We explored migration through Biblical stories, a museum visit, and a reenactment of Australia’s historical immigration policies, culminating in students researching and retelling personal migrant stories.
Are you a migrant? It was interesting to note that many of the students in Year 6B are children of migrants. Out topic this term for History is Migration. We started off our learning by considering various migration stories in the Bible. When we looked at the reasons for migration, we noticed that a lot of these migrations were orchestrated by God. This helped us gain a broader perspective of migration, as it is not just about the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors but about God moving people to places for the purpose of building His kingdom.
In order to further immerse ourselves in migration stories, our class visited the Maritime Museum in Fremantle. There, we investigated the stories of various migrants. It was a cleverly designed program that took the students on a migrant’s journey and had them look at various artefacts to piece together migration stories. It was a full day out and the students were happy to conclude the excursion on the Esplanade playground.
Following this, we learnt about Australia’s migration policies. Did you know that one of the first laws passed through Federal Parliament, following Federation, was the Immigration Restriction Act more commonly known as the White Australia policy. As the name suggests, the purpose of this policy was to prevent Asian immigration. In class, we reenacted how this was done. I had several students line up to see if they would be allowed to enter Australia. The ones that were clearly of European descent were welcomed without any questions. However, my students of Asian descent were asked to write a dictation test which could be administered in various European language. As it turned, all my Asian students failed the test. The Dictation Test was in fact designed to prevent Asian migration and had a 100% failure rate. As a class, we spent some time reflecting on the question of racial discrimination and how this is clearly contrary to what the Bible teaches us.
The students have since commenced investigating a migrant’s story. They have collected their primary evidence via an interview and are doing some additional research, so that they can accurately retell their migrant’s story. Some have chosen family members, and it is lovely to see them engage in this authentic historical inquiry. We can look forward to reading or viewing our young historian’s migration stories.
From a migrant,
Mr Justin Bolhuis
