Students dressed in burqas as part of conducting their lesson
Instead of the usual speech with PowerPoint assessment task that had been done the previous 5 years or so, the class and I changed the task to be conducting a lesson to the rest of the class individually or in pairs. The topic is Intercultural Communication and the task was to focus on learning a culture in another country. There have been four lessons so far. All have been very interesting and engaging. Students have embraced the concept wholeheartedly.
We’ve had a student teach about how to overcome having stereotypical perceptions of other cultures, using Chinese and Australian stereo types as a demonstration. She had Chinese rice biscuits as rewards for students who contributed to discussion.
Eating butter chicken in class
We’ve removed shoes to eat butter chicken and rice with our fingers off banana leaves while a general comparison of India and Australia was presented. We’ve had a student check for preconceived notions of people in Iran, focusing on the Arts, language, cinema and in particular women and then proceeded to dispel those myths. The last one, to date, was by two girls who came to class dressed in homemade burqas. I teach in a Christian school on the north shore/northern beaches of Sydney. It is a very anglo-saxon community. The girls’ idea was that we shouldn’t judge about the wearing of burqas in Australia when we hadn’t even met someone who wore one. Even though the class knew who were under the burqas they were awkward and some laughed to cover the embarrassment. They conducted an excellent lesson without getting the giggles (which I was afraid they would do) and then walked around in the playground at recess for 5 minutes. They were so buzzed by the experience they raced to tell me about it and I asked them to write a reflection. They did:
Reflection on wearing the burqa
Wearing the burqa around the school completely changed both of our perspectives and opinions on wearing the burqa. Not including the lesson, we wore the burqa for roughly 4-5 minutes in the playground. During this small amount of time a few different things happened. As we first stepped out of the classroom and into the year nine quad we got shouted at with comments such as ‘terrorists’ as well as being on the receiving end of judgemental and disapproving stares. The year nine quad was by far the worst in terms of racist comments, as well as harsh and hurtful ones as well.
We then progressed to go where our group sits and then directly to the office. Although no comments were yelled directly to us, we received judgemental and harsh looks from both students and teachers alike.
As we walked into the office to get changed the office staff as well as other faculty members that were in the office gave us both quizzical and disapproving looks before they found out that it was us. As we were getting changed back into our school uniform, one staff member even commented, ‘I didn’t know who you were or what you were hiding under there,’ which was yet another example of the stereotypical, disapproving attitudes that were shown in regard to the burqa. Once we were fully changed back into our school uniforms the office staff merely laughed and shrugged off their previous attitudes towards us.
The only people who were not judgemental of us wearing the burqa were the teachers and students who knew that we were underneath them and what our purpose for wearing them was. The teachers who knew that we were underneath gave us encouraging comments like how good our costumes were and ‘good on us’ for walking around wearing the burqas. Our friends who saw us underneath the burqas simply laughed and were egging us on. However, through all the laughs, a sense of disproval was still being sensed even though people knew it was us underneath the burqas.
Some other teachers made discreet comments about the burqa and their discontentment was obvious. The same can be said about the students.
Wearing the burqa for that five minutes or less was a really big eye opener for us. It gave us a great sense of respect for the women who openly choose to wear the burqa and a great deal of sadness towards the women who are forced to wear the burqa. If all of those nasty comments and looks was what we received in five minutes in a school playground, we could barely imagine what it would be like walking around all day, seven days a week in the general public.
This really gave us a whole new perspective on the burqa and opened our eyes up to really how harsh people’s attitudes can be towards the burqa. It definitely is going to make us think twice before we judge a woman wearing a burqa.
I had tears in my eyes when I first read this. This is why I teach. These girls were considered trouble when they were in Year 10 last year. Look at them now!
They even made the burqas themselves
