Consultations Homepage || Meeting Notes: August 2003
Consultations with NSW primary school students (Years 5 and 6) at 3 Sydney public schools, August 2003
These notes summarise three separate consultations attended by 31 primary school students in Years 5 and 6 from three government primary schools in the Fairfield, Port Jackson and Bondi school districts in the Sydney metropolitan area. The meetings were organised with the assistance of the NSW Department of Education and Training and participating schools. Most students who took part in the consultations were either Muslim or from an Arabic-speaking background. Students were required to obtain permission from their parents in order to take part in the meetings. One or two staff members from each school attended consultations as observers. The meetings were facilitated by Omeima Sukkarieh and attended by Meredith Wilkie or Jane Leverington from HREOC.
1. Experiences of racism and discrimination in school
Each of the consultations began with a role playing exercise designed to encourage students to reflect on the meaning of racism and discrimination. There was some confusion and debate amongst students about the meaning of these terms and how they differ:
“Racism is teasing people about being from a different background. Discrimination covers all the racism so it’s not so obvious.”
“Racism is when a person’s black and the other person is white and they don’t like each other and they tease them about that.”
“It’s not just black and white but also religion and all different kinds of things.”
While few students said they had personally experienced racism or discrimination, many reported that they knew someone who had been a victim of racism, either a member of their own family or a school friend. The students were much more likely to report personal experiences of being ‘bullied’ and many shared examples of bullying behaviour in schools that involved an element of racism. Students also discussed how they were affected by racist incidents which occurred outside of the classroom or schoolyard.
Teasing, jokes and name-calling
Teasing and name-calling by fellow students was the most common form of bullying behaviour experienced by the students. Students described how bullies often picked on their ethnic background, language, religion or their parents’ nationality to put them down and make themselves feel ‘cool’, ‘superior’ and ‘powerful’.
“Other kids say things bad about you mostly at sport when they are mad at you. At soccer when I missed the goal, someone said to me, ‘that Turkey is a turkey!’ [That makes me feel] bad, angry, sad. They say ‘I’m only joking’, but you know when they say it a lot they’re not joking.”
“Other kids call me ‘pyramid’ all the time, but I ignore them. My parents are from Egypt and I was born in Australia. I told the teacher once but the kids think I’m dobbing so they get even more angry ...”
“I get told a lot ‘What! A Bangladeshi!’ It’s like they’re putting your background in a bad spot[light] and that makes you feel really bad…”
“A [non-Lebanese] boy at the school who we used to be friends with always swears in Lebanese at us and says things to us about our parents… He always calls us ‘jahsh’ (which means donkey in Arabic)…He swears in class in front of casual teachers who don’t know what the words mean…We are scared that if we tell on him that he will come after us. He never says anything about our culture. He just keeps swearing at us and calling us ‘Leb c…’ I keep saying to him, ‘Can’t you stop that? We’re not saying anything racist to you’.”
“I get called names too but I get called names because of my parents - they’re Indonesians.”
“One boy teased me and my friend about our country, Lebanon, and when the teacher came it was us who got in trouble. He told us to go the Principal and he listened to us but we still got in trouble and were told not to do it again, because we teased him back. It wasn’t fair because the boy should have gotten in trouble too.”
“There are all kinds of Muslims so why do they always tease us? Like the kid yesterday who said to us ‘All you Lebs suck!’. We told him that there are different Lebanese and Muslims.”
“The Year 6 class watch BTN (Behind the News) and when they reported on Iraq, the kids in the class were laughing at Muslims because they showed the Muslims had died after a bomb and I got angry and said ‘Stop laughing. It’s not funny’.”
“It’s normal for us to get into a lot of fights and it’s normal for us to be teased every day. Everyone picks on us…”
Physical attacks
Teasing and name-calling sometimes escalated into physical attacks. Two young girls of Lebanese background described how constant teasing by a fellow (male) classmate about their ethnic background eventually led to blows.
“The bell rang and the boy hit us and then ran home straight away. When I got home I told my brothers and sisters and they said that if he hits us [again] I should tell the teachers. It’s not good for boys to hit girls.”
“My dad the other day asked, ‘Why do you have bruises?’ I told him that I bumped into the wall but really, that boy hit me. Sometimes he hits me as a joke, but it hurts me.”
“Some people, if you talk about their language or religion, they just bash you but it’s ok if they talk about your language or religion.”
