I am a citizen of the World
The ROEPER SCHOOL
Cultural Exploration Day
SPECIAL OFFERINGS
February 28, 2025
Indian Food, Film and Fun
Diya Oberoi Upper School Students (double block)
An exploration of Indian culture through good Indian comfort foods and interesting Bollywood films.
What’s in a Name?
Roz Larson Middle & Upper School Students
This interactive workshop will delve into the tales of our names and will incorporate creativity, visual art, and storytelling. Who named you? Is there significance? Is your name part of your identity? Come make some art, tell your story, and learn about your peers.
Food as Culture
Megan Lassere Middle & Upper School Students
Food is more than just sustenance—it is a powerful expression of culture, history, and identity. We will delve into the rich and diverse ways food shapes and reflect cultural traditions, social bonds, and personal narratives. Participants will explore how food serves as a lens to understand the world and connect with others.
Peace Begins with Me: A First-Person Perspective on United Nations Peacekeeping
Operations
Christopher Federico Middle & Upper School Students
This workshop will provide an overview of the history of UN peace support operations, review past and present peacekeeping missions, and offer a firsthand account of my own experiences working as a United Nations observer in postconflict Sudan, between June and December 2006. If you are interested in questions of peace and conflict, the impact of colonialism, dependency theory, global governance, or the inner workings of the UN, this might be the workshop for you.
Disability Inclusion
Discuss universal design and discuss one company's (Stellantis) approach to leverage DIVERSE*abilities Business Resource Group. Learn more about Roeper’s Accessible by Design Initiative at Lower Campus.
Culturally and Historically Responsive Education
Learn one to two traditional Greek Folk dances and explore a bit of history about the dance.
Modeling The Beauty of WOC
How can schools help students learn in ways that are true to themselves, become more critical citizens of the world, and leave school with the skills, intellect, and joy they need to find success? Learn the basic ideas behind “culturally and historically responsive education,” a framework for teaching that emphasizes the value of students’ cultures and languages as sources of genius rather than deficiencies to be overcome.
Have you ever tried out your friend’s makeup products and they look unflattering? Or…Are you struggling with styling your different hair and can’t find any tips? Modeling The Beauty of Women Of Color (WOC) will explore these issues and more discussing beauty standards and trends regarding race and how to navigate fashion, hair and makeup as a woman of color.
Gabrielle Simmons & Simran Shah Upper School
Morris Brown Middle & Upper School
Greek Dance
Ivana Thomas Upper School
Ben Fisher Upper School
Middle & Upper School
Globalizing protest and the spatialization of race through music in the 1980s & 1990s
Matt Vallus Upper School
We will take a brief look at how musicians coalesce in the 1980s to bring attention to various global issues in the 1980s. Additionally, we will see how this shifts in the 1990s and explore how, as historian Mark Anthony Neal puts it, “the emergence of hip-hop as a mainstream pop music in the 1990s represented a shift in the traditional logic of crossover”. If time, we will also take a look at how sitcoms are “spatializing” other ideas through various “getreal” episodes.
Wheel of the Year: The
12 Celtic Sabbats
Crypt Brannon Middle & Upper School
Solidarity Not Charity: The Origin & Application of Mutual Aid Principals
Learn about the 12 major holidays of the old Celtic calendar and their significance to Celts and pagans.
Mutual Aid has a long history with ancient roots in Indigenous, African and brown cultures. The simplest way to think about Mutual Aid is cooperation for the common good. Let’s explore how this approach to being in community with each other has been used in powerful ways as a tool for survival and resistance. Together we will apply that wisdom to discover ways we can make our communities stronger for all of us.
Exploring Indian
Students will learn about the history and fundamentals of different Indian dance styles. They will also learn a short dance!
Dance
Isha Oberoi Middle & Upper School
Sarah Miller Middle & Upper School
Speak White
Towela Okwudire
Middle & Upper School
In 1968, Quebecois poet Michele Lalonde uses the expression “Speak White” in protest of its derogatory use against Frenchspeaking Canadians who historically have experienced discrimination by Quebec’s English-speaking minority. In this session we discuss if, how, where and why language, accent and access to vocabulary may continue to further cause divides between people.
Time to Play: Black Joy Paving the Way
Patrick Harris II
Middle & Upper School
Learning the Black American experience is not just about tackling the ways we survive oppression. But it is also about exploring the ways joy has sustained us. In this session, we will explore and play the pockets of joy that have sustained Black Americans throughout the decades.
Why the Chicken Crossed the Road, and Other Fowl Excursions
Dan Jacobs
Middle & Upper School
This workshop takes a gander at what humor and riddles reveal about our own and others' cultures and perspectives. If you have any of your own culture-specific humor, please bring it in writing we don't want anyone to wing it.
The Queer Agenda: How does it change?
Bex Conway Upper School
This workshop will look at different queer movements throughout history and how applicable they are today. After a bit of general knowledge sharing, we will split into groups for a discussion of issues…then share how in an ideal world, the groups would incite a movement around those issues.
Black Music as Resistance
Explore the ways Black Americans have used music to fight oppression regimes. Then, at the end, we will have our own cypher to push back against current systems
Patrick Harris II Middle & Upper School