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Any teacher found to be politicising a classroom will face disciplinary action .
Photo : Tim Hunter
No place for politics
Minister orders review into Sydney school over Black Lives Matter posters .
By Dallas Bastian
ASydney school has been accused of brainwashing students after they created Black Lives Matter and police brutality posters as part of a pre-learning activity .
The posters at Lindfield Learning Village , which included phrases like “ stop killer cops ” and “ justice now ”, also prompted NSW education minister Sarah Mitchell to ask the department to undertake a review into the primary school to determine if any disciplinary action was required .
Some phrases used , like “ we can ’ t breathe ”, echoed those heard in Black Lives Matter protests in the US and Australia , sparked in part by the death of George Floyd . A jury recently convicted former police officer Derek Chauvin of his murder .
That same day NSW police minister David Elliott told 2GB the school “ let its student body down by indoctrinating and brainwashing them ”.
“ We are supposed to be teaching these kids the history of Australia is one of tolerance , sacrifice and courage and then we get this crap dished up to us ,” Elliott said .
“ We get half-witted educators thinking they ’ re too smart by teaching our kids police have done something wrong … they are the pillar of our society .”
Another poster featured an Aboriginal flag and featured the words “ help black lives by donating and staying safe ”. This month marked 30 years since the final report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was tabled . Since then there have been 474 Aboriginal deaths in custody .
In a letter to parents , principal Stephanie McConnell provided context for the posters . She explained that they were created in February as part of a prelearning activity aimed at identifying what Year 5 and 6 students knew before they started studying contemporary Aboriginal history .
“ As part of their critical thinking , students were asked to write down all the issues they have heard from the mainstream news , other information sources or commentary . The comments on the posters were not taught to students .”
She added that the exercise should have been handled differently and apologised for the offence caused .
The materials have since been removed from the school .
Education minister Mitchell said the posters should not be displayed in classrooms .
“ Any teacher found to be politicising a classroom will face disciplinary action ,” she said in a statement .
“ Political activism has no place in a school .”
President of the Northern Sydney district council of Parents & Citizens associations , David Hope , said he was disappointed the posters had caused an uproar with little information available about how they had come about , The Sydney Morning
Herald reported .
“ It ’ s unfortunate that this has become an issue ,” Hope said . “ The school has always been a bit of target of the people that don ’ t like change .”
Lindfield Learning Village has made headlines since its opening for its unique approach to learning .
The school has learning spaces instead of classrooms , students wear no uniforms and call teachers by their first names and there are no bells . “ There are a lot of assumptions that we bring as teachers and as experienced teachers and just as people who have experienced school , and school as we know it in our childhood is needing to change for a number of really key reasons . For our staff they co-teach in the learning spaces and teaching traditionally is a very private occupation , surprisingly enough ,” McConnell said in a 2019 interview with outgoing secretary of the NSW Department of Education Mark Scott .
“ For our teachers not only is it learning different ways of teaching but when we talk about being a school that has individualised student learning at the heart of what we do – and that is for me the Holy Grail of what we are chasing – it implies that there needs to be a change in the nature of the way we teach . So it is something that we encourage staff to question and to think about and to consider every day and reflect on the changes that they might make .”
Scott said in the interview that the approach has “ proven already to be extremely popular with students and parents ”. ■ educationreview . com . au | 3