Teacher Snapshot 1

TEACHER: The SOSE curriculum is to do with the Greeks, and the Romans and the traditional SOSE subjects. I can see so much that the curriculum can deliver that has got historical and social and cultural roots that these kids could pick up because they want to tell their story. There’s no doubt about it. They want to say “look I’ve achieved”. They’re so proud of it. “This is how hard it was. My dad packed up the fire engines with people in it.” But SOSE doesn’t address it at all. It’s completely unrelated.

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Teacher Snapshot 2

TEACHER: I think in terms of maths and science, we’ve got to recognise that that part of the world is where it all began and they may know a bit. They might actually be able to teach us… I think that a lot of science and maths teachers don’t see the socialisation stuff as their job. They’re on about curriculum content and let’s get it through blah, blah, blah. They’re not really interested in developing an understanding of where the kids are coming from, or even recognition that the kids may know something. They’ve got to get used to that.

TEACHER: I think the English class is very conducive to constantly being aware and discussing values, whether we’re studying an issue, a novel, everything we do is very value-laden so that’s where we have to have a sense of respect for each other… You might have issues that are discussed that kids have very different views yet you need to get them to listen to each other.

TEACHER: I actually struggle in Science, and I suppose it’s so in Maths. To deal with that [cultural diversity] in the actual context of the curriculum is quite difficult because it’s so… you can’t digress. It’s very strict and very full and it is difficult. I do think that the girls quite often speak about things, and you can do topics and some topics really lend themselves, how say some cultures have got really petite women. One girl who was doing genetics and she was talking about how the Thais are tiny but this doesn’t happen very often because of the constraints of the curriculum. They’re very happy to do that, very happy to share and talk but I don’t feel we have the resources. The structure of the curriculum makes it very difficult for science, whereas there are more opportunities in Arts.

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Teacher Snapshot 3

TEACHER: [referring to Year 7 Ancient History, Year 8 Medieval, basically England; Year 9 Australia and Year 10 Modern History]. But there is scope, if you really look at it, especially medieval, with the contribution, to incorporate it [Middle Eastern studies], not to make it exclusively Arab, but just to incorporate it… I don’t think it should be an exclusively Middle Eastern curriculum by any means. But inclusive would be very nice… I think it would be fascinating if we did say the Egyptians and the Romans to have an area of study where we looked at the Phoenicians and Assyrians as a point of comparison have some speakers in… The medieval times, what was life like? We exclusively look at Britain, so what was life like in other parts, what was life like in the Middle East?... When I look at medieval history in the books it’s all knights and castles. It’s all England… that that was the only part in the world that existed.

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