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Education
Nov 27, 2025

Teaching Global Citizenship Through Festival Studies in Schools

Description: Want to teach global citizenship without boring lectures? Festival studies turn cultural learning into celebration. Real strategies from teachers who've actually done it (mistakes included).

I'll never forget the first time I tried to teach my fifth-graders about Diwali. I'd found this textbook explanation about the "Festival of Lights" and dutifully wrote facts on the board: dates, regions where it's celebrated, basic religious significance. The kids took notes. Some yawned. One asked if it was "like Indian Halloween."

I died a little inside.

Then Maya, one of my students whose family celebrates Diwali, raised her hand and said, "Can I show them?" She pulled out her phone and showed photos of her family's celebration—the rangoli patterns they'd made, the diyas flickering in windows, her cousins in new clothes, the food spread that made everyone in class simultaneously hungry and curious.

Suddenly, twenty-five kids who'd been half-asleep were leaning forward, asking questions, wanting to know everything. Maya spent the next fifteen minutes teaching the class more about Diwali than I could have in a week of lectures. And the questions they asked weren't "what's the date?"—they were "why do you make those patterns?" and "what does it feel like when all the lamps are lit?" and "can you teach us the clay lamp thing?"

That was the day I realized I'd been teaching global citizenship completely wrong.

What Global Citizenship Actually Means (Spoiler: It's Not Just Knowing Capital Cities)

Before we talk about festival studies, let's get clear on what global citizenship actually is. Because for a long time, I thought it meant making sure kids could find countries on a map and maybe knowing a few foreign phrases.

Global citizenship is way bigger than that. It's about helping students understand that they're part of an interconnected world. It's teaching them to appreciate cultural differences while recognizing our shared humanity. It's developing empathy, critical thinking, and the ability to see issues from multiple perspectives.

The UN defines it as education that "aims to empower learners to assume active roles to face and resolve global challenges and to become proactive contributors to a more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive and secure world."

Which sounds great in theory but in practice can feel like trying to teach the entire world in 45-minute periods while also covering state standards, managing classroom behavior, and remembering which kid has a nut allergy.

That's where festival studies come in.

Why Festivals Are the Perfect Teaching Tool

Here's what I've learned after using festival studies for five years: festivals are basically cheat codes for teaching global citizenship.

Think about it. Festivals are:

Inherently joyful. Nobody celebrates festivals by sitting quietly and taking notes. They're about music, food, color, movement, community. When you teach through festivals, you're associating learning about other cultures with celebration rather than obligation.

Multisensory. Festivals engage sight (decorations, colors), sound (music, languages), touch (crafts, materials), taste (food—always a winner), and sometimes smell (incense, spices). Multiple entry points mean multiple ways for students to connect.

Story-rich. Every festival has stories behind it—historical events, religious narratives, cultural legends. Stories stick in kids' brains way better than facts.

Participatory. You can't really understand Holi by reading about it. You have to throw some colors around (even if it's just colored chalk on the playground). Experiential learning is powerful learning.

Connected to real people. When you study festivals, you're learning about how real people celebrate, not abstract "cultural facts." It makes the whole world feel less like a geography lesson and more like a place full of interesting neighbors.

Already part of kids' lives. Every student celebrates something, whether it's Christmas, Eid, Lunar New Year, birthdays, or family traditions. They get the concept of celebration, which gives you a bridge to understanding celebrations they haven't experienced.

How to Actually Do This (With Real Examples and Mistakes I Made)

Okay, enough theory. Let's talk about how to actually implement festival studies in your classroom. I'm going to share what worked, what didn't, and what I learned along the way.

Start with Your Students

The biggest mistake I made early on was picking festivals at random. "Let's learn about Chinese New Year!" Cool, but why? And according to whom?

Now I start by having students share celebrations from their own families. We make a class calendar of festivals and celebrations represented in our classroom. This serves multiple purposes:

It validates every student's cultural background
It gives you authentic experts (the students themselves)
It creates natural entry points for deeper study
It shows students that "different" isn't "exotic"—it's normal

In my current class, our calendar includes Diwali, Eid, Christmas, Hanukkah, Lunar New Year, Kwanzaa, Orthodox Easter, Nowruz, and about a dozen family-specific celebrations. That's a wealth of learning opportunities right in our classroom.

Don't Just "Cover" Festivals—Study Them Deeply

Early on, I made the mistake of doing what I call "festival tourism": a little bit about Diwali one week, a little about Día de los Muertos the next, never going deep enough to really understand anything.

Now I do fewer festivals but study them more thoroughly. We might spend 2-3 weeks on a festival, exploring:

Historical and religious context (age-appropriate depth)
Regional variations (Diwali in India vs. Diwali in Trinidad vs. Diwali in your city)
Personal meaning (why this matters to people who celebrate it)
Contemporary celebration (how it's evolved, how it's practiced today)
Universal themes (what does this festival teach us about things like family, gratitude, remembrance, joy?)

