The Study of Western Culture took on a very different look this year for the students in Years 9 and 10.
Moving mostly within the 20th century rather than looking back to antiquity, Year 9 explored the History of Rock Music in 1st Semester and Politics in Sport in the second Semester. The History of Rock looked at Rock music from its beginnings in black American blues to the Rock music of the present day whose style ranges from Rap to the type of instrumentally complex music played by bands such as Dream Theatre.
In Second Semester, Year 9 explored the murky relationship between politics and sport. Through the film, Lagaan, a documentary on the Wallabies who refused to play in the series against South Africa in Australia in 1971 and a further documentary on the Israelis’ obstruction of the movements of the Palestinian Soccer team in the 1990s, students were able to see that sometimes it is not that easy to take politics out of the sporting arena.
Year 10 had an even more eclectic year. They too studied the History of Rock but the other sections of their course were more varied. They explored military virtues as they are portrayed in The Illiad and the Australian film Breaker Morant (even though at times the virtues in the latter film are liberally mixed with defects) and racism as portrayed in the film The Colour Purple.
The study of these varied topics opens up unexpected horizons to our young people who in the present culture are urged more and more to think of the society they live in as simply given and not having been fought for or prepared by those who went before us.
John Williams
Head of Study of Western Culture