Between the flags

 “All humans beings belong to a culture and all human beings use symbols and actions to show who they are and what they believe in.” – Wadham et al., 2007

The short film “Between the flags,” was a finalist in the 2008 Tropfest. It tells a story of two men, one stereotype Lebanese and another stereotype Australian, who form a mutual bond during the Cronulla riots, 2005; not because they were civilized men in a place of chaos but because they show up at the wrong beach and didn’t want to look like “two knobs having a punch on.”

Although, the film purposely accentuates the stereotypes of the two men, it is quite reflective of everyday assumptions made to certain categories and how people who find themselves “as being tied to a particular locality cannot escape social reconfigurations caused by globalization. (Rizvi, 2008: 1)"

For example, the ‘Australian’ guy is symbolised by his clothes, (the board shorts with a cross and Australian Flag, and thongs), the fact that he brought a cricket bat to the riots and his naivety to where knuckle-dusters can be purchased. Similarly, a Bulldogs jersey and knuckle-dusters is used to symbolise the Lebanese guy. Although they are two different people representing two different cultural backgrounds, they are unable to escape globalisation, where they both like the same music, phones, play cricket and agree that a riot does not occur with two people.

In a way ironic distance has occurred in this video where it is defined as the “ability to respect others requires a certain distance from one’s own culture (Reid & Spriprakash,2012: 22).” They both showed up at a beach immersed in their own culture and ready to fight for it, but because of an awkward encounter, each of the men had distant themselves from their own culture and find a commonality in order to respect, converse, and play cricket with one another. If they had not distant themselves from their cultural backgrounds, having a two person riot would not have been an issue.

Reid, C. & Sriprakash, A. (2012). The possibility of cosmopolitan learning: Reflecting on future directions for diversity teacher education in Australia. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 40(1), 15-29.

Rizvi, F. (2008). Education and its cosmopolitan possibilities. In B. Lingard, J. Nixon & S. Ranson (Eds.), Transforming learning in schools and communities: The remaking of education for a cosmopolitan society (pp. 101-116). London: Continuum.

Wadham, B. Pudsey, J. & Boyd, R. (2007). Culture and education. Sydney: Pearson Education. Chapter 1: What is culture?

White, J. (2008) In Between the Flags. [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWLb8d_cxPU [Accessed: 13th October 2012].

Education making us Ignorant – SMH

This article sites statements made by Ken Henry, Julia Gillard’s advisor on Asia about Australia’s attitude to Asia in regards to education and comparisons made between Australian and Asian educations systems. In the article he labels Australians as complacent in terms of their education and attitude. For example he mentions the nations attitude towards language within education and the lack of bilingualism that is currently rife throughout Australian education. He believes that the ability to focus education on language, in particular Asian languages will not only benefit Australian’s but also Australia at a much larger level.

He goes on to say ho with the large Asian population that dominates the world it is imperative to recognize Asian culture and language. “We will need an education system - right from the very earliest years of schooling - that acknowledges and recognises Asian culture and history, equipping the next generations to operate more effectively in an Asia-centred world."
I think this article really touches on issues such as the importance of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism and the real long term focus that has on not only furthering students but also furthering the country.

It also comments on the heavy centering of westernized learning in Australia. A lack of Cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism is evident from the learning of students today, as Mr. Henry says; there is a severe lack of focus on linguistics and culture of the other. As Cosmopolitan idea’s towards education focus around the idea that we should be opening up our educational landscape to all types of diversity rather than just one set ‘Other’. This is primarily found in the reading of Rizvi, Education and Its Cosmopolitan Possibilities. In this he talks about increasing global connectivity which I believe is very similar to what Mr. Henry is saying about the education of Australia, and certainly a way that Australian’s can increase their global connectivity is through Language. (Rizvi 105)

Furthermore I think that we should be not only extending ourselves to China and the rest of the eastern world but certainly globally. Australia is a greatly diverse multicultural country and would be made more tolerant and more aware of the identity and cultures that the myriad of ethnicities bring. This of course could always be broadened from a young age through education. Integrating language and culture in a diverse and cosmopolitanistic way would change the Nation’s attitude to asia and multiculturalism in general.

References:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education-making-us-ignorant-20120820-24ipb.html
Rizvi, F. (2008). Education and its cosmopolitan possibilities. In B. Lingard, J. Nixon & S. Ranson (Eds.), Transforming learning in schools and communities: The remaking of education for a cosmopolitan society (pp. 101-116). London: Continuum.

