Australian Overall Essay

In this essay, we are going through important issues about Australia, such like music and arts, literature, myths, food and recipes, pastimes and the issue of most importance in Australia according to me; Education. I think Australia has done a good work on every issue mentioned above, but they are the greatest on Education.

Australians have a lot to say about music and arts. Australian Indigenous art is the oldest ongoing tradition of art in the world. Every piece of art work of Indigenous culture was collected by anthropologists and then they took it to museums or universities, not art galleries. All changed in the early 1960s, when a Place called Panpuya Tula was established. It is a community of Indigenous artists that collected they art together. They were the inspiration and model for many other Indigenous artists’ collectives. By 2009 there was 42 desert Indigenous art communities represented by Desart. The movement was seen as a way to keep the Indigenous culture alive. 

Ceremonial performances are seen as the core of Indigenous cultural life. These ceremonies bring together all aspects of their culture like song, dance, body decoration, sculpture and painting. Indigenous people gathered together at large ceremonies and exchanged songs and dances. They took advantage of those moments to exchange goods. These gathering often occurred at a time and place when there was plenty of food. Ceremonies are the birthplace of Indigenous songs, music, dance and visual arts. These expressions of arts and music were extremely important to Aboriginal people because through these expressions they depicted dreaming stories and they pass their history to next generations. 

Arts and music are still an important issue in Australia nowadays. Australia is home to a vibrant community of artist like painters, photographers, glassblower, sculptors and digital and multimedia artists that have been working in a wide variety of genres and styles. Australia has many art galleries, museums and libraries holding more than 60 million items and an estimated 20.000 working artists. There are also a lot of music and multi-arts festivals.

It is evident that Indigenous arts and music were extremely important at ancient times but they are still important today and Australia has done a good work taking care of it. It has evolved through time but not died in the process. Nowadays, Australia is evidently a country with artistic consciousness. There are multi-arts festivals all year long in different parts of the country. It is the birthplace of many artists that has international recognition. It is clear enough, that Australia is indeed an Artistic country.

There is a unique literature in Australia. I’m talking about the one that came from the bush. To Australians the bush means a lot. It was a unique feature of Australian landscape that differenced them from Europeans, which had green and prosperous landscapes. It was home of many immigrants and Australian families. ­It became the icon of Australian rural life, which was a hard one. The bush life is generally associated with hardship, unemployment, poverty, hunger and a lifestyle totally opposed to the European. Many Australian were immigrants who have came from Europe to Australia and found themselves living in the bush. They embraced the bush because it was a self-identity icon. Soon it was romanticized and its spirit still remains strong in Australian folklore. 

The Bulletin was a magazine which its politics and ideology reflect the bush people mindset on that time. It was very popular among miners, shearers and timber-workers from all over Australia. The bulletin soon was known as “The Bushmen bible”. The Bulletin was the cradle of the bush literature and its artists. The bulletin encouraged an Australian romantic nationalism that was reflected in this literature, which main expression was the poetry. The Scottish style ballad was the favorite genre of this new poetry.

Through years and Wars the Bulletin went through several changes, and the essence of Bush literature began to vanish. But its influence has remained because it was the first of pure Australian literature that ever existed. All literature in Australia before the bush literature was influenced by European or other countries authors. Also it has artistic merit due to it origins, which were humble and not from upper class like other countries literature artists. Australian literature will always have a debt with the Bush literature and all its national literature is influenced by it because it started all that can ever be called Australian literature.

About Australian myths, the ones that relate to the Universe creation and natural laws have established this people rule of human behavior since these myths were accepted as facts of absolute truthfulness. The Times in which these tales took place is called “Dreamtime” and due to the variety within Australian aboriginal tribes, dreamtime is not the same for all aboriginal tribes.

Some aboriginal tribes told this version of the creation story. In Dreamtime Great Spirit Ancestors came out of the earth and created all the things they know. It was the beginning of time and the beginning of knowledge. In the time before time, or dreamtime, the Earth was dark and silent. The Great Spirit Ancestors slept underground, until one day they woke and broke through to the surface. The sun then came up of the ground and the Earth had light for the first time.

