At a Charter School in Olney, Winter Celebration Encompassing Many Lands
By community affairs reporter Cherri Gregg
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- From "Hava Nagila" to "Feliz Navidad," students at a charter school in the Olney section of Philadelphia today held a multicultural holiday celebration.
"We had the African dancers, we had the Chinese dancers, we had the Latin American dancers, and of course we had dancers from America and from Israel," says Madhumita Sen, the music teacher at Universal Creighton Charter School, on Tabor Road, where students in grades K through 8 performed dances and sang songs from around the world for the school's annual Winter Concert program.
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How many ways did the students learn to say "Merry Christmas"?
"A lot!" said one sixth-grade student, Kamilla.
Donning bright orange fabric, Kamilla performed to the Israeli folk song, "Hava Nagila."
"You put your foot in and put your foot out and then you turn around and clap," she explained.
"Our school is extremely diverse," says principal Wendy Baldwin, noting that the concert is a way for the school -- which is 40 percent African-American, 30 percent Hispanic, and 20 percent Asian -- to bring all the students together.
"We like to recognize all of our cultures here at the school," she tells KYW Newsradio. "We like to wish all people, from all cultures and ethnicities, a happy holiday season."
