By CHARLENE MACAULAY
THE West is known for being a cultural melting pot – but how much of that culture is being embraced in the classroom?
That’s the question Victoria University teacher educator Sarah Tartakover asked when doing her PhD.
The result is a short film called Classroom Conversations Around Culture, where Ms Tartakover followed some of her pre-service teaching students as they went into their final teaching round at schools across the West.
She also asked the pre-service teachers about culture and identity, and how that impacts on their classroom practice.
Ms Tartakover said the short film was intended as a resource to promote conversations around culture and identity — how they play out in the classroom.
“Culture, identity and racism can be messy as well as confronting, and it’s important we have ongoing discussions about them,” she said.
“I’m become really aware of the assumptions people make around skin colour.
“As a white Australian, I’ve never experienced discrimination, and I know that’s not true for one of the people in the film.
“Abdul is from an Ethiopian background, and he talks about the discrimination he’s experienced as a Muslim.”
Ms Tartakover said it was important to embrace culture in the classroom.
“It’s about recognising that all children come from different cultures and being aware of how our own culture informs teaching and the kinds of things we read.
“When I think back to my childhood, it wasn’t included in the curriculum at all – it was a very white Anglo curriculum and when we learnt about Indigenous history, we learned about boomerangs and Aboriginal people in huts, it was the absolute stereotype of Aboriginal people being primitive, and it was shocking.
“It’s vitally important that teachers recognise the richness of their students’ cultural identities and bring that into the classroom.”
Classroom Conversations Around Culture will premiere at Yarraville’s Sun Theatre on 20 June at 4.30pm.
