Along the same lines as venzmama said - punjabi and spanish language classes offered to English speakers would be good too.
A heritage night might be a good thing to do so everyone can be more familiar with the different cultures. Trying new foods is always a good ice breaker too.
I just went to a presentation on Columbia offered by the local JayCees. It was a lot of fun to see a video of the beautiful country and try some authentic food. The woman in charge was from Columbia and taught us quite a bit.
I think you have already made the first, most important step...realizing that every parent is important to the well-being of the school regardless of their culture or language. I am the PTO president of a school in Venezuela where at least half of our parents speak only Spanish. For the past two years of my term, I have done my best to include everyone by having translators available, translating the newsletter and also doing my best to learn Spanish. Our school hosts a "Venezuela Day" to learn about the culture. We host an "International Food Festival" to celebrate the 16 different countries our families represent. I team up parents who are bi-lingual to those who only speak English OR Spanish so if translation is needed they have someone to go to. Just this morning, after the business session of our meeting, I had a speaker give a presentation on traveling within this beautiful country. Most of our families spend their holidays in the US or elsewhere, but this country has so much to offer. It really opened some eyes. My final touch is that I'm setting up the executive board for next year and 3 or the 4 main officers are bi-lingual. A first in the history of the school. How can we represent the families if the makeup of the board doesn't?
So, how does this relate to you? Doing translations is great. Would you sit in a meeting where you didn't understand a word? Try to have a representative from each culture on the board. If they didn't want to be officers, maybe you could create a "Multi-Cultural Team" that could be appointed to the Exec Board. This is especially good for input as to programs that may or may not work because of cultural differences. Ask questions. We have families who don't eat pork, we had hotdogs at our carnival, we made sure we had ones that were all beef as not to offend. East Indians don't eat beef...a hamburger BBQ would be a no-no. Have cultural awareness programs. This could be just for the PTO or for the whole school. As the president, learn to say "Welcome" or "Hello" in the two languages. Just that one word could make a huge difference in someone's day. When I first moved here, the English words of "Good morning, how are you?" moved me to tears. It didn't matter that the person speaking couldn't speak any other English, it was the fact that they took the effort.
Good luck, buena suerte, and I hope these ideas helped! :cool:
I would like suggestions from thise of you who have experienced langauge and cultural barriers between the families of the students and how you overcame them.
We have a brand new school of about 500 children with 3 major languages spoken at home; english,punjabi and spanish. We have the largest population of sikh and east indians outside of India livng in our small rural town. I have only been in this area for 6 years and am just getting to understand some of the differences in our cultures. HOwever, I have found thatthey are VERY family oriented and very involved in their children's life. I think it would be in the best interest of the school and the children to make sure that they are involved at the school level as well. Many of them do not speak english as they have a tight knit community and can function very well here without it.
Our Spanish speaking parents are also very involved. We have an adult ESL program here at the school and it is very well attended. It's not for lack of interest on thier parts.
I would like to suggest either additional board positions (translator/liason) for both languages and maybe even an auxillary PTO where they could meet informally and discuss whatever and then have it presented to the board. We are attempting to have translators at the Board mtgs and I am getting the newsletter translated as well.
Any help would be appreciated. I would love for our PTO to fully represent the entire school population and not just the english speakers.
