Patrick Balzen

Background

About Patrick Balzen

I am an emerging historian and Teacher Education Student at Macquarie University having commenced a Masters of Teaching (Secondary) in February 2022. My two teacher areas are Modern History and Ancient History. I have undertaken two Professional Experience Placements at Our Lady of Mercy College Parramatta and one at Trinity Grammar School at Summer Hill. In May 2022, under the supervision of Mr Ben Walsh I taught Year 11 Modern History, Year 11 Ancient History and Years 9-10 Junior History at OLMC Parramatta. In October 2022, supervised by Ms Denise Whitten at Trinity Grammar School, I taught Year 12 Modern History and Year 9 History. I am currently undertaking my final Placement towards my TPA with Mr Jared Palmer at OLMC Parramatta. I previously commenced a career in law before the pull of history and making an impact of the manner we teach history in Australia became too much. I am passionate about revising history in Australian schools and providing an avenue for students to write their own histories contingent upon being exposed and taught about the more troubling aspects of Australian history and wider more inclusive narratives. I am strongly passionate about social and cultural history. This began with a foray into mental illness and poverty during the Calvinist and Lutheran Protestant Reformations in Europe. At the University of Sydney in 2017, I examined how mental illness and poverty presented itself in society and the subsequent religious, cultural and social isolation and exclusion of the impoverished and suffering under the supervision of Assoc. Professor Nicholas Eckstein and Professor Andrew Fitzmaurice. My current focus is on the history of certain emotions and concepts tied into mental illness and persecution and hope to publish my principal work in 2023. Currently, I am working as a Support Worker for Concept Care endeavouring to make lives easier, more wholesome and fulfilled for people with disabilities across Sydney.