Public and Private School- Micropublic

Public and Private School- Micropublic

“To reiterate, a ‘micropublic’ is a space where engagement and negotiation across cultures are unavoidable, as individuals from diverse cultures find themselves having to share a common social space.” (Ho, C. 2011, p. 605) This statement is true when it comes to the environment in schools. Students with different backgrounds share their own experiences and also learn to respect others’ cultures. There is a question being asked: Could Australian schools provide for the younger generations the micropublic space while there are so much differences between private and public schools? 

As in both readings of Ho and Stevenson, they stated that high-fee independent schools located at some of the Sydney’s wealthiest such as Monte Sant' Angelo, Wenona, Kambala, St Ignatius, Queenwood, Redlands and Ravenswood have fewer than 10 percent of non-English speaking backgrounds. According to Ho, many Sydney’s private schools are zones of cultural exclusivity. For example, Wenona School, North Sydney has zero percent language background other than English (LBOTE) of school while 23 percent LBOTE of suburb. These are showing how the students have no chance to experience new things and interact with different cultural community. 

While the cultural community is rarely seen in most of independent schools, public schools are highly cultural diversity, especially in Western Sydney area. Some schools have percentage LBOTE of school which is much higher than LBOTE of suburb. High percentage of LBOTE is also not a good way of exercise ‘micropublic’ for students. They have lots of disadvantages which affect their learning outcomes. 

Due to the huge unbalance between private and public schools, Australian schools are failing to create a cross-cultural environment for students in learning. The most concern is  that students and parents sometime do not have the choice to choose the school which they want to go to. High-fee independent schools are not easy to get in for the immigrated families, even some schools “require students to be enrolled within the year of their birth to guarantee entry.” (Stevenson A 2012, SMH website). Most of public school’s students do not have the choice, they have different disadvantages including social status, geographic locations, family’s issues, English difficulty... Most of all, government school fundings are raised as a factor which affect the school learning. 

Overall, Australian schools should be acting as micropublic, the more diverse the school community, “the more students develop these multicultural capacities of negotiation, recognition and respect.” (Ho, C. 2011, p. 616) These are the essential things Australian schools should have as our nation is a friendly multicultural society. 

References: 

Ho, C. (2011). Respecting the presence of others: School micropublics and everyday multiculturalism. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 32(6), 603-619.

Stevenson, A 2012, ‘The white bread playground: top private schools shun ethnic diversity’, SMH website, June 12, viewed 16 October 2012, <http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/the-white-bread-playground-top-private-schools-shun-ethnic-diversity-20120611-20663.html>

Selective thinking

In your lives, apart from the HSC, what was the 2^nd biggest event in your schooling years? Such an important date that it could make or break a future. Years of single-minded planning, sheer hard work, countless sacrifices, frenetic ferrying from point A to B, and of course, top dollar spent chasing the dream. After all, this was a boat no migrant could afford to miss.

I am, of course, talking about the much-coveted spot in a Selective High School. Every Asian parent’s penultimate dream, the precursor to that perfect HSC score, and eventually an assured placement in medicine, engineering or law. James Ruse, Baulkham Hills, Hornsby Girls, Sydney Boys – the El Dorado that beckons many an ambitious and aspiring primary school leaver; and more importantly, their hard-working and terribly pushy mother and father.

Kenway and Bullen highlight the idea that both parents and students are consumers of the school’s use value and producers of its exchange value. They emphasized that within the consumer culture, people’s lives are saturated with commodities and images which have the potential to generate dreams and desires, fears and fantasies, representations and displacements. In this context, not only do advertisers seek to ensure that consumption becomes a primary source of identity, but that desire to consume becomes a primary motivating force. And on Asian parents, they were successful.

Coming from an Asian family, I can share some of my parents’ reasons for being education conscious for their kids. My parents were not extremists, they never forced me into tutoring and were happy as long as I’ve tried my best, but they believed that letting their children receive the best education will eventually lead them to a successful career and a happy life in the future. They understood that a well-rounded education is the best tool for a lifetime of achievement as I used to play soccer, do gymnastics, and even danced for awhile, as much as my hobbies kept altering since I play oztag now, my parents kept me satisfied. However, they reminded me that being academically accelerated was the fastest and best investment in life compared to sports, creativity areas such as drawing, and performing arts like music and dancing.

Unfortunately, for those with stricter parents, the enduring hard work and the pressure of preparing towards selective high schools for Asian families are, at times, just insane. The voyage sometimes starts as early as kindergarten, which comes at heavy price to the family exchequer. But more importantly, this is also done at the cost of their overall development, where the child is deprived of everyday exercise and eventually physical disorders such as obesity or diabetes, and mental issues such as hypertension or anxiety  results at a young age.