Issues with teachers
There were few reports from students about racist comments from teachers. While most students felt supported by their teachers in the classroom and in the playground, however, several students at one school felt targeted by a particular teacher whom they believed is racist and anti-Muslim.
“A teacher at the school in front of the class said to a Greek boy last year, ‘Stop acting like a black person’. And after September 11 she said out loud that ‘All Muslims were jerks’…”
“When she thinks she hears kids say something she will put them on detention and community service (picking up papers around the playground). The teacher does it to everyone but more to Muslims because of what is happening around the world…”
“I heard her saying, ‘I think it was Muslims who did the Bali bombing…”
“She says things in front of all of us and not just about Muslims…”
2. Responses to racism and bullying in school
Some students responded to bullying by trying to ignore it.
“I ignore them and say ‘shoush up’.”
“I don’t really pay attention to them because if you do they’ll keep on doing it.”
A more common response was to tell someone about what happened or what was happening, usually teachers and/or parents. Generally the students said they would tell their teachers about bullying behaviour, although not on each and every occasion.
“Once I was speaking and another kid said something racist about Muslims and the teacher heard them so she sent them to the principal and talked to him also and I was happy with that.”
“Sometimes if something happens, like we have a fight, we tell the principal and sometimes we don’t do anything about it because we don’t think he’s gonna do anything about it. We want him to talk to the teacher or the kid who is being racist. We want the teachers to do something about it straight away when kids have a problem with someone.”
“Sometimes the teachers understand but a lot of times they don’t because they’re not Muslims and they don’t know how Muslims feel. Sometimes I think that they might even believe that Muslims are terrorists or may feel afraid.”
Some students said that they would not tell a teacher if something happened at all or at least “until it got really bad”.
“We don’t say anything because we are scared that they [the teachers] will tell bad things about us if we complain.”
“I am afraid to tell the teachers because they will blame it on us.”
Few students were aware that they could approach Anti-Racism Contact Officers (ARCOs) about their specific problems. At one consultation, only four of the eleven students knew what an ARCO did and could identify the ARCO at the school. The consultation itself provided the school’s ARCO with the opportunity to publicise her role and encourage students to come and talk about any problems in future.
Students were most likely to tell their parents first about any problems relating to racism or bullying in school.
“If something happened I first tell mum because I feel more comfortable telling her...”
“I would go to mum and dad and they would tell the principal and then the kids would go to detention for bullying.”
While the relationship between parents and schools is generally good, some students explained that the language barrier sometimes made it difficult for their parents to discuss any problems with their teachers.
“Sometimes our parents approach teachers but they don’t speak the language good enough.”
3. Experiences of racism and discrimination outside of school
What happens outside of school impacts on students’ behaviour and attitudes inside the classroom and schoolyard. For this reason, it was important to ask broader questions about the impacts of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment on young people outside of school. Many students reported feeling scared, sad or angry because of what they heard on the news or what was happening to themselves or their families on the street after September 11.
“After Sept 11 and Bali, my mum is scared to go to the shopping centres…”
“My mum wears a scarf …she gets worried to go out to the shops cause she’s scared …It makes me feel scared because I am a Muslim too…”
“My mum’s relatives are in Iraq and my dad’s relatives are in America so it was hard at home.”
“My parents are really affected but they don’t really show it. They just hide it but you can tell…”
“I used to stay with our neighbours with my cousin because they were really nice to us before September 11. But after September 11 they changed and once when we were over at their house I heard them say ‘Muslims are stupid’.”
“When we (the whole family) go out to the beach or a park or something people yell at us and say, ‘Wogs go back to your country’ and everybody starts swearing and they all start having fights and the police come.”
“Yesterday, a girl walks around my flat and she is American and kept calling me names and yelling ‘You dirty Arab!’. Nearly half of the street is filled with Arabic people. She does it all the time but yesterday I tried to ignore it. But when she continued I just got sick of it and hit her. We used to be friends but we weren’t after September 11 - after that the girl now calls me names. During the fight I hurt my arm and when I showed my mum she took me to the doctor to get it checked out. My mum told me to forget about her but I wanted her to be happy for standing up for myself.”
Students were also deeply affected by what they saw and heard in the media about terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.
“I also feel sorry for all the disabled and dead people they show on TV, like that little Iraqi boy who had no legs or those people you can see the blood coming out of them. I felt really sorry for that boy who was in Palestine and he was shot while his dad was trying to protect him from the bullets. That makes me really sad. There are people being killed in our countries too.”
