In this blog I'm going to talk about my own personal experiences of culture and identity at my high school and refer to: 'Respecting the Presence of Others: School Micropublics and Everyday Multiculturalism', by Christina Ho, and a news article I found on the Sydney Morning Herald website called: 'Ethnicity at Selective Schools Provoke Fierce Debate', by Anna Patty.
First of all, I went to Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, and this is a selective school located in the inner west suburb of Newtown. Most students wishing to attend the school have to audition for either dance, drama or music, however the students that live in close proximity to the school, are accepted without having to go through an audition process. Because of the school's high reputation for the performing arts, it attracts students from all over New South Wales that are interested in studying dance, drama, and music in their school curriculum.
For me, attending this school was a great experience and it has definitely contributed into shaping the person I am today, for example: who my friends are, my taste in fashion, and the genres of music that I like to listen to. Everyday, a lot of my friends traveled from all over Sydney, places such as the Blue Mountains, Gosford, Cronulla, Parramatta, and East Hills, to come to school. Because 90% of the students at the school travel from all over Sydney, the school is highly multicultural and I found that everyone was generally very accepting towards other people's background, culture and sexual orientation. Everyone brought a little bit of culture in to the school, and that is what made the school interesting and the fact that we were all in a performing arts environment with other people that actually wanted to be there everyday.
In 'Respecting the Presence of Others', Christina Ho stated that: “Schools can be ideal micropublics as they throw together people from diverse backgrounds, compelling them to engage in the everyday negotiations of sharing a social space”. I agree with this statement because my school was very multicultural, and having come from a catholic primary school which was not so multicultural and was mostly populated with students (like myself), that were from a Lebanese background, Newtown was completely different because there I was one of three other students of Lebanese background and I was constantly surrounded by people from different cultures and backgrounds, and even though we were all different, we still made friends, found things to talk about, and laugh and joke about. At the same time I felt that we all gave each other insight into our different cultures through things like our discussions on religion, and sharing our foods at lunch time. These are examples of cross-cultural friendships that Christina Ho uses in her work to display the ways that cultures can become shared and
transcended through engagement at schools.
In 'Ethnicity at Selective Schools Provoke Fierce Debate', the first argument made is that: "The selective school system in NSW has polarised students and fuelled fierce competition which has disenfranchised already-disadvantaged students and some migrant groups". In some cases, this statement can be applicable, primarily for students from migrant families that do not speak english well and thus find it difficult to be admitted into selective schools. However, some selective high schools such as James Ruse, Baulkham Hills and Fort Street, that select students based on intelligence, do have large ethnic populations. Christina
Ho also emphasizes that not all schools are ideal platforms for cross-cultural
engagement, and this primarily depends on the school type: whether it is
religious, private or public, as well as the school’s location: the suburb that
the school is situated in and if there is a dominant cultural group in that
suburb. She argues that: "While many
public schools may serve as good candidates for everyday multiculturalism, some
elite private schools are nothing less than pockets of cultural and
socioeconomic exclusivity”.
From my experiences at high school, I feel that interests and similarities are what bring people together, and thus selective schools give the opportunity for people from different parts of Sydney to come together and study in an environment along with other people who have similar interests. In relation to selective schools, Anna Patty also states in her article that we need to: "Re-orientate this system to produce not just high-scoring kids, but well-balanced kids that have learnt to think critically, independently, and creatively, who make good use of their talents". The motto of my school is: Equality, Creativity and Excellence, and I feel that Newtown really does enforce its students to think critically, independently, and creatively, as well as encourage them to make good use of their talents. However, I do feel that Anna Patty makes a realistic point, in that this is what the whole education system should be doing for the younger generation of schooling instead of: "Pandering to the mentality of 'get ahead, get a skill, get a degree, get a good job'".
This is a link to my school's website: http://web1.newtown-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/
References:
Patty, Anna. (2010): 'Ethnicity at Selective Schools Provoke Fierce Debate', [Online Article] from:
Ho, Christina. (2011). ‘Respecting the Presence of Others: School Micropublics and Everyday
Multiculturalism’ in
Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol. 32,
No. 6, pp. 603-619.
Newtown High School of the Performing Arts: http://web1.newtown-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/