2. Principal hits out at 'useless testing' – SMH

NAPLAN testing has come under fire many times since its genesis. In this article in the Sydney Morning Herald, ''It dumbs down learning and narrows the curriculum. What about thinking, curiosity, music? Its narrow Anglo focus also means it's not inclusive,'' Mr. Pope says.
Mr. Pope touches down on a few important issues, such as speaking of the NAPLAN in its Anglo focus and it’s not inclusiveness.
This argument has great poignancy in relation to culture and identity in education. The NAPLAN test being the main test that school rankings are based on throughout many years of schooling needs to be a fair test. However if what Mr. Pope is saying about the test being exclusive to other cultures and particularly Anglo-centric then it will obviously create problems for school and areas who have a large immigrant based population.
As Mr. Pope talks about in the article, many of the immigrant students come to Australia with little to no education, and in 2 years are expected to complete a test that will mark their competency in Math and English.
The test therefore should be monitored over known areas with a saturated immigrant population. Of course these area’s will do worse than others in areas of the NAPLAN such as English, as many migrants from the Asia-Pacific would not have had any formal education and of course would not be able to speak any English. Again this article links to ideas of cosmopolitan learning and through cosmopolitan learning we accommodate and make exceptions for those who are of a different culture. Rizvi, F. (2008).
Mr. Pope also mentions in the article that the test is a ‘waste of public funds’ and he believes that the NAPLAN makes no difference in the way that schools are funded as he has worked for 20 years at disadvantaged schools and never seen an increase in spending. Again this delves into the idea that public schools are being left behind. Widening the gap between private and public schools will only further encourage the marketization of the private sector of education, and this desire to consume will perpetuate itself only further widening the gap.

References:
Reid, C. & Sriprakash, A. (2012). The possibility of cosmopolitan learning: Reflecting on future directions for diversity teacher education in Australia. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 40(1), 15-29.

Rizvi, F. (2008). Education and its cosmopolitan possibilities. In B. Lingard, J. Nixon & S. Ranson (Eds.), Transforming learning in schools and communities: The remaking of education for a cosmopolitan society (pp. 101-116). London: Continuum.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/principal-hits-out-at-useless-testing-20121014-27l0c.html

A Personal Reflection – India 2012.

A Personal Reflection – India 2012.

In July of this year (2012) I was privileged to be sponsored to attend a Tara.Ed Pre-service Teacher Tour – to Maharastra India. Tara.Ed is a non-denominational organisation that focuses on creating cross cultural links between Australian and Indian schools – by providing hands on training programs for Indian teachers and Australian pre-service teachers by skills exchange. Tara.Ed’s focus is on the teachers rather than the students – with the philosophy that by “building star teachers to help students shine” promotes sustainable quality education. 

This was my first exposure to teaching – ever, it was also my first exposure to a culture so diverse from my own. For three weeks I was based at a privately funded school – Gyanankur English School. I was teamed with the standards five to seven science and mathematics teacher and by the end of the first week I was teaching the standard seven morning mathematics class.

‘My Kids’ (the standard seven class) – to my surprise were very well respected. They honoured their teacher, were very obedient and worked diligently throughout the entire school day (9-3pm) – despite the fact that they were seated on a cold tiled floor and worked with their books either on their laps or on the floor in front of them. Sadly however, their classes lacked interaction and discussion – therefore lacked the environment to gain crucial critical thinking skills.

It was on this trip – I learnt some very valuable lesson about cultural collaboration and identity. The student’s worlds were so different to my own. They lived in tiny houses, huts or even the orphanage. They walked to school on the dirt road; or were cramped into the limited school buses. They wore their school uniforms on the weekends – and some of them had to work outside of school hours to help support their families. But there was one thing – that beyond all the differences enabled me to connect with the students in an incredibly strong way. Education – the students and I all shared a burning passion for education.

The students had dreams of becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, teachers, priests – they all had dreams. They knew education was the way to success – and hearing my own story you will quickly discover that education is something I value highly. But how did all those children and I develop a common element in our identities – belonging from such diverse backgrounds?

Our values – “values are the criteria and standards we use to differentiate what is good and bad in the world around us. They are the basis of our moralities and ethics, as well as shaping what we think is important or unimportant.”[i] When it comes to education – the children and I share the concept that it is a pathway to bigger and greater things; it is a means by which to overcome hardness through the best attainment possible – knowledge.

