Page 58 - PR's - People & Culture

Christian is now a 5th grade student at the Piggott Academy of International Studies. This photo was taken during a piano recital at the Nevada School of the Arts when he was 6 years old.
Christian will research on how understanding the dif ferent cultures in schools can help a harmonious re lationship among school children.
Piggott Academy is the school I have always been in. We lived at the Peccole Ranch com- munity and the school is a walking distance from where we lived. The people around our commu- nity are all so nice. I have some friends that lives around Peccole. When I was in the 2nd & 3rd grade, I was a part of the Cub Scouts. The group met at Piggott on Monday evenings.....
Now that I am in 5th grade, our activities have changed quite a bit. I stopped taking piano les- sons temporarily to get a break but I’m hoping to get back to it soon. I am now into my computer game “Forza” and learning to drive race cars and getting to know more about high performance cars. My best buddy, Nathan, comes by ones in
a while to play. He is now in Middle School so I don’t get to see him everyday like we used to when he was at Piggott.
Mom is very protective of me. She chooses the friends I hang out with. When we hang out, she always checks up on us to make sure we are play- ing non-violent games which is boring! Either
CHRISTIAN the Piano Man
that or we don’t get to play at all.
WHY DO WE HAVE TO LEARN TO SPEAK VISAYAN?
My mom was born and raised in Cebu, Philip- pines. About 10 years ago, she brought her parents (grandpa & grandma) to live with us. They rarely speak English in the house. They say that this is how I will learn to speak & understand their dialect. I don’t know why I have to do that but there is no choice! Its neat to understand what they’re talking about around the house. My dad speaks a different lipino dialect (tagalog) so he doesn’t understand a thing of what mom & my grand parents talk about at home except when they speak English! I can speak and un- derstand a little bit of the Visayan dialect. But if they say it’s important for me to know, I guess it’s good for me.
Most of my mom’s Filipino friends speak Visayan and her relatives are from Cebu so they speak the same dialect. When they get together at the
house. it gets pretty loud but they seem to have a lot of fun getting together and speaking Visayan!
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