Often "multiculturalism" comes attached to a morally suspect, ideologically manipulative set of beliefs and intents. But that's too bad, because genuine cultural crossover really is the spice of life, a source of endless delight and, quite often, the mechanism of hope.

Check out this really inspiring story about a Bronx teacher who has gotten her kids--many of whom are black and hispanic--totally enraptured with Irish step dancing:

Taja Garnett's parents are from Belize, but her nickname is "Irish girl."

Ever since Taja, 10, joined the Keltic Dreams, the Irish dance troupe that is the unlikely pride of her Bronx elementary school, she has been so consumed by high kicks, heel clicks and treble hop backs that she practices "on the street, at the bus stop, sometimes at the train station, in the living room, on the bus when I'm standing up and there's no seats."

Oh, and also in class. In class? That's right, with her fingers, she explained, demonstrating the way her index finger acts as the left foot and her middle finger as the right.

"I look at the teacher," Taja chirped, her eyes gleaming mischievously behind wire-rimmed glasses, "and do it at the same time."

With a student body that is 71 percent Hispanic and 27 percent black, Public School 59 does not seem an obvious home for a thriving Irish dance troupe. And when Caroline Duggan first arrived from Dublin at age 23 to try her hand as a New York City public school music teacher, it wasn't. Many of her students had never heard of Ireland. Why, they wanted to know, did she talk funny?

Then, to stave off homesickness, Ms. Duggan hung a "Riverdance" poster in her fifth-floor classroom, and one thing led to another. The children pointed to a long-haired dancer on the poster and asked if it was her. No, she laughed, but I could show you a few steps. The impromptu lesson grew into a wildly popular after-school program and, for the first time last year, a trip to Ireland that still inspires dreamy looks among those lucky enough to go.

"The grass wasn’t like ordinary grass," recalled Nyiasha Newby, 10. "It was like sparkling and stuff, because the water was on it. It was, like, fresh."

On a recent afternoon, as cars blaring hip-hop music rolled past P.S. 59, on Bathgate Avenue near 181st Street, and neighbors called to one another in Spanglish, the school auditorium swelled with the soaring sounds of drums, fiddles and uilleann pipes.

Sixty growing feet laced into clunky black shoes spun, kicked and hop-1,2,3'd their way across the stage, in routines that Ms. Duggan, now 29, had choreographed, infusing the traditional Irish dancing she was reared on with elements of hip-hop, salsa and African dance. Toothy smiles mingled with the bitten lips of deep concentration. The Keltic Dreams were at it again.

"It kind of took on a life of its own," marveled the principal, Christine McHugh.