Identity can be defined as “a person’s conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliation (such as national identity and cultural identity).”[ii] “Our identity is a product of our backgrounds, our social standings, our life experiences, our religious views, our moral standards, our ethics and our beliefs – it is our individually written manual for life. By it we define ourselves as individuals and define ourselves as a part of society. By it we tell ourselves who we can be and who we cannot be.”[iii] Our identity here constructs our values.

So the students and I – shared the same value for education, which reflected a component of our identities – highly governed by our backgrounds and culture.

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[i] Wadham_Pudsy & Boyd (2007) Pg. 10

[ii] Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_(social_science)

[iii] Megan Ayre (2012), Kenway and Bullen (2001). Designer schools, packaged students. Consuming Children, pp. 126.

My Cultural Identity:

Context plays a big role in how I introduce myself. Wadham et al. writes “We have levels of difference and many identities. Which identity is important at any one level is determined by context (p.13).” I agree with this quote in that context influences identity greatly. Not only the context in which one is introducing one’s self but also that of the time someone has grown up in.

Malaysia is a Muslim country populated by the Malays, Chinese and Indians. My mother is 3^rd/4^th (it is unclear which) generation Malaysian born Chinese and is one of the elder siblings of nine. When she was growing up, there was less equality between the three cultures and so even until today my mum would say that she is Malaysian, while her younger siblings and my cousins, who have grown up in a more multicultural accepting environment, would say that they are Malaysian-Chinese.

For me, being born in Australia and my dad being Chinese, sometimes I don’t even know where to begin. Most of the time, I just settle with Chinese Malay but occasionally I have introduced my cultural identity by describing my parent’s cultural identity followed by the clarification that I was born in Australia.

However, when I am visiting my relatives in Malaysia and Singapore, my brother and I are often introduced as the ‘Australian relatives’. In this case, I sometimes feel alienated because in Australia, I introduce myself in relations to them more than I do in relation to the country I was born in and yet that introduction is some how says no. However, at the same time, this introduction allows us to be accepted in a ‘proper’ Asian culture. That is, being Australian becomes an excuse for my brother and I when do something (or in most cases don’t something) that is not accepted in the Chinese way of doing things as well as our lack of ability to speak one dialect of Chinese well.

So to conclude, context plays a big role in the levels of identity where in my case, an Australian context highlights my non white Australian background and in a Malaysian context, it highlights my ignorance to traditional customs and birth place.

Reference;

Wadham, B. Pudsey, J. & Boyd, R. (2007). Culture and education. Sydney: Pearson Education. Chapter 1: What is culture?

Is Australian Television Racist? Diversity Still out of the Picture:

On March 1, 2012, The Sydney Morning Herald released the article, Diversity Still Out of the Picture, by Paul Kalina. The article points the finger at Australian TV for racism by not casting enough multicultural actors. “The overwhelming message is that opportunities for actors who are, or look like, ''ethnics'' are significantly lower than for whites and that Australian TV networks are failing to represent the racial and ethnic make-up of what is one of the most culturally diverse countries on the planet.” [i]

The article is filled with influential TV personnel addressing this ‘issue’. Marea Jablonski (of actors' agency BGM), says that “Australian TV does not reflect its audience and that commercial TV is very conservative in its casting;” Penny Chapman speaks regarding the network executors and some concerns they have, “What they aren't worried about is faces that aren't white, I think what they're nervous about is what faces that are not white will say.'' She points out that the casting of ethnic actors, those from non-English speaking backgrounds, frightens the executors – how will they create a cast around and incorporate another culture into the TV series? Here, Chapman feels that great opportunities to embrace Australia’s diversity and multiculturalism have been wasted – many of the TV market’s consumers are multicultural, so why not create cast members that connect with the consumers?!

One TV series that the article mentions is Neighbours. The soap has recently become acutely aware of the need to reflect our diverse society – most notably, through the introduced of the Kapoor family - an Indian-Sri Lankan family, who recently took up residence in Ramsay Street. However, as a Neighbours watcher – it is seen that this move in television is still extremely conservative. When watching the Kapoor family – you do not pick up on any Indian-Sri Lankan cultural values or ways of life – they seem ‘Australian’ – only by looking at the cast members physically would you agree that the characters are from such orientation.

Christina Ho talks about “exchanges of goods, information and care” – and notably television is quite the domain for the exchange of information. These exchanges she stresses are essential; they “bring people together, not always to create something as strong as friendship, but to enable the “recognition or acknowledgement of otherness in situational specificity (Wise 2009:35).”[ii] In a vast multicultural country, this coming together creates coherency that enables a country to function of a social entity.

