Peace and Diversity Day Celebration March 22, 2024:
Gallery Walk Exhibition
To create the gallery walk members of our school community were encouraged to bring and share anything that had meaning to their family, their culture or their ethnicity! Sharing culture can be significant: building social relationships within a community by establishing trust and reciprocity. This shared understanding can lead to a decrease in fear, intolerance, and isolation, while increasing a sense of belonging within the community. Celebrating diversity within a group gives us a sense of who we are individually and collectively. Cultural and identity awareness can help take down barriers and build connections which lead to increased peace. Our annual Peace and Diversity Day Celebration works to help us appreciate and respect our differences and similarities. Throughout this day we grow our understanding that we are better together.
As we come to understand more about ourselves and our own culture, we learn how to relate better to individuals from different cultural backgrounds. By being culturally aware, we can recognize and appreciate other people’s beliefs, customs, and values and interact with them within a shared community without prejudice or judgement.
Collective Art: Ubuntu
This year for our Peace and Diversity Day Gallery Experience we added a creative art piece, Ubuntu. Ubuntu translates to “humanity” and is an African philosophy that means “I am because we are”. It denotes our interconnectedness, how we rely on each other in community. To reach our full potential, both individually and as a society, we must depend on each other.
All MS 447 Community members were invited to create a 4×4 artwork on a canvas panel that represented their understanding of peace and/or represented their culture. They were invited to respond to the prompts:
What does it look like to be a part of my cultural community? My family unit? My school community? How do I feel about my culture or ethnicity and how does that impact my artwork?
What colors, shapes, words, textures represent my cultural identity/community?
What does peace and diversity mean to me?
The panels were displayed individually at our Gallery Experience on Peace and Diversity Day.
Now they will hang as a permanent collective piece of artwork to remind us of our interconnectedness.
Student Showcase, Workshops, Guest Speakers
In addition to the Gallery Exhibition students also participated in a special performance by Brooklyn High School of the Arts; our very own MS447 Student Showcase; Activism, Advocacy, and Future Dreaming workshops; and guest speakers, 447 graduate Ella McCullum and Ketrina Hazell, motivational speaker, self-advocate, and Ms. Wheelchair 2018. Ella spoke to our 8th grade students about her life experiences as Autistic and Ketrina spoke to our 6th and 7th grade students about her life experiences with disability, having been diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 9 months and using a wheelchair for mobility throughout her life. Both speakers reinforced ideas around diversity, inclusion, belonging, advocacy and allyship.
A huge Shout Out to the following people who, along with the support of all teachers and staff, worked in special roles to help insure the success of this year’s Peace and Diversity Celebration: Yaquoi Moore, Kristina Davis, Andrea Villeda, John Hagan, Chrissy Visa, Stacey Billups, Lisa Bell and LEAP led by Tricia Frazier.
CoCreate: 7th and 8th Grade
CoCreate is a way to create COLLECTIVE CHANGE. It is a lunchtime conversation that allows for student voice and collaboration. Currently the 8th grade CoCreate is meeting to create solutions for the following student identified problem: Discrimination, racism, and unkindness through words and actions have become normalized at MS447 due to a lack of adult and student action to interrupt and disrupt these harmful behaviors. The 7th Grade CoCreate is meeting to create improved ways for developing a restorative school and deepening our community’s understanding of Restorative Justice