For example, when we studied Día de los Muertos, we didn't just make sugar skulls (though we did that too). We:

Read "The Day of the Dead" and "Funny Bones"
Learned about the historical origins in Aztec traditions
Discussed different cultural attitudes toward death and remembrance
Interviewed Carlos's grandmother (via video call) about how she celebrates in Mexico
Researched how the holiday is celebrated in different regions
Created our own ofrenda honoring people important to us (not just deceased relatives—grandparents, historical figures, even fictional characters who'd impacted us)
Compared these traditions with how other cultures honor the dead

By the end, students understood this wasn't just "Mexican Halloween with skeletons"—it was a beautiful tradition about maintaining connections with loved ones and celebrating life through remembering death.

Let Students Be the Teachers

Remember Maya teaching the class about Diwali? That became one of my core strategies.

When we study a festival that a student celebrates, I give them the option to lead parts of the lesson. Not "get up and do a presentation" (we've all seen how well that goes), but partnering with them to share their expertise.

Some ways this has worked:

Show and Tell 2.0: Students bring in items from their celebrations and explain their significance
Virtual Home Visits: Students film short videos of their family celebrating (with family permission, obviously)
Recipe Shares: We've made Lunar New Year dumplings, Diwali sweets, Eid cookies, Hanukkah latkes
Story Time: Students share family stories and traditions associated with the festival
Expert Panels: Multiple students from the same tradition discuss how their families celebrate differently

This does a few magical things:

It positions students of that culture as experts, which is empowering
It shows other students that classmates are sources of knowledge
It demonstrates diversity within cultures (not all Chinese families celebrate Lunar New Year identically)
It makes learning feel like community knowledge-sharing rather than teacher-to-student transmission

Address the Hard Parts

Here's something textbooks won't tell you: festival studies can get complicated fast.

Religious festivals raise questions about religion in schools. Food-based celebrations create issues for students with allergies or dietary restrictions. Some families don't celebrate any festivals. Some students celebrate festivals you've never heard of. And sometimes you'll make mistakes.

I have definitely screwed things up. I've:

Called Lunar New Year "Chinese New Year," erasing Korean, Vietnamese, and other celebrations
Oversimplified the meaning of Ramadan
Made assumptions about who celebrates what based on students' names
Created activities that unintentionally excluded students with allergies
Failed to recognize that some families choose not to celebrate certain holidays for religious or personal reasons

Each time, I learned something. Here's what I do now:

Ask, don't assume. I send home a questionnaire at the beginning of the year asking families what they celebrate and if they'd like to share with the class. I check in with individual students and families before studying their traditions.

Frame it as cultural study, not participation. We're learning about festivals, not celebrating them as a class. This distinction matters legally and ethically. Students are welcome to participate in activities (making crafts, trying foods) but never required to.

Be honest about what you don't know. "I haven't celebrated this festival, so I'm learning alongside you" is a powerful thing for students to hear. It models lifelong learning.

Provide alternatives. If we're making a food item, I always have allergy-friendly options. If we're doing a craft that costs money, I provide materials. If a student doesn't celebrate festivals, we talk about family traditions or create entirely new traditions.

Acknowledge complexity. Not every festival is joyful for everyone. Not every person from a culture celebrates the same way. Traditions evolve. These nuances are important.

Connect Festivals to Bigger Themes

The real learning happens when you use festivals as entry points to larger concepts.

When we studied Eid, we didn't just learn about the festival. We talked about:

Fasting and self-discipline across cultures and religions
Concepts of charity and community support (Zakat)
How different religions mark important events
The lunar calendar and its differences from the solar calendar
The diversity of Muslim practices worldwide

When we studied Lunar New Year, we explored:

How different cultures calculate time
Immigration and cultural adaptation (how celebrations change when families move)
The concept of fresh starts and renewal across traditions
Symbolism in different cultures (colors, numbers, animals)

When we studied Kwanzaa, we discussed:

The African diaspora and cultural preservation
The role of created traditions (Kwanzaa was established in 1966)
The seven principles of Nguzo Saba and their relevance today
How communities maintain identity and values

This is where festival studies become global citizenship education. We're not just learning "what people do"—we're understanding why it matters, how it connects to universal human experiences, and what we can learn from different cultural approaches to similar questions.

Make It Action-Oriented

Global citizenship isn't passive knowledge—it's about being an engaged, responsible member of the global community. So I always try to include an action component.

After studying harvest festivals from around the world (Thanksgiving, Sukkot, Pongal, Chuseok), we organized a food drive, connecting the theme of gratitude and abundance with addressing food insecurity in our community.

After learning about Diwali's theme of light overcoming darkness, students identified "darkness" in our school (bullying, exclusion, lack of environmental awareness) and created projects to bring "light"—peer mediation, inclusion initiatives, recycling programs.

