English

World Book Day Celebrations

The English Department of AIC, Kewdale High School organised World Book Day Celebrations on 30th June 2021 (Week 11, Term 2) to foster the love for reading amongst children and young adults.

The campus came to life with teachers and students dressed up as their favourite book characters and competing for prizes. Students participated with much enthusiasm in various activities such as Spelling Bee Competitions, Read Aloud Competition and Script Writing Workshop.

The teachers along with the Year 10 student council members also organised a Book Day themed cookie bake-sale, the proceeds of which went towards yearly subscriptions for two magazines for the school library.

Though the rain tried to play spoil sport on 30th July 2021 (Week 2, Term 3) during the awards ceremony, it was no match for the enthusiasm of our Principal Br. Mohammed Nazar Khan, Deputy Principals Sr. Rana Al Baghdadi and Sr. Sehrish Chaalni, the English HOLA Sr. Yasmeen Kareem and the Master of Ceremonies Mr. Michael Phillips, senior English teacher and so, Alhamudillah, everyone enjoyed celebrating the success of the World Book Day events,  applauding the winners and appreciating the effort of all teachers of the English department. 

This is first time that such an event has organised in high school, but our success has encouraged us to make it better next year, in sha Allah.

Reading Is Dreaming With Your Eyes Open

A report of the Book Day events by Year 10 Journalism Elective students Jasmine Elsaafin, Mariama Diallo, Omar Ait Benali, Hudhayfah Kamarul Baharin and Khalid Salih

After an intensive semester filled with tests, what better way to end the term than to have a book dress-up day. We had read-aloud competitions, spelling bees and script writing workshops. The students quite enjoyed being away from work and this event really helped them come forward, participate, enjoy and win prizes.

This year our English Department planned and delivered, but according to them, they promise a more compelling event next year. We can look forward to marking this event as another AIC tradition and the beginning of everlasting fun.

Drama Showcase

• Year 10 Performing Arts Elective

The Year 10 Drama Elective students of AIC Kewdale High School were fortunate to benefit from the expertise of the Theatre Response Group who ran workshops during Semester 1 based on Augusto Boal’s style of drama, Forum Theatre. The students worked with the facilitators Kate Willoughby, Jessie Ward, Nashy MZ and their drama teacher Sr. Yasmeen Kareem to explore issues that were relevant to them. They scripted their own play, comprising two sub-plays and gave their maiden performance in front of their peers on 28th June,2021. The great success of the show, in true Forum Theatre style, were the playback scenes where audience was invited to respond to key moments in the play and also perform on stage.

Fadwa Saleh, who delivered the vote of thanks on the day on behalf of her classmates had this to say:

I would like to personally thank you all for attending the play that we, as a club, have continuously worked on tirelessly this semester. I would like to give my heartfelt gratitude to Kate, Jessie, and Nashy from the Forum Theatre Response Group, for giving us the tools to express the inner aspects of ourselves.

Through your guidance, we have learnt how to express our emotions and concerns in a positive manner. Thank you to Nash for showing us that no matter the religion you follow, you can always thrive in the field of your dreams. Thank you to Jessie for showing us what others could perceive as weaknesses can be our greatest strengths. Thank you to Kate for keeping us on track and making sure we were able to perform our play without any struggles.

I would like to thank Sr. Yasmeen Kareem for chaperoning and guiding our journey time and time again. It must be exhausting to execute the drama club every year, we are a tiring group after all. But you still do a wonderful job every year, Mashallah! Thank you, wonderful Danielle Antaki, Arts and Education Manager Constable Care, for taking time off to watch our performance and encourage us.

I would also like to thank Br Abdullah Khan, Br Mohammed Khan and Sr. Rana Al Baghdadi for giving us the opportunity to perform and giving us the assets and letting use the seminar room to do our play.

Thanks to our amazing coordinator Sr. Meena and the school counsellor Sr. Basma for supporting us. Most importantly, I would like to thank our dear cast, for their magnificent acting skills.

Lastly, I would like to thank you, my wonderful Year 10 friends watching us perform our play and your interactions with the cast.

-Fadwa Saleh

The Toxicity of Beauty Standards

• Article by Mariama Diallo- Year 10 Journalism Elective Student

In a dysfunctional society like today, that many claim to hate, why do we choose to accept social standards of what ‘beauty is supposed to be? Comparing our unique, beautiful selves with an unrealistic photo shopped image? Despite our awareness of camera angles and other trickery, many still subconsciously believe that beauty is defined by these unattainable standards. Although these standards have been around since the 60s. Social standards have never been more exposed to people of all ages. All ages. Often when we are informed of the toxicity of media it is only directed to young people, but it is not only the young that are misled on the meaning of beauty. All around us we see advertisements showing miracle anti-aging creams, skin-resurfacing techniques and hair loss products? So no, the toxicity of beauty standards stops for no age.

We see topics like these advertised and discussed but what we don’t hear about often are the health issues and mental disorders that come with it. “Women are more heavily hit with beauty stand…” Stop… just stop. In fact, woman have it easy when it comes to following beauty standards, don’t like your eyebrows, trim them, don’t like your body, plastic surgery, makeup can cover and transform. Whereas we’ll hardly find a male popping into a clinic because his features are “not up to social standards.” Did you know that one out of ten men that go to the gym have Bigorexia, a mental disorder where one desires to be incredibly muscular? Bet you didn’t know that huh? Do we not realize that half of our fellow teen girls skip meals, smoke cigarettes, vomit and take medicines to control their weight? These actions become habits and can develop into many health conditions. Selling body images of how we’re supposed to look like, hashtag fitspiration.

