Engela - Reflection

Chinese Traditional Festival

Every year the Sino-American Program hosts a Chinese Traditional Festival where we celebrate traditional Chinese games, customs, and food.

This festival is held in January before Spring Festival.

Spring Festival is better known as Chinese New Year, seeing that China follows the lunar calendar.

Spring Festival is an important time for Chinese people, this is the time where they get together with their families and celebrate the new year.

Some of the traditional customs include:

Making and eating dumplings.
Watching the New Year Gala.
Giving and receiving hongbao's (red packets).
Spending time together as a family.
Praying for good fortune for the coming year.

Area of diversity/inclusion improvement in Qingdao No.9 and the Sino-American Program.

Taking a look at the demographics of Qingdao No.9 High school and the international programs that are part of the school, we can see that there are three programs; Canadian, Japanese and the SAP.

The international programs and the public school do not collaborate on any activities together.

Students in the SAP program and Qingdao No.9 High school is a homogenous group of students.

They are all Chinese, their first language is Chinese and they are all have high academic achievement seeing as Qingdao No.9 is ranked second in Qingdao, and that makes the competition fierce.

Even though, there are no ethnical or language diversity, the school as a whole have male and female students, and the students have different interests and reasons why they chose the learning path they did.

I believe there is a great opportunity to create a culture of inclusion between the three international programs, and the public school. There are many opportunities where all of the students can participate in activities that represents their interests, as well as the program that they are a part of.

Some students in the SAP are planning of going to study in Canada, this can be a starting point of getting the two programs to be more inclusive of each other.

Many of the students in the SAP has an interest in Japanese culture and art. One of the projects that the students have recently completed is drawing a Manga (Japanese comic).

My latest projects

Sino-American Program Traditional Chinese Festival 2021

Current procedures

Last year the Traditional Chinese Festival of the SAP was held in January. We had the following activities:

Chinese traditional medicine bags.
Candied hawthorn sweets.
Making dumplings.
Arrow throwing.
Fan painting.
Chinese character writing - wish for the new year.

The parents and students all get involved with this festival, especially when the dumplings need to be made.

Improved inclusion/diversity plan

First all three the international programs can participate in the Chinese Cultural Festival.

As far as we know, the Canadian and Japanese programs have no big/main events that take place annually.

This does not have to solely be Chinese orientated - the different programs can collaborate and plan different activities and food that can be enjoyed.

Below is an action plan that can be the starting point for the new Spring Festival Celebration 2023

Spring Festival Celebrtion

What

The SAP will spearhead this activity, and make use of the student council we have established to collaborate and include all three International programs in the

Spring Festival Celebration.

Where

The Spring Festival Celebration will take place in the school gym. Seeing that it is winter and cold outside.

When

Why

To promote inclusion and collaboration between the three different international programs.

Later, when this activity is more established, the public school can be included.

This inclusion and collaboration project has the potential to grow into a Festival day, where the whole school participates and all students, parents and teachers work together to build the school community.

How

Set a date for the first meeting between the different programs.
Pinpoint a possible date for the Spring Festival Celebration.
Divide the activities equally between the programs - 5 or 6 activities including food.
Get all the stakeholders involved.

Parents to assist with the food.
Students to run the activities.
Teachers to assist in the planning.
Everyone participate in the cleanup.

After semester finals, on the last day of the first semester, Friday.