As soon as Wilbert Karigomba finished telling a class of fifth-graders about Christmas in Africa, hands shot up and children bubbled with curiosity.
How do you say 'Merry Christmas' in your language? Does it ever snow in Zimbabwe? Have you seen a lion?
"I could have stood up there and told my students all about how the holidays are celebrated in Africa, but they wouldn't have been nearly as interested in hearing it from me," said Sean Snowden, a fifth-grade teacher at McCormick Elementary School in Moon. "They really learned something today."
Many Western Pennsylvania grade schools are using the holiday season as an opportunity to go beyond the cookies and glitter to teach their students lessons about different cultures, the importance of giving and the need for tolerance.
"With our population becoming more and more diverse, I think it's important that the students learn as much about different cultures as they can," Snowden said.
This year, he invited parents from different cultures to share their holiday customs.
"Our Christmas starts with church services -- Zimbabwe is a very Christian country -- and then we have huge parties at home with food and music," said Karigomba, who lives in Moon.
"Our cards are different than what you have here because we don't have snow. So you don't necessarily find the snow-white background. What you find is the animals that are found in Zimbabwe -- tigers, giraffes, zebras."
Later this month, the parents of Indian and Puerto Rican students will share their holiday traditions with the McCormick fifth-graders.
"I think it's just really exciting to learn about different cultures and how they celebrate Christmas," said Toren Hobbs, 10, of Moon.
Penn Hills High School interim principal Arnita Stagger is taking advantage of the holiday spirit to teach her students a lesson in tolerance.
"We're going to have a tree set up in the cafeteria and the kids are each going to take a pledge of 'One Less,' " Stagger said. "One less word, one less gesture, one less song, one less TV program, one less text message that has anything to do with violence. We have ornaments already ready for the kids and when they take their pledge, their name goes on an ornament and goes up on the tree."
The 'One Less' tree is in response to the Oct. 14 bludgeoning death of Penn Hills students Naim Drake, 14, and Ieisha Drake, 18. Their mother's boyfriend has been charged in the slayings.
"Many of the students knew the kids," Stagger said. "And one night, I just came up with the idea of 'One Less.' It's something that makes sense to the kids and helps make something good out of something so bad."
In the Mt. Lebanon School District, holiday traditions vary from class to class, including secular parties and cultural presentations, but one tradition endures from year to year.
"Every year, we have our 'Holiday Share' program in each of the schools," district spokeswoman Cissy Bowman said. "At the high school they're doing a gift drive for FamilyLinks and Animals Friends. Two grades are doing a combined food drive for animals and for people. ... And all of the elementary schools and, I believe, the middle schools, are doing a Toys for Tots drive.
"It's just what we do," she said.
Community Day School, a kindergarten-through-eighth grade Jewish school in Squirrel Hill, started its Thanksgiving celebrations with a food drive, collecting more than 300 cans of food. Students perform plays, dress in costumes and sing in a holiday show for their teachers and families. The performances incorporate traditional Hebrew songs about being thankful and giving.
"We recognize Thanksgiving as an American holiday, and the goal of a school like ours is to produce citizens of the United States, as well as Jews," said Avi Baran Munro, head of the school. "Many see being a Jew and Thanksgiving as very linked."
Year-round, Catholic and Jewish high schools in the region have an exchange program in which rabbis visit Catholic schools and priests visit Jewish schools to educate students about their religious differences and similarities. They've shared in holiday traditions, such as the Catholic students taking part in a Passover Seder meal.
"Because we share a common history with Judaism, it was thought that we should try to honor that by getting together," said Don Teti, assistant superintendent for secondary schools in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.
Near the holidays, Linda Pricer, principal and teacher at St. Bartholomew Catholic School in Penn Hills, incorporates a lesson about the Holocaust into her eighth-grade literature class.
"It's mostly for tolerance," she said. "To teach the students that we have to step up and that if there's ever going to be a change in this world, we have to do it. When better to teach that lesson than now, during the holidays, when there is so much love and giving?"
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