The day we turned fairytales upside down
On 7 November, four Year 8 students were chosen to represent our school at the Department of Education, South Western Sydney regional office, Strathfield. The program in which we participated in was called Student Voice.
There was a mix of primary and secondary students from our district including Condell Park High School and Primary, Chullora Primary, Bankstown Primary and many more. We were first greeted by the wonderful employees of the DEC office, each of whom extended a hand of assistance when we needed anything.
We were introduced to Ali, who worked with us throughout the whole day. Together, we engaged in discussing the importance of the word "equity". The questions we asked ourselves were: What is equity? What does it look like? How is it shown out and about in the local community?
We related this new knowledge to some famous fairy-tales including the story of Rapunzel and discussed how the hero is stereotypically portrayed as the one to save the damsel in distress, a heroic and strong character.
We thought outside the box. Why can't we reverse the roles? Make the hero into a woman and save the man instead? We went through each individual fairy-tales and discussed the flaws and inequalities found in each one of them.
At the end of the day our challenge was to create our own fairy-tales showing equality and fairness between characters. We also recorded our plays with a professional studio artist.
Aside from the chance to record and write our own plays, one of the highlights of the day was a game of icebreakers to get to know each other and recognise the things we have in common with each individuals. It was lots of fun to meet other students around our region.
All thanks goes to Mrs Arambatzis who organised this event.
Contributed by: Mariam Hijazi, Wairaka Stewart, Farah Pierzad and Lisa Nguyen 8A