References:

·         Kenway, J. Bullen, (2001). Consuming children: Education-Entertainment-Advertising. Buckingham: Open University Press. Chapter 5: Designer schools, packaged students.

School Choice and Education

School Choices and Education 

What makes people decide which school they or their children are going to or do they really have the choices? Is it the results and ranks posted on My School website, the differences in social economic classes, the cultures or the social disadvantages which can influences the road to successes? 

School is the base for students to build their future under the guide of teachers. Most of the parents think that once their children get into a good school, they are a step closer to success. People choose school because of different factors. Some based on the levels of student achievement in schools, the social profile of students in that school and also about the school’s reputation, images, behaviors, teaching and school’s performance from the top range as high performance to ordinary and underperformance or failing. My School website and other school’s tests results are the popular tools to help parents choose school for their children but Chris Bonnor said that “it doesn't enable accurate comparisons between individual schools. The NAPLAN spotlight is too narrow and the socio-educational index (ICSEA) used still doesn't take enrollment selectivity into account.” (The Sydney Morning Herald website). School choice is exercised by parents with high economic status. They “use schools as positional goods in the class interests of their children and themselves.” (Kenway, J. & Bullen 2001, p.147). As parents, they concern about who their children going to contact with at school and create the barrier to different those rich and poor students. The choices of school may decided by access to money, student ability, location and networks. These factors may affect the choice of schools but do they really affect the learning of students? 

I think most schools are the same, they are the places for knowledges to share and learn. As Bonnor stated that there are three essentials things for learning. “The first is the development of an intellectual quality that produces deep understanding of concepts, skills and ideas. The second is the teaching environment itself: is it characterized by positive relationships where learning is expected and supported? The third is significance: learning needs to be meaningful to students.”. If Australian education is exercised by these three things, there wouldn’t be much of school choice and could increase the results in every school. However, most of the schools enter the education market, “schools seem to make little attempt to connect to the dreamworlds, interests, pleasures and yearnings of all students.” (Kenway, J. & Bullen 2001, p.148) Is it really the goal of education, to serve the student, parents or the nation? 

References: 

Bonnor, C 2012, ‘Good schools give a hoot’, The Sydney Morning Herald, July 16, viewed 9 October 2012, <http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/good-schools-give-a-hoot-20120715-223zb.html>

Kenway, J. & Bullen, (2001). Consuming children: Education-Entertainment-Advertising. Buckingham: Open University Press. Chapter 5: Designer schools, packaged students.

Traditional Aboriginal People Costume

Every day, cultural difference is accepted as normal and unremarkable. Difference is not a barrier but rather, it acts as a motive of bringing people together, not always to create something as strong as friendship, but to enable the “recognition of acknowledgement of otherness in situational specificity.” Therefore, nurturing respect for cultural diversity is a goal of the Australian education system. 

The role of education is “building a democratic, equitable and just society, a society that is prosperous, cohesive and culturally diverse and that values of Australia’s Indigenous cultures are a key part of the nation’s history, present and future.” However, the recent incident of the publication of a photograph of university students dressed up to look like ‘traditional’ Aboriginal people at an annual college dinner in the Sydney Morning Herald has heated up a number of indigenous Australians from around the country.  

The photo depicted eight students with wild hair, holding sticks, and limbs and faces painted brown. Their dress up was supposed to be giving a tribute to indigenous Australians, however, as the picture made its way online to social networking sites , their actions were interpreted as mockery and demeaning, resulting the demand for rapid re-education programs.

The university’s students’ ignorant behaviour are described as ‘a young person’s uneducated approximation of Aboriginal life.’ Because Australia denied Aboriginality for so long, the understanding of the religious and cultural significance of ceremony isn’t in the community, ultimately, this misunderstanding incident showed a deep ignorance of Aboriginal culture and religion in Australian society.  

Like many culturally diversified societies, schools in Australia are expected to deal with complex multiple identities, thus strengthening social cohesion and cultural understandings have long been goals of Australian schooling. The Australian history taught to students at school covers a fair amount of Aboriginal content, but it is clear that although we are taught about Indigenous mistreatments and reconciliation, their culture itself is not yet emphasized. 

The government has initiated Aboriginal Culture programmes programs for educators appointed to teach in schools with a significant Aboriginal population, however it should be considered to introduce these programmes to all schools so a better understanding of the social, cultural, environment and educational issues that exists in a diverse range of contexts in Aboriginal communities.

References:

·         Ho, C. (2011). Respecting the presence of others: School micropublics and everyday multiculturalism. Journal of the Intercultural Studies, 32(6), Pg. 603-619

·         http://www.watoday.com.au/national/uproar-as-students-dress-as-traditional-aboriginal-people-20121011-27f0e.html

Ethics classes hidden from parents

It is important to understand the relationship between knowledge, culture and power because the intellectual’s role is key in the reconstruction of consciousness. In shorter words, culture is about power, yet more precisely “culture as a form of politics.” The Sydney Morning Herald article on the introduction of ethic classes in schools as an alternative to scripture classes has brought me to question upon the compulsory of attending religion classes.

