“An ideal student is you” — Prairie View students celebrate one another through Culture Week

From Nov. 18-22, Prairie View Elementary celebrated its third annual Culture Week, a weeklong celebration of the many cultures represented by its staff, students and families. But for Principal Dr. Quennel Cooper, Culture Week is more than a coming together of the school’s community – it’s a vision for what school can be on a daily basis.

“I remember being a kid growing up and not being able to be myself in school,” Dr. Cooper reflected. “So one of my biggest things is I want kids to be able to feel like they can be themselves in school, not having to come into the building and take off who they are.”

When he became Prairie View’s principal in 2022, Dr. Cooper knew he wanted to find a meaningful way to highlight the school’s diversity and foster an environment where students and staff from all walks of life felt seen, heard, and that they belong. Through that effort, Culture Week was born.

Bookending the weeklong celebration are a fashion show that kicks off festivities on Monday and a culture gallery walk on Friday that invites families and staff to showcase their cultural backgrounds. Throughout the week, themed days on subjects including language, family traditions, holidays, music and wardrobe are woven into class curriculum, giving students space to share and learn from one another. 

“They're having these conversations and learning more about the other students in their classrooms,” Dr. Cooper said. “And then students start to see that there may be differences between them, but within these differences we're all the same, which is so powerful.”

The Prairie View community has quickly embraced Culture Week since Dr. Cooper and his team started it three years ago. The first gallery walk featured fewer than 20 participants, while this year’s had more than 30 tables representing unique cultures, necessitating a move to the school’s “big gym” to support it. Attendees have the opportunity to discover the different cultural artifacts, foods and customs like music, dance and dress that make up Prairie View.

“When you come into that gallery walk, when you come to this Culture Week, a lot of times it’s with ignorance, because we don’t know each other,” Dr. Cooper noted. “But everything’s on the table – literally, right? Everything is on the table and you’re exposed. So you have nothing to do but come together and learn from one another. That’s the beauty of it. There’s no division; everyone is together.”

Giving students several outlets to express and present their culture is another special feature of Culture Week. Aside from participating in the gallery walk and walking in the fashion show, proudly modeling their cultural dress for their peers, students can take part in activities like creating a self portrait illustration and pinning where they are from on a world map. And that map tells a powerful story: Prairie View is indeed diverse, with pins in places as far-flung as Uzbekistan, Chile, South Korea and the Australian Outback.

Dr. Cooper said he has seen Culture Week create a sense of inclusion and belonging, showing students that Prairie View is a safe space for them to be themselves. “Now, we’ve broken down that wall,” he explained. “Students can come to school knowing, ‘I can wear this; I can talk in my native language; I don’t have to assimilate to the ideal of what a student should be.’ Because an ideal student is you.”

Culture Week is not only Dr. Cooper’s favorite event of the school year, he considers it the “number one” thing he has done as an educator. As it continues to grow from year to year, he hopes it will inspire both the Prairie View community and the surrounding Eden Prairie community to grow closer. Taking inspiration from the positive response Culture Week has received, his ultimate goal is to bring people together for a community feast.

“Everyone will be at the table,” he said, painting the picture. “We’re sitting down. We’re breaking bread together, and I’m talking about all cultures sitting there. We’re talking, listening to everybody, laughing. I’m gonna make that happen, with all these families that come in and support us, and we’ll all sit at the table.”