May
9
Written by:
Current Students
5/9/2011 8:05 AM
When I signed up to become a prefect last year, I knew that I was signing up for a lot of responsibilities and commitments.
At the beginning of the year, the prefect team had a meeting to plan for this year ahead of time. One of the important things to be discussed at the meeting was chapel chats – when each of us would speak to the whole school about whatever they wanted. I decided to do my chapel chat in May because of various rational reasons. First of all, by getting to go in May, I would still have a very long time ahead of me before I would start getting nervous about writing and saying my chapel chat. The second, and most important, reason was that April the 23rd is a very important national day in Turkey that I could tell students about. Also, I thought that by talking about this day, I could show a video about the importance of the day and the celebrations. Well, initially I loved this idea because it meant less reading, and less pronunciation mistakes. However, as I was working on this chapel chat, a different approach came up in my mind.
In 1920, on the 23rd of April, “the Grand National Assembly of Turkey” was founded and this day was announced as the National Sovereignty Day. Seven years later, in 1927, it was decided that the 23rd of April should also be celebrated as Children’s Day for all children in the world. Since then, on every April the 23rd, children from all countries come to Turkey to participate in activities and to stay with a Turkish family for a short period of time. I believe that this is an enlightening experience for all the children who participate in the celebrations. It shows us that people from all around the world can still be friends and love each other; no matter how bad the politics between the countries are, or no matter how different our cultures are from each other. A special day like this shows us, there might be wars between countries and nations but nevertheless we are humans after all, and we have so much in common.
Most of the people in the world need a special day to realize that the differences we have from each other, is not an obstacle to get to know others and to respect their culture. Some people don’t even get a chance to realize this at all. I sincerely believe that we are very lucky at Albert College in this sense. Take a look at the map outside Ackerman Hall, and you will see how many different countries this school has had students from. We go to a school that doesn’t have that many students, but has a great multicultural environment. At Albert, we meet people from all around the world, from places that we have never been or haven’t even heard of before. Yet by the end of the first two weeks of the school everyone knows each other, and by the end of the first month we become really good friends.
It is as if the whole year is “Children’s Day” at Albert College. At this school, we learn that our countries have nothing to do with our friendship. We learn how much we have in common despite our different cultures. At Albert College, we are very lucky that we don’t need a special day to get to know other cultures, and to see our similarities rather than our differences. Happy belated “Children’s Day”.
- C.O., Grade 12 Student and Prefect, Turkey