WORLD CULTURES

Welcome to World Cultures for 2025! This subject allows students to make connections and comparisons through a variety of languages and cultures, while also helping them to make sense of their own language and identity. Learning about other cultures and languages encourages students to be inquisitive, build empathy, and allows them to interact and communicate with those around them. Finally, students are able to build on their dispositions of Respect, Inclusiveness and being Learners.

During the first few weeks of World Culture lessons, students learnt about Mrs Mawson and her time living and traveling overseas. Students had the opportunity to share where they have been on holiday and places they would love to visit. Some students shared that they were born in a different country or have lived in another state. 

We then looked at the definition of culture and cultural identity, learning that culture is the shared behaviour and beliefs of a group of people. We found out that different cultures are all around us and not just in different countries. For example, we all have a shared school culture and some students are part of a sports or dance team. When you are part of a group, you share things like traditions, beliefs, clothing and values.

To start exploring identity, we looked at a map of Australia and learnt about Australian cultural diversity with the story ‘I’m Australian Too’ - Mem Fox. Stillwell students interviewed a peer to find out more about each other and Castle and Holly students read ‘Whoever You Are’ by Mem Fox, then drew a picture of themselves. We finished the lesson remembering the following things: Be proud of who you are and what you like; Express yourself and be confident in who you are; Be respectful of other people even if they are different to you.

After this, classes found out the origin of flags and looked at the Australian, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags. They compared these to flags from around the world and observed the features of flags, such as solid colours, simple imagery and shapes. Students used this information and their reflection of self to design a flag which represented their own identity, culture and values. Stillwell students displayed their identity as a picture collage with their values, whilst Castle and Holly students drew a flag using things they like or feel are important to them. These will be going up on display in the Holly learning street and windows.

This week we had a great conversation about the origin of names and middle names, and how they can often come from the name of a family member. We will now be doing some Harmony Week activities and then move onto how Easter is celebrated around the world.

Thank you to all of the families who filled out and returned the ‘Where is my family from?’ home task. We have families who originated from Holland, Germany, Italy, England, Finland, Jersey Channel Islands, Poland, Denmark, Scotland, Malta, Ireland, France, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Wales, Thailand, Greenland, Canada, America, Serbia, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Egypt, Armenia, India, Greece, Murray Island, ancestors from the lands of the Kokatha people, the Banggarla people and the Ngarrindjeri people. We also had some interesting information such as the HEPS Holly Unit was named after Eli, Octavia, Hamel and Keller’s ancestor Sidney Charles Holly, and Gilles Street in Adelaide was named after Max’s great nan’s great grandpa. I am in the process of collating the information to mark important places on our giant world map and look forward to sharing this with everyone.

Lauren Mawson

World Cultures Teacher