“I just wanted to say that I don’t like it when Muslims are dying and are killed and people don’t make a big deal out of it and when soldiers die they make a big deal out of it. We are all human beings. Why can’t they see that?”
“Everything to do with Muslims is seen as a bad thing. Whenever something bad happens the first thing that comes out of their mouths is ‘Muslim’ [referring to John Howard and George Bush].”
“They [George Bush and John Howard] give them a bad name and then Muslims feel that they have a bad name and that’s not true. It makes people feel like they have a right to say bad things about Muslims. Like kids at school say, especially when we’re playing, they say ‘Get away from them, they’re Muslim’.”
“Muslims are not safe and they are always criticised. Why can’t they just stop showing the war on TV?”
4. Impacts of racism and discrimination on young people
The most common reaction to racism by young people was anger or fear.
“It makes me feel angry when I get teased and sometimes I can’t handle it…”
“When September 11 happened I thought someone was going to attack Australia. I thought they were going to bomb the Harbour Bridge or the Opera House or something.”
“Sometimes news can scare you and they give you exact dates and they predict when things are going to happen, for example there’s a pattern…11/9, 12/10 so then they say it will be 13/11.”
“Everyone at school was scared to go to an excursion to the city.”
“I just want to live in the countryside because it will be safe there, away from the city.”
5. Strategies to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination in schools
In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, a number of schools arranged assemblies or organised condolence books as a way of expressing sympathy with the victims of the attack and to help resolve feelings generated by the extensive media reporting of the event. Such activities were at the discretion of individual school principals. The Deputy Director-General of School Education in New South Wales issued a memorandum to all school principals in NSW on 13 September 2001 asking them to “exercise discretion and care in relation to the constant broadcast and availability of these disturbing images” and reminding them to provide counselling to students if they show signs of distress.
Students who took part in consultations said that their teachers had discussed the terrorist attacks in class and at school assemblies. At one school, students also sent letters to the families of people who had lost relatives and drew pictures in charcoal to represent how they felt about the attacks.
“We talked about what happened on September 11 in class but I wasn’t that comfortable. I felt sad ...”
Most students were glad to have had the opportunity to talk about the terrorist attacks. However, some felt that discussion did not go on for long enough and they wanted to continue talking about the war and terrorism in more depth.
“Once we had to do a project on an issue on current affairs and then talk about it in class and we had to give news about anything but we were not allowed to talk about the war, only happy stuff ... War, Bali, Palestine war, Iraqi war, and every single channel is invaded by war. And teachers on our assignments say ‘Don’t do it on war’.”
Aside from engaging students in the classroom on issues like terrorism and war, schools also offered counselling and conciliation to students when problems arise.
“About a month ago, me and my friends had a big fight with [two other girls] and we started teasing each other and being really racist. One of the teachers saw us and then we all had to meet together in the staffroom and the principal was there too and we talked about what happened. Each of us had a go at talking and we started being friends again ...”
Other school initiatives with broader anti-racist objectives include holding multi-cultural celebrations such as ‘Harmony Day’, encouraging speakers from different community groups to visit the school and speak with students and encouraging students to explore different religions in study of ‘People and Beliefs’.
“We have Harmony Day when we wear orange to represent that we are all one colour.”
“On multicultural day we are given a passport and go around to classes and do different activities from specific countries. For example you learn about other countries and you get your passport stamped.”
“Learning about food, music and dancing in other cultures. It’s a fun way to learn about other cultures.”
“Last year the school had a fair and they have it every year at a park and everyone’s invited to it and it’s fun. Everyone learns about everyone’s culture.”
“We also have a LOTE [Languages Other Than English] Day which is one day in the year where the kids can wear the traditional dress of their country if they want to and they can do a traditional dance too.”
“I wouldn’t wear the traditional dress because it looks funny and that’s not what we wear…”
“I think the dancing is important because even if people laugh at them they learn about other cultures.”
6. What more could be done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination in schools?
When questioned about what they thought should be done to tackle racism and discrimination against Muslims or Arab-Australians, students argued that education, cross-cultural awareness training for teachers and positive political leadership were the key.
“It is important to learn about other religions so that people understand each others’ religions and treat them nicely.”
“You could learn languages like we learn Italian, English and Chinese. It’s interesting because you get to see how they talk and what they believe in and get to know about their culture and it makes you feel good.”
“[They should] teach them [teachers] more about our religion and culture so it could help them understand more about us and help us better too.”
“Politicians should stop saying that Muslims do this and Muslims do this.”