Communication through the media has always been important to society – in this modern era where technology strives we are mass media dominates.[iii] This allows us to communicate and interact without being in the same spatial and temporal vicinity. [iv] “Ideas, symbols and meanings can be sent and received by many people at once, almost instantaneously.” [v]– TV is the medium of this mass cultural interaction.

Therefore, I conclude – the Australian TV is ignorantly racist. The TV is a powerful medium that allows us as a nation to connect  and as a multicultural nation  our TV should reflect this.

see: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/diversity-still-out-of-the-picture-20120229-1u1jg.html

- Megan Ayre

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[i] http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/diversity-still-out-of-the-picture-20120229-1u1jg.html

[ii] Christina Ho (2011): Respecting the Presence of Others: School Micropublics and Everyday Multiculturalism, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 32:6, 603-619.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2011.618106

[iii] Wadham et al. (2007). Culture and Education pp. 16

[iv] Wadham et al. (2007). Culture and Education pp. 16

[v] Wadham et al. (2007). Culture and Education pp. 17

Sydney Currently
Currently in Sydney there are a number of political changes to the funding framework at a state level that are and will continue to affect schools around the state. The funding cut on education handed down by the state government is basically undermining the Federal Governments work to create a functional funding system that will benefit the nation and the children of the next generation.
“The Catholic system expects to lose about $24m in funding, with the rest being cut from the budgets of independent schools, and schools will have to look at raising fees to make up the shortfall.” – The Australian
Extending the fees would only worsen the current identity chokehold that the privatization of schooling has on schooling. The type of schooling a student attends and the area that this school is located in geographically dictates the types of associations made by society about the way that the student has been educated. Thus the question heard later in life “Where did you go to school?”
In return the effect of the rising in school fee’s is that the already exclusive private and catholic school systems could become even more exclusive, therefore making the gap between private and government education even wider than it already is.
In another article written by The Age it explains how due to his cut and school fee’s increasing the public schools will lose out further and the private schools will continue to succeed even if the school fees are increased. This will push schooling deeper into privatization and will only heighten the marketization process that is currently taking place. Again this will only push the public schools further down and make the battle for a spot at a private school all the more treacherous. This will only lead to a higher level of marketization in the already heavily commoditized realm of educational marketing.
“Consumption becomes a primary source of identity but that desire to consume becomes a primary motivating force.” (p 137)
So basically, due to the lack of funding to the public schools, the performance most likely will stay stable or decline over time, however the Catholic and Other private schools will maintain their level or continue to increase over time as due their funding through school fee’s as well as government funds will be able to make upgrades to their education through technology and quality of teachers etc. Due to this consumption of privatized schooling will need to be specially marketed in order for the public to consume it.

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

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/education/funding-cut-blows-gonski-out-of-the-water/story-fn59nlz9-1226466815293

Tribunal Exempts Ban on Muslims – The Australian

In this article, a tribunal sided with the NSW department of Education as they ruled that because these Muslim girls did not have a specific “Ethno-Religious” identity that they could not have suffered from discrimination. The Issue arose as a man complained of his granddaughters being abused, physically, sexually and mentally.
Now this article raises many interesting questions about the way that culture and identity is treated in an educational environment. For example, the fact that they are Muslim and are attending a public school is does not automatically put them in a disadvantaged situation. However inherently it could be argued that through people of the Islamic faith being an under-represented minority in majority of public schools state wide, it could be said that due to the cultural or “Ethno-religious” variance that they are indeed at somewhat of an education disadvantage.
This is of course all depending on the way that education is treated within the public school system. For example, if the education is all inclusive and not so Anglo-centric in style then the students should not feel discriminated against in any way.

A further point would be investigating the geography and locality of their public school. In a public school with more multiculturalism would be more tolerant, where a school that has one over-arching minority would not be so tolerant. This delves into the argument; do we tend to send students to schools where they are less of a minority culturally?
Furthermore, these kids have been identified by a tribunal as not being of any specific Ethno-Religious Identity, this in itself poses a problem, as who gets to decide someone’s ethnic background, or gets to rule whether or not it is discriminable or not. I mostly think that this article is about tolerance within the education system. For example even though the tribunal ruled against the discrimination claim made by the parents of the Muslim Students I believe that the students have to tolerant to the non-Muslim culture as much as the non-Muslim culture has to be tolerant back. Tolerance is a two way street and can only be fulfilled when both parties are equal.

