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A faded anti-smoking mural at an inner city high school now serves as a relic of its once working class past.
Waratah Hill High, a public high school that’s gone through several name changes and reorganisations over the years, considers its mural at the back of the basketball courts to be a nod to its once gritty past.
Like many of Australia’s inner city areas, Waratah Hill High’s population has changed drastically over the years, but their “Break the habit” mural suggests things weren’t always like this.
Mr. Konstantopoulos (72), a veteran teacher of 38 years at the high school recalls a time when kids taking 6 months off from school wasn’t for an immersive French language exchange in Aix-En-Provence, but for a 6 month sentence at a juvenile detention centre.
“Things were different back then, the local bus route was organised by the PCYC and family feuds in the housing commissions would often spill into the playground” Mr. Konstantopoulos said before exhaling cigarette smoke.
“These kids have no idea how much of a war zone this place used to be”
The mural, which features faded Indigenous art works and broken cigarettes with the text: “break the habit”, was painted in 1994 by members of the now discontinued “On Track” class.
“Plenty of trouble makers In that class, I remember it well” Mr. Konstantopoulos recounted.
“On Track”, a non-HSC subject that taught students basic life skills and the dangers of gangs, drugs and anti-social behaviour, was a popular subject at Waratah Hills High during its pre-gentrification years – usually chosen by the students’ police ordered social worker.
“I did think it was a little odd getting the kids who had the biggest problems with graffiti vandalism and cigarette smoking to paint the mural, but that’s how we did things back then”
In recent times, many of the alumni of Waratah Hills High have gone on to become well known figures in the creative world, despite this, Mr. Konstantopoulos finds that more often than not he will boast to friends that he used to teach infamous bank robbers and international drug smugglers that got done in Indonesia rather than some successful artists.
