diversity and multiculturalism programme because of its size and independent status.

But all levels of the organisation from the maintenance staff to the top administrators must continue to "dialogue'' and be flexible to change.

Betty Ann Workman, associate director of diversity and multicultural services for the National Association of Independent Schools, shared these ideas with The Royal Gazette yesterday.

Mrs. Workman is on the island as a guest of the Bermuda High School for Girls which is one of 83 international member schools.

Eleanor Kingsbury, BHS headmistress, said her school had spent the last year discussing ways to increase the variety of students attending the school.

"We want to be more socio-economically and racially diverse but we have to ask ourself what that means,'' she said. "Clearly with only 22 percent of our school being made up of persons of colour when the island is 60 percent black and whites making up the other 40 percent, the numbers do not match.

"We have had to ask ourselves what it must mean for that student who is in the minority as well.'' Mrs. Kingsbury said that within the faculty and the student body there was a healthy mix of experiences but the challenge was to create a more diverse community.

Meanwhile Mrs. Workman, who gave one workshop yesterday and will give another one today, said diversity and multiculturalism were two sides of the same coin.

Diversity, she said, was easier to examine because it dealt with the numbers of persons from various populations who are present in a school.

However multiculturalism was harder to quantify or measure because it dealt with the quality of the life experience.

To be successfulm she said there must be an emphasis on "equity pedagogy'' which will give equal respect to the cultures and ethnicity of all students.

"We must look at behaviour,'' Mrs. Workman explained. "We need to look at how teachers behave and how they become integrated in the community as activists and how this improves the country as a whole.'' Mrs. Workman said that multiculturalism is often misunderstood as events where the "food, fashions and festivals'' of minority communities are showcased.

Such displays were really just the beginning, she said. Multiculturalism required schools to move beyond this to become places where differences were celebrated as a matter of course.

"The more we understand each other and respect differences without qualifying them, the closer we will be to reaching the multicultural ideal,'' she said.