In May, fifth-grader Austin Ure and fourth-grader Christine Toone will be mozos at their school—and they’re excited about that.

“The real runners are adventurous, maybe a bit fearless and foolish; I wouldn’t want to do it for real,” Christine said.

Mozos are those thrill-seeking runners who race in front of the path of bulls during the Festival of San Fermin, commonly known as the Running of the Bulls in the foothills of the Pyrenees in Pamplona, Spain.

The students learn about the saint and the festival, which stretches for nine days filled with music, food and fireworks—and of course, jockeying for a favorable position on the street to race or to watch.

At Alta View, the running of the bulls is a bit tamer, with student leaders running behind the mozos, trying to tag them on the school field.

“As runners, we wear red bandanas in honor of the fallen saint,” Austin said. “There are some cool back stories about the Spanish festivals.”

First-grade Spanish teacher Silvia Iglesias said understanding the festival is part of what they teach in dual immersion.

“We go over the vocabulary and we have a PowerPoint to explain the whole festival,” she said.

It’s one of many cultural festivities and activities both dual language immersion and neighborhood students learn at Alta View.

They recently celebrated San Jorge, the patron saint of Catalonia in northeastern Spain, where people crowd the streets purchasing books and roses. 

The festivities celebrate a beautiful princess being rescued from a dragon by a brave knight, San Jorge. After slaying the dragon, the knight gave the princess a rose from where the dragon died.

It also ties into International World Book Day, where famous Catalan and Spanish authors read and sign their works.

“Traditionally, men would give women roses and in return, the women give men books, but nowadays, anyone can give each other them,” Christine said.

At Alta View, there is a twist to the celebration as students become authors.

“We ask all first and second graders to write a story; third grade it’s a comic; fourth grade, a myth; and fifth grade it’s a legend,” Iglesias said. “Then, between the teachers we trade their works, without names, and pick winners. We give them books and roses.”

Iglesias said there is more to the celebrations than just the students having fun.

“We started adding these three years ago because we thought as a school everybody should have the opportunity to learn about other cultures. We want to share the culture, expand students’ views and their understanding of the world around them. For our Spanish students, this gives them a larger vocabulary, and a more enriched experience. They’re also learning more in depth, how we interact, what we say what our expressions and themes that are traditional in our country,” she said.

This school year, Alta View students began learning about festivals with Dia de los Muertos, a Mexican holiday, where family and friends pay respects and remember ancestors who have died. 

Alta View kept with the traditional ofrenda, or a table, that included photos and drawn pictures of family members, with candles and marigolds.  

“I think it’s important they have this day so you never forget the people you lost, and you can honor them,” Austin said.

In December, the dual immersion classes learn about Los Reyes Magos who bring Spanish children their gifts in their shoes the night before Three Kings Day in January. In Spain, the festivities include the re-enactment of three wise men riding into town.

“We wrote letters to the three kings and gave them to the kings,” Christine said, saying the kings were adults dressed in costumes; in exchange, the reyes gave chocolates to students. 

They also sampled the special holiday twisted roll, rosconerias de reyes where a plastic baby or king was baked inside it.

“If you get the baby, it’s good luck. You’re the king or the queen for the day,” she said.

There also is the chance to get a bean, which isn’t so lucky.

First-graders also learned about Catalona’s caja tio, or “poo-ing log,” said Iglesias, who is from that region.

Traditionally in the weeks before Christmas, children decorate a log with a face, arms and legs, cover it with a red blanket. Every evening, they feed it with small pieces of bread or orange peel. Then on Christmas Eve, they sing to the log and hit the log with a stick. When they lift the blanket, they discover the log has left sweet treats for them.

“Here, our students take care of it as if it was a mascot,” Iglesias said. “We put a little log (a cork) with a face—it can be a very cute or very funny face—and cover him with a blanket. We sing to him, and they take care of him. When we remove the blanket, he has little trinkets for us like crayons, books, magic pens and fidget toys.”

All Alta View students participate in Postales de Navidad, where every student designs a holiday card. Winners are selected per grade as well as an overall winner, which has the design grace the card the school sends out for the holiday season, Iglesias said.

Alta View PTA president Jessica Davies said students also look around the school for hidden plush red birds.

“The birds report back to what the kids are doing and if they’re being good,” she said. “The kids had fun finding them.”

Carnaval also is a schoolwide celebration. Though not as wild as in Spain, students do learn about the traditions and participate in their school’s adaptations.

“We colored masks, some had feathers on them, and we went around showing everyone and we paraded to music,” Christine said. 

Austin remembers the school assembly: “We sang Carnaval songs and burned a fish, which is a tradition there.” 

Iglesias said that a large, laminated paper sardine “burned” to red and orange lights to symbolize the tradition.

“The idea is that you write all the bad things in the world on the fish’s scales and burn all the bad things away. So, the kids wrote their worries down to get rid of them,” she said.

Davies said the tradition calls for funeral attire so “some of the Spanish teachers dressed up in black mourning clothes for the sardine burning.”

In addition, dual language students learned about Las Fallas in Valencia—“it takes tons of months to build these beautiful sculptures and towers and they burn them,” Christine said—and Dia de Andalusia, when in 1980, a vote made the region an autonomous community in Spain—“They have a parade and festival and we learned about their culture,” Austin said, adding that they colored the Andalusian flag and learned some traditional songs.

In dual immersion classrooms, they also learn about other Spanish festivals from areas where their teachers are from, such as Bunol’s La Tomatina, a big tomato food fight, to Zaragoza’s Fiestas del Pilar, where traditional costumed people leave flowers at the statue of the Virgin Mary and take part in the hours-long floral parade.

Austin, who enrolled in dual immersion in first grade because he wanted to be able to know what people do in Spain. “The more I learn about what they do there, the more I understand their culture. I’m getting to understand their lives and traditions through all their festivals.”

Similarly, Christine wanted to learn the language to connect to Spanish-speaking people.

“It’s important and fun to know the cultures and in different countries and get to celebrate all these traditions. I’ve learned more Spanish words by learning about their festivals and how they celebrate their holidays,” she said.

Celebrating Spanish festivals unites the student body, Davies said.

“It’s been beneficial for the kids,” she said. “It builds unity between our neighborhood classes and our DLA classes doing these activities together. It’s important for all kids to know the culture as it gives them a broader view of the world. The more they know, the better they connect with our immersion teachers and with students we have who have moved from other countries. They begin to understand we’re all similar even if we speak different languages.” λ