 For many years, Australian primary school students have been participating in assigned scripture classes for an hour of each week during school hours and can only be opt out this religion class if permitted by parents. Children who are not undertaking these special religious educations are placed into a classroom to do some ‘free time work’ which is usually believed to be non productive; leisure time. Therefore a discussion of whether NSW schools should run ethics classes as an alternative to special religious education was put forth.

However, a government-initiated inquiry into ethics classes was held this year and it found the classes should be retained but recommended that parents should not be advised the classes are available until after they have decided to opt out of special religious education, or scripture. This means that Ethics education is to be treated as a second class option, but our culture in the western society tells us that we are ‘free’ individuals with the capacity to choose our own destinies and everyday choices. 

This contradiction highlights Bourdiea’s idea of superior and high ‘culture’ is based in “symbolic viloence,” that is, the imposition of ones group’s values and beliefs on another group in such a way that that dominance appears ‘normal and right.’ In consideration to the O'Farrell government needing the votes of Fred Nile's Christian Democrats, whose party shares the balance of power in the upper house in the upper house, it is clear why scripture classes in NSW schools are compulsory unless parents requested for their child to be removed.

With Catholic and Anglican being the dominant groups in scripture and Australia as a wide diversified nation, should the government be thinking towards more multiculturalism? Maybe initiating scripture classes of all different religions and have a rotating timetable so students can have a wider understanding of each other might be a more appropriate idea. After all, education shapes culture, and culture shapes education.

References:

·         Leonardo, Z. (2009). Affirming ambivalence: Introdution to cultural politics and education. In Z. Leonardo (ed.), Handbook of Cultural Politics and Education (pp. 1-48), Rotterdam : Sense Publishers.

·         http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/ethics-classes-hidden-from-parents-say-supporters-20120803-23kni.html

Hey Jackie

Hi Jackie :) I think I told you wrong about the blog posts submitting. I've just seen the email saying submit assignment 2 only via Turnitin. I think the blog posts need to submited online, no hard copy required. Sorry about the wrong information.
From Xuan

To remove Religion classes?

Many parents and other academic writers such as Peter FitzSimons have asked the Australian Government to remove Religion classes from public schools. President Sharron Healy said her daughter's school, Mill Park Primary, had students from 42 different backgrounds.

''I'd rather see the kids learning about lots of religions together rather than one specific religion where families have to leave the class,'' Ms Healy said.

It raises a problem. Parents want their children to be treated as Australian in school, not members of religion. They argue that religion does not teach children about anything that will benefit their future employment. Peter FitzSimons also writes "there have been 10,000 different gods worshipped since the dawn of time. You have rejected 9999 of them as arrant and obvious nonsense. I counted up, and I have rejected just one more than you. Let the children make their up own mind as to just how many they will reject, but the state should have no part, one way or t'other." However, Dr Brian Rosner, a New Testament scholar and a Fellow of the Centre for Public Christianity (also a fan of Peter FitzSimons) disagrees with that idea. He suggests that Religion education, specifically Christianity, is a way of teaching children about humanities, an understanding of how the world is created in order to understand evolution and other theories. What brings this debate of whether have or not have religion classes so popular to today's topic? Is it because Australia is now considered as a multicultural country?

I reckon the answer is "yes". Ms Healy said that her daughter's school had students from 42 different backgrounds. They all have different views on religion. Wadham  discusses about how culture is defined by the history as it frames the future. The Australian Government thus focuses on the study of Christianity (Scripture teaching) at public school as Australia is mainly known to be "Anglo-Australian" backgrounded. Parents think that they are just classes about religion and have nothing to do with the syllabus that is being taught at school. Therefore, many parents who want their children to be academically success refuse to let their children be taught in a Scripture class. There are a few other factors that influences people's perception of Scripture teaching. One of them is ethnic identity. We all have our own moral stands and ways of identifying ourselves. Why would someone totally different from another believe in the same thing as you? It comes down to whether having many different religion education or ethnic classes instead of feeling "ruled" by this Anglo-Australian way of education would fix this problem. 

Public education being the first proper step of education in our life is rather important. Most parents want the best for their children. They want a broad range of education for their children in order to compete in a developed country. It is hard to make everyone happy as each one has a different view on religion, moral and other thing. Maybe a taste of everything would interest children at school and fix this problem?







Reference:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/does-a-belief-in-god-hold-back-students-20110813-1irrb.html
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/parents-shun-school-religion-20120803-23l7v.html

Wadham, B. Pudsey, J. & Boyd, R. (2007). Culture and education. Sydney: Pearson  Education.