On Monday, March 3, students danced Bollywood, learned new languages, and folded papers into creative shapes. All of this was part of the Diversity Workshop held during X block. Christie Ho ’15, who took a Korean lesson, mentioned, “It was pretty interesting. I learned more conversational Korean, which was fun!”

Students gathered in the Shipley Center at the beginning of the Diversity Workshop and had to find people in the variety of categories, such as “Are you an only child?” “Do you have pet?” “Do you listen to kPop?” The people who finished getting signatures in time entered into a raffle for a Truly’s gift card, which Sidney Bowden ’14 won.

Students then dispersed to their appointed workshops, which included origami, salsa dancing, sign language, Chinese calligraphy, and feminism. Lulu Cao ’14, who learned origami, commented, “it was fun!”

Diversity Coordinator Ms. Lindsay White, who planned the workshop, commented, “The Diversity Workshops for X block was inspired by the multicultural night, which was optional on February 8th.” The school decided to run it again because of the positive feedback they got from the students who were involved in the multicultural night. She added, “We have such a diversity here … that it was great that we were able to have 20 different workshops,” in which “people were able to share about the part of their culture that they’re proud of.”

The workshops went well, according to Ms. White. She received positive feedback from students and added, “Students liked the fact that they could choose, [and that the workshops were] interactive and relatively stress free.” Merab McFarland ’15, who took “what would you do about homophobia?,” stated, “I enjoyed it because it was interesting to hear others’ opinions on important matters.”

Photo: Students learn Chinese calligraphy from Ms. Dao Wu, Dana Hall’s Mandarin teacher. Photo credit: Lindsay White.