I didn't think much of it as a kid, but looking back on it now, I feel so grateful that my elem school had after school Chinese (Canto & Mando) classes M & F, and after school Punjabi classes Wed. These weren't offered by the school board mind you, the Chinese school classes https://twitter.com/Fumi_chun/status/1340005553943166976

were run by an external Chinese school that just rented rooms in my elem school. Punjabi class on the other hand was an extracurricular independent thing taught by one of the teachers at the school, so she used her own classroom for it, so you when you went into her

classroom, you'd see notes & schoolwork & what not from Punjabi class up on one of the walls. It's funny, my elem school was consistently bottom ranked by the Fraser Institute and nicknamed as the "ghetto" elem school, but thinking about it in hindsight, we

were probably one of the richest elem schools culturally speaking at that time. Reflecting my neighbourhood, the student body was mostly Indo-Canadian (mostly Punjabi, some Hindi) then Chinese (Cantonese), along w/ a sizeable population of Filipino, Vietnamese & Tamil.

White folks were the minority by a looong shot. So yeah, actually, thinking about it, for a good portion of my childhood, I thought being bilingual was normal cuz that was all the kids around me. We spoke English at school, but it was also normal to just chat every so often in

your mother tongue with friends who spoke the same language at home (Not to say everyone was kumbaya with everyone's cultures. There would be incidences of lateral violence from time to time but save that convo for another time). Lunch box moments weren't a thing

at my elem cuz everyone had "weird lunches". Lunch time would be Chinese grannies and Indian grannies, bringing fried rices and rotis and curries etc. into the lunchroom to feed their young grandchildren. Samosas were a staple at class potlucks.

The annual school talent show always had AT LEAST 2-3 bhangra dance & Indian drumming performances, and a traditional Chinese dance of some sort.
In fact, the more I think about it, I think my love for geography stems from the fact that growing up, I was surrounded by

kids from so many different backgrounds. & these classmates would often be my first intro to the existence of said culture/country. In addition to the different cultures I'd already listed above, at one point or another

I also had classmates who were/had heritage from Thailand, El Salvador, Columbia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Cambodia, even an ethnic minority group from Vietnam, the Jarai people, cuz we had some refugees placed in our class,

just to name a few. & I still, to this day, rmbr the names of all these classmates, cuz they're so unique in my mind. And kind of reflective of this was the teacher population at my school. While yes, many of the teachers were white, there was also a sizeable pool of POC teachers

In my 8 years there, half my teachers were POC's: 2 of Punjabi heritage, 1 of Japanese heritage, 1 Black teacher. & though I nvr ended up in their classes, there were also a few Chinese Canadian teachers my friends had. Our VP in my last 2 yrs there was also Indo Canadian.

& I can't end this thread w/o giving our teacher librarian., Ms. I a shoutout. She one of my fav teachers when I was in elem for a # of reasons, not least cuz I loved the library cuz I'm a bookworm & helped out as a library monitor there from gr. 5-7.

But what I really appreciate in hindsight is the effort she went in making the library inclusive and reflective of the school's student population. When you first enter the library, what your greeted with is this front display area that has a fish tank, and then this

kind of announcement bulletin board display that hangs from the ceiling, & she'd often use it to put up greetings and well wishes, like Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, but also, Happy Diwali, & Happy Vaisakhi, & Happy Lunar New Year. & always, multilingual.

So English + Punjabi/Hindi/Chinese/Vietnamese/Korean. In fact, that's how I learned as a very young kid that Lunar New Year is not the same thing as Chinese New Year. Because the display every year for Lunar new year in the library would have, alongside Happy New Year & 新年快乐

chúc mừng năm mới & 새해 복 많이 받으세요. Yes with all the diacritics & in Hangul character, not romanization. These were construction paper cutouts, so she'd save them and they'd be reused year after year.

& one of my other favourite parts, we had a whole section of the library dedicated to non English kids picture books. So stories in Chinese, Punjabi, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino etc. And there's one display I remember in particular. At one point, we had a display featuring

all the different language copies of the popular kid's book Goodnight Moon we carried in the library. And amongst them included a Farsi edition, & an Urdu edition. Those 2 books were the first time I'd encountered either of the 2 languages and though I couldn't read a lick

of either book, i rmbr being so fascinated by just discovering the existence of these 2 languages that I'd never seen before.
...I've kinda lost track now I think of what I wanted to say w/ this thread, and it kinda just became an appreciation thread for my elem school xP

But I guess, if anything, I think it's that there is so much to gotten from immersing young children in diverse multi-cultural, multi-lingual environments.