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One unique aspect of teaching at our school is helping our immigrant students assimilate to American norms, while still retaining their own culture and heritage. One member of the team teaches in an English Language Learner combination class and understands the complexity of teaching students from diverse backgrounds. Another team member immigrated from Taiwan when he was in fifth grade and actually attended the school that he teaches at. He has experienced first hand the daily obstacles of fitting in, learning English, participating in cultural holidays such as Thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas, while attending Chinese school on weekends and still upholding the Chinese Confucius ways of living. His interest on the convergence of East and West is personal, both as a former student and as a teacher.

Team Nepal will bring back stories of Nepal and the Nepalese people to their classrooms and their students. The team hopes to build relationships between their students and the Nepalese students. By developing a pen pal project, we will increase communication and build relationships between American and Nepali teachers and students. We hope to encourage students to share openly, with pride, about their own cultures in this exercise. We will encourage students to look through the lens of cultural acceptance and help students gain confidence by participating in culturally relevant discussions. As teachers, we hope that assimilation for our students is a combination of learning American traditions and holding strongly to their native cultures.

As California's state standards become more and more stringent, and as standardized testing becomes a dominant driving factor in teaching today, it is becoming more and more challenging for teachers to spend time talking about cultural issues with students and colleagues even though this remains a critical issue facing our society as a whole. By sharing what we learned about the Nepali culture, we open the doors for discussion of our students' home cultures, thus providing an environment of valuing diversity, acceptance and respecting everyone's differences. What better gift can we give our students than to learn to value and appreciate their own cultures, while learning about and accepting those cultures that are different than their own. Team Nepal's goal for student growth is to model and share a culture of caring and respect with our students.
 
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