It is in Race and Ethnic Relations That the study of a particular brand of Australian whiteness is explained. In this reading Whiteness and Australianess are closely linked, as Whiteness is identified as something that can be gained over time, as the longer you spend in white culture, such as Australian the more Australian or white you become. It is therefore through similar logic that the Muslim girls are slowly through their whiteness being integrated into Australian culture and therefore would make them indecipherable as Muslims to be discriminated against.

References:

Fozdar Wilding & Hawkins (2009) Chapter 10: Whiteness studies.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/education/tribunal-exempts-bias-on-muslims/story-fn59nlz9-1226482920730

Personal Reflection

Personal Reflection

In my own experience of culture and identity in relation to education, I went to De La Salle Revesby Heights, NSW. This school at the time was undergoing a transformation of being a school from 7-10 to 7-12. As a baptised Greek Orthodox it was a little bit harder for me to get into the catholic education system than most of the students that I found there. I met little criteria, not coming from a feeder school, not coming from a Catholic background and being ‘Out of area’ I was lucky at the time to get in.

It made no difference for me coming from a non-Catholic school coming into catholic school system in other educational parameters other than masses held by the school in the local church and in my senior years; Studies of Religion. In Studies of religion I become the cultural other to give information about the culture and ceremonies of the Greek Orthodox Church. A couple of times I was asked to explain to the whole class some of the celebrations of the church and the rituals behind them with the comparison to Catholicism. This therefore made me the ‘Other’ in the class. I found this personal reflection of my own educational experience to be reminiscent of the argument being made within the article The possibility of cosmopolitan learning: reflecting on future directions for diversity teacher education. This reading particularly focuses on teaching diversity in all its forms, in particular not separating one facet of culture as ‘The other”. I personally believe this is very important not only from the experiences that I have from school but also as a multicultural country. What is socially normal for one set of people maybe be different for another group, therefore teaching one type of cultural variance or societal variance would be beneficial to kids learning experiences.

I think that if in some aspects of my learning I wasn’t treated as an ‘other’ and told to speak about my differences I wouldn’t have felt ‘different’ within the classroom. I feel as if that without a multicultural school I would not have been singled out as one of the only Greek and only Greek orthodox students in the classroom and in that sense the teacher would not have had to rely on me, rather teach the class accordingly. However in saying this I never really felt like this greatly impacted on my education until doing further studies on it such as this course. Reading academics write about cosmopolitanism and multicultural learning has shifted my view on what was, at the time to me, normal practice within a school.

References:
Rizvi, F. (2008). Education and its cosmopolitan possibilities. In B. Lingard, J. Nixon & S. Ranson (Eds.), Transforming learning in schools and communities: The remaking of education for a cosmopolitan society (pp. 101-116). London: Continuum.
Ho, C. (2011). Respecting the presence of others: School micropublics and everyday multiculturalism. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 32(6), 603-619.

Florida Officials Defend Racial and Ethnic Learning Goals

This article talks about prioritizing the learning goals of individual students based on their race or cultural background and upbringing, giving a different improvement goal to those of ‘different’ ethnic minorities or of minorities listed as disadvantaged. Even though this issue has accrued a lot of criticism over the years that it has been implemented, the premise of the idea of making sure everyone is at the same level of basic educational skills such as reading and writing is important, and although it may not be the most politically correct way of talking about these issues, it is ignorant to pretend as if these gaps in the education system don’t exist.
As is explained in depth by Amy Wilkins of the Education Trust; “Because these are hard conversations to have, it doesn’t mean we can avoid them,” she said. “Unless we look at the fact that blacks and Latino kids are doing dreadfully and demand progress and demand that schools do better by them, we won’t solve the problem.”

This idea of focusing on the learning of these students is not too dissimilar to other ideas and methods floating around in American schooling such as Afrocentric schooling in order to help a culture identify with a specific curriculum of learning in order for them to gain the skills necessary to fulfill the outcomes of learning at school. This idea all stems for a level of equity amongst multicultural groups in all forms of culture, most importantly educational. As the article states the implementation of this regime was all in participation with the ‘No Child Left Behind’ of the Bush Administration.

The students that identify with a certain culture will obviously be at a disadvantage and therefore require more assistance in their learning, therefore it is a good thing that Florida has had the presence of mind as a city to change their views on schooling and do something about the gaps created in cultures. This is similar to the ideas written about by Wadham & Pudsy about the integration of culture and education and is also included in the wok of Leonardo (2009) Where he speaks about the culture of politics and how they all integrate and affect education in one way or another. This case it is clear that the identification of problems within certain cultures has been addressed in order for the educational Gap to be closed.

