After many years, Niles North once again celebrated International Student Week, which took place Jan. 26-30, a week dedicated to sharing and learning about the different cultures that make up the school community.
The inspiration for bringing back International Week came from collaboration with Niles West, who has been celebrating this event for many years. Eleni Andritsakis, sponsor of International Week, explained that after working closely with West and meeting with their climate and cultures team, North decided to align itself with similar events they are hosting. Activities for the week were generated through a collaborative district effort, including students, staff, and members of the associated student body.
After the events, there were a lot of conversations among students reflecting on how the activities throughout the week turned out. While some recalled moments they were very appreciative of, there were still questions about why certain things happened the way they did, and suggestions for improvement if International Week is continued in future years.
The week started with “A world map kick off” and “the hall of nations,” where students and staff were able to place a dot on a map representing where they’re from, and then walk through a hall covered with posters created by cultural clubs and groups in the school.
Walking into school and seeing this, some students were surprised, not knowing that a celebration for International Week was even occurring. Although there were some emails sent out promoting the event, it is common for emails to get lost in inboxes among the many other messages that students receive.
Senior Tenzin Choenyi explains that he wishes there were a little more PR to help get students interested in the week.
“I think International Week was a good idea, but I think a lot of kids didn’t even know it was going to happen,” Choenyi said. “I wish they did something like post Instagram stories of clubs putting together posters or more sneak peeks of the upcoming activities.”
The next events were held on Wednesday. Japan Outreach Center hosted two events open to all students, and there was a visit from Jitesh Jaggi, a storyteller and poet from India. Having a speaker come into the school was very exciting for a lot of students, especially those who once participated in past Affinity Summits, since guest speakers were very common during summits.
However, it did open the question to a lot of students as to why the school will host an International Week dedicated to teaching others about students’ cultures, but cancelled the Affinity Summits, which limit a student’s ability to learn about their own culture. The summits were also open to students of all backgrounds to learn about other cultures.
“I think there should have been summits instead of doing a bunch of posters,” an anonymous senior said. “Because yes, the posters show where students are from, but they are missing a lack of depth in education that the Affinity Summits offered.”
The week of festivities ended on Friday with a community fair held along the cafeteria hallway. The community fair ended up being the best part of the week for many students. Tables were lined up showing off different cultural clubs, and groups were they taught their fellow students different facts about their culture, shared traditional food, and played traditional games or other activities.
“I thought it was really fun and interesting. I think a lot of other people liked it too, and I think making the food free was really nice because it made it accessible for anyone to explore others culture,” Choeyni said.
Ending the week on such a high note, though, made students a little disappointed in how the rest of the week was handled. Tuesday and Thursday did not have any specific activities planned, which made the week feel a little bare. It would have been nice to have something just as memorable as those days that brought the same level of excitement that the Friday community fair brought. It felt a little misleading being labelled as a week-long event if there weren’t new activities planned for each day of the week.
There was also the next question of why the assembly, which was originally planned to take place on Friday, was cancelled. The reasoning given for the cancellation was a district policy that wants to limit the amount of classroom disruptions, so that students are spending more time in class. This is why the other events during the week were held during periods 3-7, which typically provide at least one free period for most students. It was said that this has been a rule for many years; however, West has been hosting an Internal Week assembly for many years, and even though there were talks about cancelling it this year, it did not cancel it. There is a little confusion over inconsistencies in implementing policies throughout the district.
Overall, it was nice to have a chance to learn about the different cultures of the students who make up North, and it was nice that International Week was finally celebrated once again. However, there is always room for improvement in upcoming years so that not only do students get an education about new cultures, but they are also able to feel more connected to their own cultures, which was something the school strongly emphasized through this event.
“I feel like a lot of it is just teachers and staff throwing their ideas and stating that the kids are doing it when it’s really not the kids, and more so the kids telling their sponsors what to do,” senior Raia Calimutan said. “That may not be the case with every group, but I feel like if there were more student interaction or more student-run, then things could be a little more creative. Not just posters which not every student may look at.”
