6 Times Redfern Cleverly showed us Not All Beliefs Are Respected.

Joel Shields is a sixteen-year-old boy who just won an Indigenous scholarship to on one of Sydney’s best school, Clifton Grammar. At Clifton Grammar, the morning starts with a whole a school assembly where the Australian National Anthem has to be sung. Joel didn’t join in. In this scene, it is shown that a teacher is talking to Joel about why he wasn’t singing. Joel says, “ I don’t know the words sir”. Yes we know that what he stated was true, but by his facial expressions, deep inside, mentally he couldn’t sing it.

During the discussion with the teacher about Joel not signing the national anthem because he doesn’t know the lyrics, he got set homework to write a page about the advance Australia fair and learn the national anthem. In this scene, he show’s his dad what he got set to do. Judging by his facial expression in the scene, his father didn’t think it was worth doing it. In fact he even says “it. He also convinces Joel to stand up for himself and do what’s right.

After completing the homework and having a chat to his dad about doing what he believed in, at the next assembly he took his dad’s words into consideration and decided to sit down and not participate in singing the National Anthem because he felt that was right. In this scene, the camera angle slowly zooms in on Joel sitting down while the other students are singing, which is heard throughout it. He is standing up for his beliefs and what he think is right by sitting down to prove it to the school, teachers and principle.

As for Joel not obeying school rules multiple times and not singing the National Anthem, a meeting was organised with his parents, the principal, a teacher and an Indigenous Australian staff member. His mother begs for Joel to co-operate in singing it for education purposes and at one stage Joel says, “ I don’t want to get in anymore trouble, so I want to sing the National Anthem but I tried to sing the National Anthem and I can’t”. As for him not changing his decision, it resulted with him getting expelled from the school with a clear symbol that not all beliefs are respected.

Joel and his family decided that what the school did was too much and decided to take action. In this scene, a security guard and the principal are basically kicking Joel out of the school and a photographer takes a photo of it. This happened as after he got expelled, he returned back to the school as if nothing ever happened and his parents knew that if he did that, he would obviously get kicked out so they hired a photographer to take a photo and put it in the paper. When this occurred the principal eyebrows raised then dropped showing that she was shocked.

After all the hard work and effort Joel and his family put in to stand up for his rights and to get his education back, he finally won. This scene is set in a brightly lit environment in the classroom, with Joel returning, ready to learn. Everyone looked very happy to see him back, and happy at the fact he won back his education. The moral of the story is to not give up on fighting for your rights and not to let others in power judge your beliefs.