References:

Wadham, B. Pudsey, J. & Boyd, R. (2007). Culture and education. Sydney: Pearson Education. Chapter 1: What is culture

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/education/florida-officials-defend-racial-and-ethnic-learning-goals.html?ref=education

blurring the northern boundaries

 “[P]erformance, pleasant feel (atmosphere/ethos) and proximity.” (Kenway and Bullen,2001: 130) have been identified as the three main factors of school choice.

 In this blog, I will address the issues of school choice and the blurred boundaries in a literal sense of enrollment catchment areas and metaphorically in decision-making process of school choice.

“Havoc wreaked the hills” (Lindeback, 2012) is an over exaggeration. The change in catchment area between West Pennant Hills and Cherrybrook only really affected two local primary schools (West Pennant Hills primary and Cherrybrook primary). In terms of high schools, this change made no impact because Pennant Hills High and Cherrybrook Technology High accepts almost everyone and are not very strict with their boundaries. For me, I live in Pennant Hills and Pennant Hills High School (the high school I attended) was only a 30 seconds j walk across a semi busy street or a 3-5 minute walk using footpaths and waiting at the crossings. On my small street alone, there are children that have been sent or are still currently going to Cherrybrook Technology (despite the monstrosity that is Boundary Road during peak and school pick up hours).

These schools have a huge catchment area because it is two of a few co-ed, non selective, public high schools in the area. That is every other school in the area, is either gender specific (e.g. Cheltenham Girls) or selective (e.g. Hornsby Girls) or private (e.g. Barker College) or religious (e.g. Mt St benedicts) or a Rudolf Steiner school (e.g. Lorien Novalis). So it is understandable for them to blur the boundaries in order for competition to occur between the two high schools.

One of my neighbours was bullied a bit when in year 2 and 3, so the mother was concerned for her kid’s future and asked about the Pennant Hills High School when her child was in year 6. Of course I was bias and talked of its aesthetics and that it shouldn’t be too different from Cherrybrook Technology. The mother then raises the issue of the school fire in 2001. I find this interesting because it wasn’t until that day I realised that my high school was negatively defined by the fires of 2001 that “destroyed approximately one-third of the school and caused millions of dollars worth of damage. (Tink. A, 2001)” This fire occurred outside school hours in which the culprit was unidentified (or my way of saying, there is no proof that it was a Pennant Hills student) and if you Google ‘pennant hills high school fire’, there are no news reports about it; the best I could find was the website I just quoted from previously and yet my neighbour saw it as a representation of an unsafe school environment.

For me, it becomes interesting because I then raise the issue that there was a scissor stabbing incident in 2006 and another incident earlier that year (2010) where a student threatened a bully with a knife at Cherrybrook technology. The mother gave me a blank stare of cluelessness followed by a response indicating that she was unaware of the incident. This kid now goes to Cherrybrook Technology.

Data in Browne’s article “Upwardly mobile inundate north shore schools” indicates an increased movement towards the north shore into the catchment areas of the five comprehensive schools. In another article “Search for offices to rent as schools run out of space,” Browne raises the issue that there is not enough room to accommodate for the increase in children, and that it is being considered for the department of education and communities to lease out some offices for schools to use.

To combine all these ideas together, it suggests that performance is the main driver of school choice, taking precedence over the other two named factors. With these increasing numbers and the physical inability to provide classrooms for children, I question whether the government should have stricter regulations on schools accepting those beyond the border?

Browne, R. (2012) Search for offices to rent as schools run out of space Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/search-for-offices-to-rent-as-schools-run-out-of-space-20120925-26jfn.html#ixzz29gPRAzjq. Sydney Morning Herald, [online] 26th September. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/search-for-offices-to-rent-as-schools-run-out-of-space-20120925-26jfn.html [Accessed: 13th October 2012].

Browne, R. (2012) Upwardly mobile inundate north shore schools. Sydney Morning Herald, [online] 27 September. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/upwardly-mobile-inundate-north-shore-schools-20120926-26li7.html [Accessed: 13th October 2012].

Nick, L. (2012) The Hills District. EDST2070GROUP2, [blog] 8th October 2012, Available at: www.edstgroup2.blogspot.com.au [Accessed: 13th October 2012].

Parliament.nsw.gov.au (1997) Pennant Hills High School Fire - 20/06/2001 - PRIV - NSW Parliament. [online] Available at: http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20010620037 [Accessed: 13 Oct 2012].