Chopin, Rachmaninoff...and Nachito

I recently spent much-needed wonderful quality time with my husband for our anniversary.  We had the fortunate opportunity to listen to some music at the Dakota.  Nachito Hererra was playing piano with a basist and a drummer.  Now, if you've never heard of Nachito Hererra, don't feel bad.  I didn't either.  We kind of stumbled onto this show, and a Cuban pianist intrigued me.  I didn't know what I was stepping into.
The guy was awesome.  Look him up and buy his cd (he is not paying me to advertise for him - I do have a point coming).  Here was a man playing Chopin, my grandmother's favorite composer, giving his music a Latin flair.  A Latin Chopin!  How awesome!  Hererra did the same thing with Rachmaninoff.  I was floored.  But it got me to thinking about our learning (seriously, I do have a life; I don't spend every waking moment thinking about how my experiences tie into school - they just sort of do, actually).
Nachito Hererra came to this country only a few years ago.  He speaks English with a very heavy Cuban accent.  He really doesn't need to speak at all, because his music speaks for him.  Why is that?  Because classical music is world-wide.  The heavy-hitter composers are known all over the globe.  But each culture soaks up the language of music differently.  Hererra heard Chopin differently than I heard Chopin - because of the difference in our experiences - our culture - our schema.  I would never have thought to put a Latin beat to Chopins nocturnes.  But he did - because of the life experience in which he was immersed. 
What does that say about our learners?  Our readers?  Our students coming to American schools from families who have never experienced American schools?  Our gifted students?  Our struggling students?  Each and every student comes to school with a certain set of life experiences, and takes from his or her learning something different because of that schema.  There are students who have no books at home.  There are students who hate reading because they read letters backwards and no one can seem to help them.  There are students who have a brain that functions so beyond their years that they can't figure out how to really connect with others their age.  Is an urban culture different than a suburban culture?  (I'm just keeping it in the U.S. right now to illustrate a point.)  Is one race's schema different than another race's schema? 
The answer was beautifully apparent when I sat five feet from a classically trained Cuban pianist, listening to music I grew up with for the first time.  Yes, I grew up with that music.  And yes, I was listening to it for the first time. 
I was "seeing" it through the eyes of another culture.  And it make the experience, the music, all the richer.  Instead of forcing our children to see American schools through the eyes of those who went through American schools, we should attempt to embrace as much as we can from others.  It will make the entire experience more rich.