My Personal Experiences of Culture & Identity in the Classroom.

Part of the course, primarily the first few weeks, focused on the topics of culture and identity and their place in the classroom. Drawing on the knowledge gained from studying these topics in this course, It has allowed me to see my current and past experiences in the classroom from a different perspective.


During my time in classrooms I have seen two distinct cultures of learning. Firstly, that being my own where there is a large (and sometimes overwhelming!) influence to be motivated to be academically 'successful'. And the other, from what I have seen during my (albeit slightly short) time on my APE (Alternative Professional Experience) at a high school in South-Western Sydney, not too far from my own.



My own high school experiences of classroom culture were, as previously mentioned, focused on academic excellence. This driving force in the students primarily originated from the parents, who consisted mostly of immigrant families, pushing for their children to excel in school and subsequently university in their perceived outcome that would result in a secure, respected and well-paying occupation.

Now to compare this to what I have observed at the other high school, where I am currently undertaking my APE. The school is primarily services a public housing estate in its immediate vicinity, and has quite a low ICSEA value. From my first hand experiences many of the students do indeed have aspirations for a certain career path with varying degrees of feasibility and opportunity research done while on the opposite end of the spectrum there are some students that have no ideas of what to pursue when they finish their schooling at the end of year 10,11 or 12. I do not have any observations or data on the success rate of the school's students in achieving their aspirations.

Now for the issue that I see raised here, is that in many political educational policy announcements they focus on, what I have also learnt about previously in the course, social justice in the forms of opportunity and to some degree outcome. The simplest and most common solution by government tends to be to allocate proportionately more funding to the school to attempt to counteract any socioeconomic disadvantage that the students have. The fundamental flaw in this, which I have observed heavily in the younger students (Years 7 & 8), is that they dont care very much for school or the value of an education. The perceived problem of underpeforming students in socioeconomically disadvantaged schools cannot be solved by throwing money at the problem. After all, all the funding possible is useless if it is not being effectively utilised by the students or if the students are disinterested or disconnected from an education. It falls upon the lowest level, the school and its staff (both teaching and support), to make up for this by motivating students academically. But yet again, another pitfall within this is that not every teacher is wholly driven to drive their students to succeed academically. Perhaps this is a statement about the effectiveness of teachers in lower socioeconomic schools, or just an observation of a culture of disinterest in the students of a low socioeconomic background. In either case, funding is not the answer.