The Ancestors began to travel around, and on their journeys they created the landscape, the mountains, rivers, trees, waterholes and plains. They made the tribes of people who became their descendants and taught them how to survive as well as the laws by which this people lived. They made all the animals; they also made water, fire, air, the moon and the stars.

The Ancestors were so tired after creating everything that they laid down to rest and sank back into the ground again. But their spirits stayed on the Earth. They went into particular rock and trees and other parts of the landscape. These things and places were very special, people believed they were sacred and could only be visited and seen by men who had learned about the Ancestors.

Every country has its own food and recipes! Australia has a lot of traditional meals, which has been created by the people who settled in the country as the colonial societies and the indigenous people. One of the most beautiful things about Australia is the coastline, which means that there is plenty of seafood. Traditional meals include beef, cattle, sheep, and wheat, which were strongly influenced by the British and Irish, and as well it has fast food which is a common meal for many Australians.

Due to the British tradition, different varieties of meals were introduced. Roast dinners became a meal to the typical family along with Australian meat pies and fish with chips. Occasionally the nice outdoor barbeque, also known as a treasured national tradition, was a meal that Australians got to love. 

Vegetables are very important to Australian traditional meals. The general type of vegetables eaten are; Artichoke, Asparagus, Bean shoots, Beetroot, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Cucumber, Leek, Lettuce, Mushrooms, Peas, Rhubarb, and Spinach which are found during spring and Capsicum, Cucumber, Eggplant, Squash, Tomato and Zucchini.

Australians usually sell food in street or outside large retail place in order to raise money for a charity or people in need. This stands usually sells fried onion served on a slice of bread with barbecue sauce or tomato sauce on it.

About drinks, Billy tea is an old traditional drink prepared boiling some water and placing a few gum leafs inside to give it a little bit of flavor. Australians drink this tea since the colonial period. Also beer is a part of every Australians diet, there is nothing more relaxing for an Australian to open a beer after a nice Australian meal, put their feet up and relax.

Australia has the third largest fishing zone in the world so Australians has access to many different types of seafood. There are many lakes, rivers as well as oceans and bays were Australian fishers can go to catch seafood. There are over 600 varieties of seafood species that can be caught in the country and then sold.

A very important meal for Australians is breakfast, which usually consists of a toast with something light on it, such as vegemite (a traditional Australian food paste made of yeast), cereal and fruit. Along with this they drink a glass of juice, milk, tea or coffee.

The evening meal, which is also known as the meal of the day, is generally consumed at home with all the family members at the table, it is also a great time for the family to catch up and talk. The main food consumed is roast meat and vegetables, pasta, pizza, casseroles, barbecued meat, salad, soup and stir-fries.

Australia has many traditional meals, including, cakes, burgers, sausages, barbeques, biscuits, fast foods and drinks such as beer and wine. All meals are a large part of an Australians life and a daily part of it. It has changed a lot from the aborigines to the 20th century although each cuisine dish is as unique as the other.

Australian loves pastimes. Australian has preference on three mayor sports. These are Cricket, Rugby and North American Football. They play Cricket in the summer, Rugby in the winter and Football between March and September and Australians have its own rules for football, they call it Australian Rules football.

Aussies love to paint, and with the diversity of landscapes that Australia offer, there are a lot of outdoors painting classes. It is a usual thing to see old aged people having painting classes at a park or at any viewpoint.

Other Aussies love collecting stuffs, it is a usual thing to see when visiting some friend that someone of his or her family collects some kind of things and he or she would be pleased to show you the collection.  Aussies might collect stamps, paintings, books, antique items, even rocks. Everything you can imagine, there is a museum of that in some Australian folk house.

