Drums & Stories Fill Crusader Hall

Our Lower Schoolers celebrated community and ancestry together through play and creative activities for Special Topics Day today.

Students brought energy and attentiveness to their interactive drumming session with the X8 Interactive Drumming team, learning how to actively listen to each other while maintaining their own beat. Later, all six grades worked together in groups to create original poems using the phrase, “We are many, we are one,” to weave their ancestral stories together. Students then read aloud their collaborative poems to the rest of the school, with accompaniment by the Percussion Band, at the final assembly of the day. It was a wonderful opportunity for students to share something special about their heritage with the rest of their community in a fun and engaging format!

Watch a snippet of the collaborative poem reading here.

Below is an excerpt of the collaborative poem:
We are one. We are many. Who are we?
We are the children of this world, this Giant and Beautiful world.
We are one, we are many; we are Gracie, we are Khamirah; we are all family.
We were born in Austin, California, New York.
We are growing up on Caswell and the streets of Cullen.
We are growing up in Austin and we shall live our lives with joy.
Our parents have loved us, showing us how to be generous and speak Russian.
We are one, we are many; we are Enzo, we are Jackson, and we love to swim and climb trees.
Our parents and grandparents have loved us. Did they know who we would be?
Our parents, as children, playing on Octavia Street. Our grandparents growing up in Iran and Germany.
I remember, they told us about a time when my mother found a dead snake.
Our parents, we imagine them growing up on Locke Lane and on Emporia Street.
And our grandparents, who were veterans and police officers. We imagine them, as children just like us,
playing on Cave Lane and Beaver Creek Avenue.
And further back, we remember our great grandparents, great-great-grandparents, and our ancestors
from Spain and Japan.
We are one, we are many; like Cherokee Indian, like Argentinian.
We are one, we are many; we play baseball, we learn science, we eat lunch.
We are St. Andrews, under the great oak tree.
We will remember where we come from. We are many, we are one.



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