Breaking Out: Journal of Community, Schools and Social Justice

Editorial

Jo Williams — 2017-03-26

In our first issue of Breaking Out, we signalled the general purpose of this publication: subverting the idea of education as a market value and exploring how education can contribute to empowering those who this market system has disenfranchised. In this issue we hope to continue this conversation.

A Renaissance approach to STEM

David Miller-Stinchcombe — 2017-03-26

The term “Renaissance Man” is used to describe a person with wide ranging skills, combining arts and sciences. But why is it that Renaissance artists, equipped with little more than sail cloth, quarried dirt, and cooking oils are revered as some of the greatest thinkers in history? Is it possible for contemporary students to become scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians, armed with a few art supplies, the desire to create visual art, and the intellectual role models provided by these Renaissance artists?

There is no formula: Teaching maths for social justice

Elena Prieto

I started reading Paulo Freire as an undergraduate student in Spain in the early nineties. At the time, a combination of Silvio Rodriguez and Rage Against the Machine filled the airwaves and our hearts. We, students of mathematics and physics for the most part, read Freire on Friday evenings and gained a sense of change being possible. Freire made me want to teach, and made me believe that education was the key to the liberation of ‘the oppressed’. At the time, I wasn’t sure who the oppressed were, but I was sure I wasn’t one, and being 19 and a fan of Rage Against the Machine, I became convinced that it was my duty to free them.

Pushing back against the squeeze on teachers

Tim Blackman

Early career teachers are struggling and too often the system is failing them and their students. Whilst this article may not be the most uplifting one, it is a conversation we all need to have. To say the last two years as a teacher have had their ups and downs is an understatement. The ups in this rollercoaster ride were the actual teaching and the downs a result of the schooling system.

Speak up!

Ebony Moncrief

I believe the purpose of education, the goal of it all, is human development
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Becoming an activist teacher: Learning from Timor Leste

Lyndall Judd

I often felt like I was a bit of a tourist: ever the onlooker, keen to see the sights, have some thrills, applaud others and do bits and pieces to keep busy. My adult years were spent working in art schools, waitressing, selling second-hand books, working in aged and disabled homecare, and high-level administrative positions for the NSW government (the later providing a bird’s eye view of the reckless state of affairs for the haves and the have-nots). The weary moment came, I wanted the comfort of home, I had seen too much and the discomfort was beginning to be palpable. Like so many educated white girls, I was not groomed to be a fighter, I was groomed by society to guard my piece of the pie with a nonchalant air of entitlement and to try and look good in the process. I was groomed by society to acquiesce, to please others first, to display some shining wit, to marry and to climb a social and material ladder. I found myself on the wrong side of the culture of power despite the opportunities granted me, despite my skin colour and my fluency in navigating according to the subtle cues of the dominant culture.

The school costs that noBody addresses

Lea Campbell

At the start of each year, getting essential school items becomes a national sport for parents and students. However, the ability to afford these essential items is decreasing, most obviously for low income families who suffered the greatest loss when the Schoolkids Bonus was phased out in July 2016. This loss of affordability throughout the community needs to be a continuing concern to everyone who thinks there needs to be a community standard of public school provision, access, equity, equality and fairness.

Plays from the ‘dark arts playbook’: A school campaigner’s firsthand account

Anonymous Anonymous

Imagine this: your child starts at the local public school, and all seems peachy until you realise that due to a number of factors, your kid’s school is fast filling up. You notice that it is also happening at all the local schools. Public school closures, rapidly rising student enrolment numbers, pop-up portable classrooms all point to a perfect storm of overcrowding and under-provisioning of public education - surely this situation could not be going on un-noticed by those who are charged with the administration, care and oversight of public education in our state?

Decolonizing Voluntourism in Mexico

Mayela Reyes Puente

Voluntourism has been a hot topic in the development sector for the last years. After a boom in people trying out “hands-on” experiences in “third world” countries, it seems that it is the sexiest option for young people to improve their student experience and achieve “world citizen” credentials. In this submission, more than simply adding another critical voice against voluntourism and the international programs that are created to support an unequal structure based on “white saviours”, I want to share my experience in the field as the international volunteer programs coordinator in University of Monterrey (UDEM) in Mexico.

Comprehending Trump’s Secretary of Education

Kenneth J. Saltman

President Donald Trump’s appointment of Betsy Devos as the United States Secretary of Education was confirmed by the US Senate in February 2017. I would like to briefly provide some context for making sense of the Devos appointment.