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The question being asked, however, is one that puts the cart before the horse. The question of ‘What do you want to see in the national curriculum?’ presupposes the answer to another question: What even is the purpose of schooling?
Empowering women and girls is also one of the most cost-effective and sustainable ways to promote positive change in a community, whether here in Australia or overseas.
We need to encourage parents to have these conversations with their children, and earlier, around Years 8 and 9, rather than later. And I suspect we need to encourage boys to talk more with sisters, girlfriends, friends who are girls and good mates about consent.
This year has been a ‘unique’ year to study, to say the least. The impacts of COVID-19 on the sector have been not just trying, but simply devastating. I have not set foot in a classroom all year which, I have to admit, is one of the things I have always loved most about studying — the immersion within a learning environment.
The story of colourism has roots that go back many generations; it has trickled relentlessly through time and is still evident in many ways today. In many countries with a colonial history, light skin was perceived, for a long time, as belonging to the upper classes, constituting power and wealth.
Too often in academic settings Black and Brown children are dismissed when reporting their experiences, and the incidents are often downplayed. They are told that the student who had done or said the racist thing ‘didn’t really mean it’. These students are given the benefit of doubt in ways that Black and Brown children often are not.
I don't want to sound too ungrateful, because there isn't a playbook for this scenario, but if all it took to build a passable digital schooling ecosystem was a week of hard work, we'd have done it long ago. We haven't been asked to turn on a dime, we've been asked to pirouette.
If you're a teacher, acknowledging that you most likely have an LGBTQ student can give a whole new sense to your sex-ed lessons. It means you understands you're not just teaching straight kids about gay sex, but helping the queer teen in your classroom make smart decisions.
From the minute we enter the education system, we experience barriers. We are segregated when we arrive at primary school, placed in 'special' units or classes. Here our needs are subsumed into the collective needs of the group. From the outset our educational outcomes are at the whim of the people who are in the position of power.
I left the memorial and at home dug deep into the garden, stacking bricks to retain what was left of the beds, to hold back the fall of earth ...
I did not need to put in much effort to imagine what such a ban would feel like. I have already experienced more rigid when I studied in Dubai and in India. I used to witness more interaction among students and more studious class environments in these places than what I do now in a private Victorian secondary college.
I was on a train in Melbourne's CBD when word came through there was a suspected gunman at Flagstaff Station. It turned out to be a false alarm. After Christchurch and One Nation's attempts to cosy up to the NRA, it is not surprising guns are on our minds. For most Australians this is unfamiliar and uncomfortable. That's the way it should stay.