After studying festivals that honor ancestors and heroes (Día de los Muertos, Memorial Day, various cultural commemorations), students interviewed community elders and created a digital archive of local history.

The message: understanding other cultures isn't just interesting, it's actionable. We learn from the world to make our own corner of it better.

Use Technology Wisely

I used to think I needed to bring in guest speakers or take field trips to teach festivals authentically. While those are great when possible, technology has opened up so many other options.

We've:

Done virtual home visits with students' relatives in other countries
Connected with classrooms in other parts of the world to learn how they celebrate
Watched video performances of traditional dances, music, and ceremonies
Used VR to "visit" festivals we can't attend in person
Created digital presentations that students share with partner classes internationally

But here's the catch: technology should connect us to real people, not replace human connection with video consumption. We're not watching documentaries about festivals (though we might do that sometimes). We're using technology to connect with people celebrating those festivals.

Build It Into Your Existing Curriculum

"I don't have time to add festival studies" is something I hear a lot from teachers. Fair. We're already drowning in standards and requirements.

But festival studies don't have to be separate from your curriculum—they can be integrated into everything you're already teaching.

Language Arts: Stories, poetry, and literature from different traditions. Writing prompts about family celebrations. Researching and presenting festival information.

Math: Calendar calculations. Budgeting for festivals. Data analysis of how celebrations have changed over time. Patterns in festival decorations.

Science: The lunar cycle (Lunar New Year, Ramadan, Passover). Food science (why latkes work, fermentation in festival foods). The science of light (Diwali, Hanukkah).

Social Studies: This is the obvious one, but go deeper than surface-level culture. Use festivals to teach about migration, cultural adaptation, religious freedom, community organization.

Art: Traditional crafts, music, dance from different festivals. Analysis of festival art and symbolism.

PE: Traditional games and dances from various celebrations.

The festivals aren't extra—they're vehicles for teaching the content you already need to teach, just in ways that build global citizenship at the same time.

What Actually Happens When You Do This

After five years of teaching this way, here's what I've seen:

Students develop genuine curiosity about other cultures. Not "that's weird" but "that's interesting, tell me more."

The classroom becomes more inclusive. When every student's background is valued as a source of learning, everyone feels like they belong.

Empathy increases. Students who understand how important Eid is to their Muslim classmates are less likely to be dismissive or insensitive. Students who've learned about the cultural significance of Indigenous celebrations are better equipped to understand why appropriate celebration matters.

Critical thinking improves. Comparing how different cultures approach similar themes (new beginnings, gratitude, remembrance) develops analytical skills.

Students see themselves as global citizens. They understand that they're part of a diverse world, and that's exciting, not scary.

And here's the surprising one: academic achievement improves. When learning is relevant, engaging, and connected to students' lives, they learn better. Festival studies makes abstract concepts concrete, provides multiple entry points for learning, and engages students emotionally—all things that boost academic outcomes.

The Challenges Nobody Talks About

Let me be real with you: this isn't always easy.

Some parents worry you're promoting religions. Some administrators think it's not "rigorous" enough. Some colleagues think you're wasting time that should be spent on test prep.

You'll have students who don't want their culture "on display." You'll have families who celebrate privately and don't want to share. You'll mess up pronunciations and get corrected by eight-year-olds.

You'll plan an amazing Diwali celebration and then realize one of your students celebrates a different tradition that week and feels left out. You'll spend hours researching a festival only to have a student tell you that's not how their family does it.

You'll question whether you're doing this right, whether you're being culturally sensitive enough, whether you're falling into tokenism or stereotyping.

Those concerns are valid. The solution isn't to avoid teaching about other cultures—it's to approach it humbly, be willing to learn and adjust, involve families and students, and remember that imperfect action is better than perfect inaction.

Why It's Worth It

Last year, one of my former students sent me a message. She's in college now, studying international relations.

She wrote: "Remember when you had us study all those festivals in fifth grade? I thought it was just fun at the time. But yesterday in class we were discussing cultural diplomacy and I realized—I already get it. I've been practicing cultural empathy since I was ten. Thank you for teaching us that different isn't scary, it's interesting."

That's why this matters.

We're not teaching festivals for fun (though it is fun). We're not teaching cultures to be nice (though it is nice). We're teaching our students to be citizens of a complex, interconnected world who see diversity as a strength and approach differences with curiosity rather than fear.

And if we can do that while also making school more engaging, honoring every student's background, and hitting our academic standards? That's not extra. That's essential.

So yes, teach the festivals. Let your students lead. Get messy with the colors and the food and the stories. Make mistakes and learn from them. Ask questions. Celebrate differences.

Your classroom will be louder. It'll definitely be messier. And it'll be full of students who are learning to be citizens of the world—one festival at a time.

What festivals do you teach in your classroom? What has worked, what hasn't, and what have you learned? Share your stories (and your failures—we all have them) in the comments. Let's learn from each other!