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AGBU/Chicago Armenian School students and teachers star in the latest segment of the James Beard-award winning online kids' cooking show Spatulatta.com, which spotlights Armenian Easter. Master chef Kavork Hagopian showed the students how to make Racine-style choereg....from all accounts their baking certainly rose to the occasion! The program also included some fun and games with everyone's favority activity: egg wars!
The video segments are part of the School's current effort to "completely reinvent ethnic identity and cultural education," says cultural programs director, Gary Rejebian. "With the support of the Kooyumjian Foundation, AGBU/Chicago is using technology to connect students with their peers around the world, to share everyday experiences in their lives today, along with traditions their families have treasured for generations."
Rejebian asserts that fostering an appreciation for differences and similarities in respective ways of life--whether growing up across the country or on the other side of the world--is critical to forging the bonds with which our youth will identify for themselves, and with each other, as the next generation of Armenians.
As a first effort, students made short videos about their lives and favorite things. Along with the cooking segment, the 'video pen-palling' films will be shared with peers in Armenia. The AGBU/Chicago School has initiated a conversation with the Paros Foundation, which supports the Manana media education program in Yerevan, and also hopes to build relationships with other Armenian schools in the western hemisphere.
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