Another major point of interest among Australian is Theme Parks. Fun and Theme Parks are abundant in Australia because Aussies love them. Just about every city in Australia has one or two theme parks. There are parks for fun and with rides to enjoy but there is also Zoos. Australians love to visit and walk among the animals due to its fauna appreciation culture. There are also water parks, with classical wet slides, these ones are a favorite for kids and adults on summer time. But there are more parks; Australians even have show parks like the Australian Outback Spectacular where they go to see real Australian talent. There are so many parks in Australia that you would spend days trying to visit them all, ride every ride, slide on giant water slides, pet all the animals or sit back and enjoy a great show.

The young Aussies weekends are spent doing any number of pastimes, dancing, gardening, hiking or bushwalking, scuba diving, horse riding or just spending time with friends enjoying a glass of wine or a beer around the barbeque.

Australians hike, trek and bushwalk all over the country, because there is no other part in the world where can you walk and come face to face with marsupials like the Aussie kangaroos or find a koala sitting in a gum tree. Hear the cockatoo’s screeching or the famous kingfisher, the kookaburra, laughing. Not to mention the fantastic untouched wilderness scenery, the long deserted beaches and the views from mountain tops where next to no one has been before.

“Mention any pastime and Australian’s are likely into it – it’s that simple” I would say that it is true. Australians do everything and they have forged a culture in which pastime are respected and spread. Also, the country lands are perfect to perform any pastime you want either Australian or a pastime brought in from any other part of the world. If you can imagine it, you can do it, Australians know about that, can you picture yourself doing any Chilean activity on Australia? I do.

And now it brings me to the most important issue about Australia according to my study on this country. My overall opinion about Australia is that the country has done things pretty well, but this is all because of Education. Education is the most admirable issue about Australia.

 According to the Australian government, when planning their goals on education they try to emphasize the practical nature of public education and embrace education as a comprehensive process of the student. What does this statement means is that classes do not limit up to lessons inside a class room but goes farther. That teacher must give students notions about how to apply what they have just learned on real life. That student must understand that all subjects are linked together as a whole no matter that they study them separated. That everyone above the student within an educational institution must treat students as an individual in a learning process that goes from classes subjects to values and everything among those two.

At first sight it may seems obvious and you might think that every school should think that way and that they actually do, but probably that’s not true. Although theoretically they should act and think that way, the reality is that most schools and educational institutions have other priorities than students and their learning process.

In April 1999, State, Territory and Commonwealth Ministers of Education met as the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs in Adelaide. At that meeting, Ministers endorsed a new set of National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century. The new goals were released in April 1999 as The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century. In this declaration, they emphasize the importance of School education as a basic feature of future citizens, taken it as knowledge, values and skills. They also insisted on the school education role as a learning community in which parents, students and teachers must cooperate together.

They are also constantly trying to improve teaching profession status and quality, to develop new evaluations systems and educational accreditation. So, Australia educational system is always moving forward, they do not stop and keep doing the same over the years but constantly trying to improve and change.

Australia is an example on higher education. Its model has gone beyond because it presents achievements that attract attention to other countries. In example, they included technical and vocational education on high school and this is a common point with Chilean educational system, the difference lay on the attendance and permanence on class rooms which in Australia actually increased. Bad quality workshops and unmotivated teachers might be factors responsible of Chilean bad results. But Australia good results go further; with this system they also reduced youth unemployment,  

Students from other countries are going to Australia to study; currently 65 thousands young foreign students are studying in Australia. Language teaching on Australia is also encouraged with priority on these languages; aboriginal languages, Arab, French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Thai and Vietnamese. Together with that, Asian languages are now being encouraged, specially Japanese, Indonesian, Korean and Mandarin.

Why Australian educational system is so admired? Because this system has more benefits to students than any other; it generates in every student an independent study style, it is an extremely flexible system and the practical use of information is their principal priority in the learning process. When giving priority to students over money something good must happen, and that’s why Australian education system is so successful.

I think that Australia has grown with a great development, but they performance on education is breath-taking. Australia educational system is an example for every country and with a good education the country will grow in every aspect like the ones mentioned above in this essay. If a country makes and effort on education such like the effort that Australians do, that country is just going to be better and better.