≡ Maggie lawson
FW Parker students celebrates Year of the Ox
Parents and siblings crowded the auditorium of Parker Elementary School as students celebrated the Lunar New Year on Friday with traditional Chinese and Vietnamese dancing, three short plays and poetry readings.
The 12th annual event featured students of all grades and many nationalities. For the finale, third- grade students and English Immersion students, all waving American flags, recited the poem “I Am America” by Charles R. Smith and sang ‘‘It’s a Small World After All.”
Principal Maryanne Palmer said about 75 percent of the school’s 318 students are of Asian descent, and 67 percent of all students are enrolled in the English Language Learners program.
“This event gives us an opportunity to celebrate our diversity, and for the Asian students to share their culture with the rest of the community,” she said.
Students look forward to performing traditional Chinese lion dancing, said English Language Learners teacher Linda Lee.
Fourth-grader Michael Soohoo played the emperor in “The Zodiac Race,” a play about how the order of the animals in the lunar calendar was determined.
In the play, the emperor grew weary of the animals’ constant fighting about who was the leader, and proposed a race around the world to solve the problem.
“I liked the part where he yelled at the tiger,” Soohoo said.“”It’s important that we continue our traditions,” said Lee, who moved to Massachusetts from China when she was 8 years old. “This teaches children to respect each other and respect diversity.”
“It was really, really wonderful,” said Elena Tobin, treasurer of the parent-teacher organization and mother of Andrew, a second-grader at Parker. “My son always looks forward to this celebration.”
Tobin, who wore a shirt with Asian levitra symbols to honor the occasion, said she and her husband have attended the celebration since Andrew was in kindergarten.
“All the Parker School kids worked really well together as a group, and you could see they were having a great time,” she said.
Gal Tziperman Lotan may be reached at glotan@ledger.com. Watch and listen to the slideshow.
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February 7th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
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