By Paul Michael
Let’s play a game. I’ll give you the name of a country, and you have to tell me something about its culture. Only, there’s one rule; you can’t refer to any of the ‘six fs’: food, flags, festivals, fashion, and famous people or places. So, no Eiffel Tower, frogs’ legs or berets for France. No burritos, mariachi bands or Día de los Muertos for Mexico. And no daal, Diwali or dhoti for India. What would you choose?
Hard, isn’t it? And for multicultural communities, especially international school communities where there is a steady and heady influx and efflux of families on an almost weekly basis, understanding one another in a meaningful way truly matters.
The question for schools is often, how do we explore, celebrate, and seek to better understand the cultures of our cohorts? At the British School of Amsterdam, we strive to create such opportunities.
