Some of you people who live here in Australia and bag Anzac Day where our dads and grandads fought for your lousey freedom ought to just go else where to live because your the shameful. Of course kids should learn about their history.
They should be taught to respect our flag and even sing Go Save the queen would not hurt them. They need to learn to be proud and respect something because there sure isnt much respect going round from the parents.

"students are also taught that “knowledge is always tentative”, that they should “deconstruct dominant views of society”, “critique the socially constructed element of text” and “how privilege and marginalisation are created and sustained in society”.

Forget the ideal of seeking truth and developing a disinterested understanding of the world.."

Don't you think deconstructing dominant views could be seeking the truth, Kev, or are dominant views always correct? Why are you feeling so threatened? Truth is what it's all about, but maybe your truth isn't as disinterested as you would like to think.

The essential problem is that many historians have become self-conscious storytellers rather than truth-tellers. A new profession is being created... the mythistorian. See an account of this development here:

http://humbugonline.blogspot.com/2005/12/junk-history-iii-mythistorian-reviews.html

Barney:

I completely agree that history should be examined, half truths put under the microscope and myths 'busted'. However all post modernism has done is create a climate of uncertainty in which students of all ages are more fearful of having an educated opinion than they were before. I have no problem with post modern historians until they attempt to belittle and 'drive out' the legitimate views of others.

I studied history for 10 years (year 8 to 5th year university) and am still studying in a post graduate forum now. I found many people who shared my passion for history and encouraged meaningful debate. Those historians worth their salt did not/ do not persecute and dismiss the positions of others. However I also came across many a 'chip on the shoulder leftist academic' that could not accept with any grace a non post modern position.

Nicole:

The views of the left are failing young students both in private and public schools. Just the other day a twelve year old child from an advantaged background named Africa as a 'country'. Bemusement followed as it was explained Africa had been colonised and had later become a multitude of small countries. She then struggled to get through her magazine because she was never taught to sound out a word phonetically. From what I've seen and heard hers is not an isolated case. So many young Australians are pushed into uni and dissuaded from gaining a trade by leftist academics who push the 'everyone must be university educated' line. Surely it's time to educate according to litteracy levels rather than ideological utopias?

I am absolutely supportive of individual teachers. However the time has come where the salaries of teachers should match that of professional people and a performance based review should follow. Of the top 15% of graduates from my school not one person chose a career in education- this has to be rectified and it can only be done by salary increases.

HISTORY and CULTURE

The best lesson we could ever teach our children, is honesty.
Honesty in history will show our own, warts and all. It will clearly demonstrate a number of important issues.

1/ We are not perfect
2/ Our history is not without examples of intrigue, greed, deceit and error.
3/ Our history also includes aspects of greatness and nobility and progress.
4/ Indigenous people have suffered terribly as a result of the prevailing world view and due to greed.

5/ None of the above are unique to our own history, but are common to all human society.

When I think of the Treaty of Waitangi, and its 'dual language/dual version' deception, over one single word, translated 'weaker' in the Maori version, so the chiefs would agree to ceed soverienty when they thought they were inviting 'protection' is a classic example.

Even then, the greed of white capitalists in Sydney, one in particular, who then encouraged widespread white settlement of NZ in direct defiance of the Treaty, and the passive and/or active support for this by powers to be on the white side, is a blight that will never leave the NZ historical landscape nor the minds of Maoris.

We in Australia have our own 'blights' which include unpaid wages for indigenous people, (with interest) held back by the government.

That is one 'blight' that CAN be rectified and should be at the earliest opportunity.

The 'stolen' generation is an issue where I am not so clear cut. I know that in many cases mixed children were removed with their best interests at heart, due to probable non acceptance by the indigenous relatives. But at the same time, others were removed purely for assimilationst reasons. Some things 'can' be fixed, others only regretted.(and forgiveness sought)

Donnelly crowed "Current approaches to history ask students to uncritically celebrate multiculturalism and cultural diversity without recognising that much of Australia’s economic, political and legal stability relies on a Eurocentric tradition steeped in the Judeo/Christian ethic".

My last social history class comprised of students from all over the world, Anglo and ethnic Australians.

My job was to present them with information and perspectives about Australian social history.

I tried ringing and inviting Keith Windshuttle to be a guest lecturer. He was unavailable. Instead I presented his views as objectively as I could.

Hence, the student tutorials needed no guidance. There was excited and critical discussion all round. Some of them were in favour of Windshuttle's thesis, others against - and if you had tried to predict who would advanced particular perspectives based on their ethnicity, you would have been surprised how wrong you got it.

As good teachers of history and social sciences will attest the world over – teaching is more than content delivery. And so stimulus should not just come from one book, one idea, and one ideological trope.

My point is this. We as teachers can only present the historical information before the students. They are not empty vessels waiting to be filled; they have their own faculties and reasoning.

Creating the social and political environment where all students feel they can have input and learn is the craft of teaching, not a craft of a historian - and this is what gives you a clue into how out of touch Kevin Donnelly is, not just with teaching, but the world around him.

What Donelly wants is a therapeutic history for white (Anglo-Saxon) Australians. And what’s wrong with that you ask? Well most students would be bored stiff if this is all we taught. Remember, they already live in a multicultural, multilingual, world