On the 9th of September, Ascend held a unique and interesting celebration in honor of Hindi Diwas (Hindi Day) and the independence day of many countries in Latin America. Students participated in displays of music and presentations sharing information about Latin American culture, and our own. Although the event was interactive, it is important to note its significance for us as an IB school. Moreover, though the intention was pure, there were many important issues brought up through its execution, which will be discussed here.
As an international school, celebrating the Independence Day of other countries makes us globally aware and allows for intercultural understanding between students and even faculty at Ascend. However, it points out the importance of celebrating our own independence and the stark contrast between the 15th August celebrations, and the ones for this event. For example, during the Indian Independence day celebrations, there was only 1 MYP/DP performance which lasted for no longer than 4 minutes, while the rest of the celebrations were executed by the PYP. The lack of organization and coordination of this event was made clear, as MYP students performed the same song, immediately after a PYP student had already sung it. Independence Day is a significant event in any nation’s history, representing freedom, resilience, and unity. One student says “The planning for this event began before the 15th of August and before the planning of our Independence Day, ” displaying the extreme importance given to it. By not allowing MYP to provide historical context towards our cultures, we are not only isolating ourselves from the rest of the country, but also missing an opportunity to create national spirit within the school.
Secondly, while the celebration was for both Latin American Independence Day and Hindi Diwas, a disproportionate amount of time was given to each event. This is partly due to the lack of student initiative for Hindi Diwas. With a Google sign-up for the event being sent out almost a month ago, open to all MYP-DP students. Many Hindi students were encouraged by the Hindi department to partake in this event, but they refused.
Finally, the execution of the event was disappointing, considering the time spent planning. Whether it was students reading from their laptops throughout their presentations, or musicians completely out of sync, it was visible to the audience that this event was not as well organized as it could have been. The event took almost an hour, of which more than half was spent managing the discoordination of these performances. While the school and students maintain a reputation for doing an amazing job where performing arts are concerned, this was not at all visible during the event.
As mentioned before, the sign-up sheet was sent long enough ago that students had ample time to prepare performances on the scale of the Grammys. And yet what ensued was nothing but the opposite. Akshat Ambekar, one of the performers, said: “I had like 3 days to prepare for it, and it was on an instrument I was greatly uncomfortable with. The performances were alright but needed far more time in the oven”. Overall, the event, while thought out with good intentions, raised questions about our community’s ability to promote national spirit and maintain Indian traditions as an international school. In the future, it may be more viable to have full rehearsals of all events before their final presentation and to perhaps be slightly stricter on the quality of performances allowed.
