nun da munha.”
Carnellie agreed that speaking in Ketchi, Maya was much more fun than sitting in her normal class. Arreini Palacio for News Five.
