Written by: Noah
Edited by: Sofia
International Day is a tradition at ISM that has been celebrated for many years: a day in which we celebrate our diversity as an international community. While the event’s purpose is to honor the myriad of cultures at ISM, festivities have been limited to ES and MS up until this year.
The event has often been overlooked in HS with no significant events to cater to HS students and faculty members. In addition, International Day overlaps with Ramadan this year. Ramadan is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar, which the Muslim community respects as the month of pilgrimage and fasting.
A major part of celebrating International Day is bringing an onset of food from varying cultures to honor diversity at ISM, but, ironically enough, this can be seen as culturally insensitive for the many Muslim students who were fasting. From these, two eventual questions arise: why is International Day not celebrated in HS, and how inclusive is International Day?
Both ES and MS honor cultures during International Day in various ways. In MS, they’ve even shifted the celebrations from being constricted to a single day to spanning a whole week. The purpose of the prolonged celebration is to fully acknowledge all the different cultures spanning across the school. Mr. Tello, a grade 7 counselor, explained, “International Day, this year, was celebrated throughout the week with various events happening on each day. For example, on one day, people shared their national food.” On the other days, students played traditional cultural games. Meanwhile, ES had a Flag Day, where students paraded the flag of their country (or countries) to display pride in their heritage. ES and MS both seem to have made adequate efforts to increase internationality in their respective communities, yet HS hasn’t quite done the same.
Compared to the multitude of activities in MS for such an important day, HS does not have a special event or activity to celebrate International Day. Rather, students, teachers, and staff are merely encouraged to participate by wearing their traditional national attire. Ms. Thompson states this is because “There are so many events ongoing during the period of International Day that scheduling is hard.” For example, there are two IASAS events—Cultural Convention and pre-IASAS—alongside no homework weekends, and approaching spring break and mock assessments that, according to admin, all make it extremely hard to integrate International Day.
At the same time, Ms. Thompson leaves the option for having a concrete event in the future, “I am totally open to any opportunities if students can come up with one.” In the past, events like robotics, wall-climbing, and academic bowl competitions have happened while IASAS and mocks took place, so it’s definitely a possibility that an event celebrating the diversity of our school could be added.
Additionally, some students and staff have raised the question of why International Day overlaps with Ramadan. Fatima, a current sophomore, describes Ramadan as a way to “appreciate the things that we have and be grateful for them.” She added that common ways to celebrate it are to “give a zakat, a donation, to the impoverished and have a massive gathering with family after breaking the fast.” During Ramadan, the Muslim community has to eat and drink before sunrise and can only eat after the sun sets, usually breaking their fast at 6:00 pm. Since Ramadan is a deeply sacred event for ISM’s Muslim population, it leads us to ask why ISM scheduled International Day at such a coinciding time.
As stated before, International Day is often celebrated with the cultural mingling of food, where students bring food from their own cuisines and taste foods from others. However, most Muslim students cannot eat food, hindering their opportunity to celebrate the event to the maximum while almost segregating them from the rest of the student body. This may not achieve the goal of International Day since a big bulk of Muslim students would be left out. If this conflicting scheduling continues, the so-called internationality that International Day celebrates might not be considered inclusive. This poses a problem that ISM has to strive to solve to ensure that ISM can consolidate all of the diversity present within the Bearcat community. On the bright side, some of this is already happening.
MS has been taking a varied approach to International Day on top of preserving traditions. According to Mr. Tello, “We are in the process of diversifying how we celebrate International Day.” They have started to diverge away from food-centric celebrations and towards “trying to incorporate more student-led activities to showcase the different countries. For example, one day we will have a National Geographic Kahoot. On another, showcasing different games from countries such as Mongolian Domino.” Mr. Tello hopes that these varied approaches will ensure that more students feel included in the community: a core goal in mind, which fellow Bearcats should be looking to enforce as well.
MS student Mikael, however, has a different take on Ramadan falling on International Day. When asked whether he thought the timing of International Day was ironic, he stated that, “I don’t think it’s ironic, I think it’s really cool that International Day falls during the Holy Month, a great way to celebrate it.” By celebrating International Day during Ramadan, it’s almost like ISM is recognizing and embracing the significance of the tradition, a great way to honor it and an optimistic viewpoint on the event.
International Day is a focal point in the ISM community since it is a way to commemorate the internationality and diversity present among Bearcats. ISM has been the pillar of the international community in the Philippines, but, like any other institution, it is continuously learning to respect cultural diversity. We still have a long way to truly understand what it means to be an international community, yet ISM is taking big strides towards solving that problem, and while hurdles may be present, it is up to the Bearcat community to ensure that steps will be taken nonetheless. Small steps always pave the way for big leaps.
