Middle School Club Takes “PRIDE” in Hispanic Heritage

“Packer Rocks in Diversity Education” hosts second annual workshop for Middle School

After last year’s highly successful series of workshops for Women’s History Month, Packer Rocks in Diversity Education (PRIDE), a Middle School club, proudly presented a series of concurrent workshops on Hispanic heritage on Wednesday, April 28.  PRIDE is supervised by Jason McDonald, Packer’s Middle School Technology Specialist. 

All Middle School students participated in a workshop of their choice.

In the “Literatura - New York” workshop, visiting author Regina Galasso shared the work of Spanish authors who have written about New York City.  She asked Packer students to compose their own reflections on the Brooklyn Bridge, many of them in Spanish. One student wrote, “The bridge is like an elephant with big eyes.”

In the Livingston Gym, teams of students hurled foam rubber balls at each other in Queimada, a Brazilian game of tag.

Rashad Randolph, Middle School Spanish teacher, delighted his workshop audience with a multimedia presentation on Caribbean music, featuring Celia Cruz and the Fania All-Stars.

Other workshops included Hispanic festival-mask-making, Chilean rainstick-making, a “Jeopardy-style” Hispanic trivia competition, flag-making, a Frida Kahlo painting workshop, and tango, salsa and meringue dance lessons.

The student members of PRIDE selected the topics and facilitated many of the workshops, including rainstick-making, Quiemada, and trivia.

Spanish teacher and Middle School advisor Juan Lizcano praised the event for going beyond the narrow and recurrent topics of Spanish food and celebrities. “I think that the variety, interest and quality of the workshops were a great way to expand the view that our students have about Hispanic countries and culture and about the people who either live there or come from them,” he said. “Congratulations to all the PRIDE members and to everybody involved in the organization of the event.”