So… upon reflection, where am I now on the issue?

First, I will continue teaching a sequential, comprehensive dance program, including music. My elementary school has dance instead of music, so I feel a particular responsibility to provide exposure to music, which is not only a soul mate of dance but also a required academic subject.

Second, I can incorporate activities to accommodate the students whose father has expressed discomfort. In this particular case, percussion & voice are more acceptable than instrumental music & melody. Keeping this in mind, I can make a conscious effort to increase the percentage of improvisational & choreographic projects using percussion & poetry instead of instrumental music.

One thing I’m not able to do is invite the dance traditions from these cultures into my dance classroom. It’s a good suggestion, but not applicable in my case because my students’ cultures, from Somalia & Southeast Asia, don’t include dance. As Abdulrahim, a former 5th grader, once wrote in his journal, “My family doesn’t dance so I can’t answer the question [of what kind of dances my family does]. It is because it’s against the muslim thing. My family doesn’t dance or never will dance. So that’s all I have to say.”

I am fairly committed to forestalling the day when students or families opt their children out of dance class, although it may be inevitable. About 10% of my students belong to communities that look askance at music & dance to varying degrees. If one family opts out, the problem may expand exponentially with other families joining the exodus. In my 15 years of teaching in this school, I’ve been lucky that this is the first outright request. So long as all students in the school are included in the program, I’m able to build an all-school dance culture, nurturing social & collaborative skills that really contribute to our community.

And I’ll continue to communicate with parents over the long-term, face-to-face and on a wider scale. I would guess that one of the reasons that families choose my school is that it’s a delightful community where children from many places in the world get along well together, which is perhaps partially due to habits our children develop by learning & playing together in dance. This, despite the diversity of our population: Our 98118 zip code was reported at one time as being the most diverse in the nation. This point is one I can continue trying to articulate to parents, as I did in placing a video on our website, specifically for the purpose of explaining the dance program to current & prospective parents. So in conferences & in the community, I can redouble my efforts to communicate.

For now, I’m just grateful that I had other educators with whom to communicate, in order to clarify my thoughts and find a way forward…

No wonder it’s such a great place to work!

When I was growing up, holiday projects at school heightened my anticipation of Christmas.  We sang carols, performed a Christmas play, created wreaths, Santa Clauses, stockings & Christmas trees…  Christmas imagery overwhelmed, despite a thriving Jewish community in the region. My first teaching job echoed the atmosphere of my childhood, with a single Hanukkah song representing diversity among the carols.

But now, diversity is a defining thread among my students. Many students celebrate Christmas; some also honor Kwanza.  The New Year might be the most universally celebrated holiday among students, but it’s confusing to keep track of when to celebrate it!  Although many probably enjoy the Gregorian New Year (January 1) as an occasion to party, my students’ celebrations — including excitement, candy, gift envelopes, and lion & dragon dancing — stretch from January through February.

The Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year occurs at the new moon of the first lunar month, somewhere between January 21 & February 21 (Feb 14 in 2010).  The Vietnamese New Year, or Tet Nguyen Dan, largely follows the Chinese calendar [except on a few confusing occasions, like the year 2007]; but in Seattle, Tet in Seattle involves a two-day extravaganza on some date near the Chinese New Year — February 6-7 in 2010. Evidently, the Lao New Year, or Bpee Mai, & Cambodian New Year, or Chol Chnom Thmey, occur from April 13 to April 15 as harvest celebrations (think southern hemisphere), but it’s the Lu-Mien New Year to which my students often invite me — it probably occurs on the Saturday before the Chinese New Year, but I never know til I hear from students. I do love the dancing, both traditional & up-t0-date:

• Traditional Mien dance, 2009
• Keeping it current at the Mien New Year, 2009

Meanwhile, among my Muslim students, their most important holidays seem to fall in September-October & December & are highlighted by excitement [again], extra prayers, fasting & henna-painted hands.

So as a teacher in a public school, I don’t much touch holidays.  I could try to teach about them all, but chances are, I’d miss someone. I could try to teach the ones that go with the seasons (celebrating light in winter, or the abundance of harvest…), but the dates for those change with the hemisphere.  I’ve even had occasion to become cautious about using the word “celebration,” since I’ve had children who had to go sit in the library during anything labeled as such.

If I were a classroom teacher again, I’d go with students reporting to each other about their favorite annual holiday or their reasons for not celebrating. But as a dance educator with limited contact time, I go with festive, in the merry & joyous sense of the word.  Festive includes dances & dance-stories that are unrelated to any particular holiday or belief, but bring smiles to everyone’s face.  We do them the day — or week — before a vacation, as a way to celebrate — whoops! rejoice or observe our happiness — at the upcoming days at home with our families. Everyone’s facial expressions are characterized by an upturning of the corners of the mouth, and no one has to go sit in the library alone.

To anyone who visits this site:
Please be merry & have a Happy New Year, whenever.