Immigrant Alphabet and NEHS: Looking back at Fall 2019
Throughout the Fall of 2019, Al-Bustan has continued our efforts to provide An Immigrant Alphabet with a third life through the distribution of the 26 banners to Philadelphia area schools, organizations, and institutions.
An online crowd sourcing campaign “Embracing Immigrants: iAlphabet at Public Schools” sought to raise $5,000 to support the distribution of banners at five of our partner schools across the city: Northeast High School, John Moffet School, Juniata Park Academy, Albert Greenfield School, and Penn Alexander. By November, 59 individual donors achieved our goal and the selection, distribution and installation of the banners soon followed and will continue in the new year as we seek other sites.
The Professional Development dates at Northeast High School in May 2019 led to connections with new faculty and students and the opportunity to reconnect with partners and friends of Al-Bustan. Beginning shortly after the semester began, Al-Bustan’s Director of Public Education David Heayn-Menendez began recruitment for the new year of programing at NEHS. He attended Small Learning Community meetings for faculty, nearly 40 classes spanning every learning community and interacted with nearly 1,500 students. During the following months, he was invited back to offer in-school Arab art integration sessions for Spanish, French, and Art classes.
In mid-November, Al-Bustan was able to collaborate with the Barnes Foundation to bring virtual reality headsets so that students could remotely take a tour of the museum. A similar event was held at Juniata Park Academy, another partner of Al-Bustan. All participants and their families were then invited for a free Saturday tour of the Barnes foundation who provided free transportation, lunch, and a year pass for participants and their families.
By mid-September our longstanding afterschool percussion ensemble, Al-Amal, led by Al-Bustan’s Percussion Director, Hafez Kotain, welcomed a new group of students on Thursdays. Hafez continues to work collaboratively with one of the music instructors at NEHS, our longtime partner Dr Jay Fluellen, during his 7th period choir class to instruct students on Arabic percussion and vocals. Additionally, Hafez Kotain and David Heayn-Menendez, have given short workshops during the school day to Spanish classes to demonstrate the cross-cultural connections and legacies of Arab culture throughout the Spanish speaking world. One student, Mohamad Elian, aspires to be a professional Arabic singer and was invited to perform during the grand opening of Al-Bustan’s new hub on Dec. 6th. He was accompanied by Hafez Kotain on the doumbek and Jay Fluellen on the keyboard. Throughout the Spring opportunities for the 7th period class and the Al-Amal group to perform have been scheduled and we hope to bring them to our new Al-Bustan hub in the coming months.
Of the nearly 3,500 students at NEHS nearly 25% are English Language Learners divided amongst nearly 50 languages coming from more than twice as many countries. Based on the lessons learned from An Immigrant Alphabet, the focus of the PD workshops was on how art integration can engage and celebrate the diversity of the student immigrant and refugee community at NEHS while maintaining curriculum standards and achieving learning goals.