Greater Houston Tamil School Annual Day Program
HOUSTON: Houston’s biggest South Indian language school, the Greater Houston Tamil School (www.houstontamilschools.org) celebrated the completion of its academic year with a fantastic annual day program. The event was conducted at Mayde Creek Junior High School, Houston on Saturday, May 25 and was attended by more than 350 Tamil enthusiasts.
About 160 students, from the three branches at Pearland, Katy and Woodlands, completed their academic year 2012-13 and proficiently displayed the language skills. From Kindergarten to sixth level the students of each school gave a memorable quality performance. The show started with the Pearland kindergarten children talking about shapes and their favorite colors in their sweet naive voice. This was followed by the kindergarten children from the Katy Tamil School reciting the songs learnt during the academic year. The students from the first level to third level of both schools melodiously sung the legendary poet Mahakavi Bharathiyar’s songs and displayed their Tamil skills by choosing an animal of interest and talking about it.
The fourth and fifth level students of Pearland Tamil School compared the state of Texas with Tamil Nadu state in India. The detailed description comparing the geography, history and the important cities in both regions enthralled the audience. Meanwhile, their counterparts from Katy enacted out scenes on the “Seven Ancient Philanthropist Tamil Kings”. This was followed by a presentation by the Katy sixth level students on their Tamil Wikipedia project (places to see). They also released a video documentary about their school.
The last piece of the entertainment came from the Woodlands School. They enacted the story of Veerapandia Kattabomman. The amount of practice that had gone into this production was clearly evident on the stage with amazing background and props too. It was well presented and brought out the history of a great king who stood for his rights against the British to the audience. It was a fitting finale for the day that was all about showcasing the academic excellence of the students in all three art forms of Tamil (Iyal, Isaai, Nadagam).
The chief guest for the event, Dr.Sankaran Radhakrishnan, Professor of Asian Studies, UT Austin was felicitated by Dr. Gopal Krishnan, president of Greater Houston Tamil School. Dr. Sankaran Radhakrishnan emphasized the importance of learning Tamil and also explained that the purpose of learning Tamil is not to just learn another language but to learn it so that the culture behind the language will survive with future generations in USA. He requested the parents to talk in Tamil at home and asked the children to insist that their parents only talk to them in Tamil.
It was also announced that all branches of HTS have been awarded the candidate status for curriculum accreditation by AdvancED. This is a significant step in obtaining accreditation for the school which, in turn, will enable recognition of Tamil for language credits in regular American schools.
The teachers of the school were honored by the chief guest for their hard work, time and effort. Students received prizes for perfect attendance, academic ranking and competition from their respective teachers. Prizes were also awarded for the Thirukural competition which was recently held between the three schools. The completion of the school year ended in a pleasant evening with good food for ears and mouth.
Registration for academic year 2013-2014 is now open for Kindergarten to grade 6. For more information, visit www.houstontamilschools.org or email,
Katy/West Houston: principal_kts@houstontamilschools.org
Pearland: principal_pts@houstontamilschools.org
Woodlands: principal_wts@houstontamilschools.org