But how do we limit these influences that are forced on us through marketing, social media and advertisements? First and foremost, stop giving devices to your children at such early ages. A study conducted in The Australian Communication and Media Authority showed that kids as young as six either own a phone or have access to it. Stop doubting your natural selves, you are beautiful without those lip fillers; you are unique, don’t accept body standards. Though advertising and social media can’t take all the blame, even the people that you hang around with like your friends and family can determine your views on beauty, and unlike social media, these people aren’t things to just be deleted, stand up for yourself and talk to them about it. If you feel your feed is influencing you, unfollow, it’s that simple. A benefit of social media platforms is that you control what you see, so if you don’t want to see it. Unfollow. Before you decide to love other people’s body images learn to love yourself, which brings me to my next point, stop trying to be perfect. After all, perfection was created to make us feel imperfect but of course imperfect is the perfect thing to be.

Today’s beauty standards for girls are similar to the features an African- American girl would have. Having big lips, a slim body and so on. It’s annoying that growing up black people we’re meant to feel ugly for having big lips but now everyone wants big lips because Kylie Jenner, a white girl made it popular. For so long black features were not celebrated and now it’s like trying to look as black as possible without actually being black. It angers me that black people will bleach their skin because apparently their too dark. Your skin complexion is beautiful, embrace it.

Normalize being normal and ugly. The idea of body-positive is that all bodies are beautiful which is not true. All bodies are valid and there should not be any emphasis placed on beauty for somebody to feel worth. Saying all bodies are beautiful doesn’t dismantle beauty it actually just places more emphasis on beauty itself and makes it sound like you have to be beautiful to be worth something which isn’t true. Ugly and beautiful should be neutral terms it shouldn’t matter what you look like at all. Your worth is not determined by your appearance. That’s why we should learn self-acceptance because we should accept ourselves radically no matter what we look like. You can be ugly, so if you think you are, own it. What one person thinks is beautiful another person thinks is god- awful and just ugly. It’s not just black and white, obviously, there are somewhat universal beauty standards, but beauty standards are different around the world and if it is different for everyone it shouldn’t matter what society thinks.

We spend so much time trying to be different, trying to be unique. Our nature is to search for answers to life’s questions, concepts we don’t understand, like “What is perfection?” you strive to be “perfect,” a term you don’t understand. You should be yourself before it gets out of hand. Surely happiness is of priority over a word like “perfection,” so ask yourself this, who looks back in your reflection?

Name: Aatika Haqqi (Year 8, Sr. Haseena Majid’s student)
Competition Title: 2021 Schools Poetry and Short Story Competition (by The Write Note)
Place: Top 30 in WA.

If I Could Tell You One Thing about Myself

If I could tell you one thing about myself, it would be the fact that I have the ability to travel to different dimensions. I wasn’t born with this power so how did I get it?

It all started about two months ago. I was swimming along a beach when out of nowhere I got caught in a current leading to the open ocean to a coral reef. It was the most beautiful one I had ever seen. I stayed there for a while, exploring the area until I decided it was getting late. I was almost back to the beach when I thought I saw the sea floor moving. For a moment I wanted to leave it. ‘It was probably refraction, a trick of the light,’ I thought, but my curiosity got the better of me. I cautiously swam forward towards the area I thought shifted. I poked it gently with a finger and suddenly my vision went white as I felt millions of electricity course through my veins. It stopped as quickly as it began and I could feel my body automatically rise to the surface. I turned around just in time to see what caused it – a strangely coloured electric torpedo ray. It was lavender.

As I was walking home, I felt a light tingling sensation in my right wrist. Looking at it, I noticed quite a big burn mark of a similar colour to the torpedo ray I got zapped by. Lavender. This instantly caught my interest but I couldn’t think of it yet. I saved it to ponder over once for I got home and freshened up. Once I did, I felt the sensation grow stronger than ever so I pressed it hard, hoping to relieve it a bit, but instead I found myself in the square room full of portals of some sort. The one behind me was labelled ‘real world’ while all the portals on the other three walls had different labels like, ‘aliens’ and ‘fairies’. I walked through the alien’s portal and it was unbelievably cool. There were hundreds of aliens of all shapes and sizes speaking a very strange language. I wanted to keep exploring but I suddenly felt overcome with exhaustion and wanted to go back, but when I turned around the portal I came through vanished. Panicking slightly, I grab my right wrist as a nervous habit, unintentionally touching the burn mark. I was back in the room, and started feverishly looking around. I noticed the ‘real world’ portal, and ran through it, feeling relief wash over me. It seemed like I had to touch that weird mark which definitely wasn’t a burn mark to do… whatever I just did. ‘I should probably cover it,’ I thought.

This is the great adventure I went through which gave me the awesome power of teleportation to different dimensions. Now I go there whenever I’m bored for as long as I want and it’s fun. I’ve had lots of crazy adventures there and can’t wait for the ones to come.

Aatika Haqqi 

Alysha Ernanto, the newest author in town