Gregory says "... the Prime Minister ... has provided the outline of an Australian history that is humane and open-minded in approach, and which will enlarge the outlook of our young people."

What a Prime Minister he would be if he actually walked the walk, instead of just talking the talk. In almost all his actions, Howard promotes a narrow, exclusive view of history. Don't harp on the past, that's 'black armband' history, unless of course you're talking about Gallipoli and the Diggers. Deny the bits of Australan history you don't like, and drone on and on and on about the bits you do like.

"Humane and open minded". You must be talking about another John Howard.

Sorry Gregory, you have a very one dimensional view of the PM. And by the way, I'm not a Marxist.

I'm afraid that this is just an argument amongst the elites, the Prime Minister being one of them. In my experience of teaching history to 13 - 15 year old students in the 1970's and 80's I found that most of them regarded it as of little relevance to them and also had a world view removed from those of us attempting to educate /indoctrinate them. When surveyed they informed me that their favourite TV programme was 'Prisoner,' a soapy about women in jail. I was therefore not surprised when I read that a researcher had discovered that children of their age regarded school as similar to prison. I suppose that made us teachers the prison guards and hardly likely to win their hearts and minds for communism , neoconism
or anything in between.

I doubt that anything has changed much.

I applaud Melleuish and his assertion that history should be enquiry based and that historians should be sceptical but level headed. The reason alot of students are turning away from history is because they are sick of post modernism's aggresive and dictatorial potrayal of Australian history and its complete lack of balance.

I don't think young people are disinterested in Gallipoli and the ANZACS or in the traditional view of Australian history. In fact statistics have shown more young Australians heading to Gallipoili and ANZAC parades in recent years. Admittedly many young Aussies like an excuse to get on the grog but it is at least somewhat positive that they are doing so in the company of the 'old brigade'. I personally would much rather Australia Day was celebrated on ANZAC Day but I'm sure this wouldn't suit the left's agenda either.

Much of this debate seems to centre on the teaching of 'indigenous history'. Most Australians support the Prime Minister's stance in regards to not saying 'sorry' and most support the policy of 'mutual responsibility'. History should be taught within this popular framework ie Indigenous Australians were treated very badly for a large proportion of Australia's history but it is now time to get on with it rather than dredging up the past with a symbolic but practically useless 'Sorry'.

AMSADL,DAVIDAHA,

I've got to agree that 1 or 2 speeches by Howard will not undo more than 10 years of advocating a narrative ‘three cheers’ historical perspective to be applied to policy and public discourse and just about everything else in between. Too little too late.

It took him this long to learn that the world was deeper and broader and much more complex than that he had been raised to think it was.

Appealing to small 'L' liberal sentiment (civic nationalism) and walking his talk are indeed very different political activities. Was he merely re-setting the room temperature for Costello entrance in 18 months time? Who knows? We are left to once again fight over and defend our own interpretations.

I also understand GM is also being very pragmatic. And for good reason.

A tilt back into yet more paranoid nationalism that asks white Australians marginalized by the inequalities of economic rationalism and globalization to displace their anxieties and attack and vilify Aboriginal people, migrants, particularly refugees is not in the national interest. He realises that the pendulum can only swing only so far to the right & would only hamper his ability to hear and speak to the electorates fears.

And so I guess this is what Melleuish is asking. Will this new agenda be engaged or is it simply another of Howard's pet red herrings that journalists will feed off/lend from in opinion pieces for the rest of the year? Will Costello begin to sing the chorus to this new Howard anthem?

I’m sure history teachers all over are too busy to care, but perhaps they should be.

Most Prime Ministers are interested in creating history, not worrying about how it is taught. While Howard's statements on the issue are relatively mild on the face of it, it is more of the 'dog whistling' he has perfected, a call to the ex-Hanson crowd, a perpetuation of the culture wars Howard has waged and largely won.

I would be more kindly disposed towards Howard's views on history if he were more principled about how he handles the history he is making. So often when events occur that might tend to show his government in a less than favourable light, we get the obfuscation, the hair-splitting, the defensible lie, the taking of refuge behing bureaucrats who have accepted the wink from the Howard government: 'you know what you have to do, make sure you don't leave a trail that points to us'. The current wheat board corruption scandal is the latest in a wearying run of such events.

Hiding behind cabinet and other secrecy documents, Howard will survive by concealing what he knew about many scandals that have occurred and how he was involved. History will no doubt expose him for the shallow, mean and dishonest leader that he is. In the end, he will have lost the history wars due to his own imperfections.

I applaud Melleuish's article, and hope it will lead to more interest in our history, as this is the best way to discover ourselves as we really are.

One of the best ways to do this is to celebrate it more. Michael Duffy's suggestion that the Rum Rebellion be re-enacted at dusk each Australia Day is magnificent. Perhaps the main reason that this hasn't been done in the past is that so much of our history has been considered disreputable, particularly to Authority.

How Australian!

I love reading about the first few decades of life in Sydney, with the magnificent villians such as George Crossley, and comparing them to the cowboys of today.

The fact that in the Rum Rebellion no-one was injured in the slightest (apart from a few egos) and that the only opposition came from Bligh's daughter using her parasol, again is so Australian.

The main defect with the current left-wing fashion of looking at our history with horror is that it totally fails to explain how we converted a wilderness into a rich, democratic and egalitarian country in a little over a century. The second defect is that unrelieved horror turns people off from studying it.

I didn't spot an argument in the whole piece. Some assertions, maybe, but no argument. I thought that arguments and logic (if not fierce) were somewhat integral to rational enquiry and the enlightenment period.

;-)
Odsoc

I think that's a well-balanced article. Professor Melleuish refers, quoting Howard, to "broad influences that have moulded Australian culture: Judeo-Christian ethics, the progressive spirit of the Enlightenment and the institutions and values of British political culture." I would add the Greco-Roman tradition.

I came to Australia in 1979, my children started school in 1987, 1989 and 1992 respectively, the youngest graduated a year ago. I was amazed to discover that so much of their education revolved round aboriginals - whether history, geography, maths or whatever, the examples constantly referred to aboriginals, highly localised "aboriginal trails" featured prominently. To me, this was bizarre. Aboriginals were then and are now a small minority of the community, with a culture and tradition which is a tiny and uninfluential part of the global heritage. Of course, we should respect them and their culture as we do others; but the environment and way of life of almost all Australians - including modern aboriginals - arises from, and reflects, the four elements in my first para. Understanding those elements is a key to understanding the modern world, no amount of critical thinking will help without a solid foundation of where we (the current population) came from and the basis of our civilisation. Without that, we are living in a vacuum, without a compass. A fertile ground for cults and fundamentalist sects rather than analysis and understanding.

Of course, Howard has many flaws and is driven by political imperatives, but I think he is correct here. Not the nonsense about Aussie flags in schools etc, but the global heritage as well as a non-ideological look at the last 200 years which underpin our present context.

an example of the type of 'isms' being taught and how they misrepresent the truth is nazism. just by way of commenting, I wonder how many young people believe that all germans should be ashamed for the rest of eternity? But in truth, the two world wars, the second of which is likely the only one taught in school (as it was for me, with breif references to gallipoli aside), are a tiny part of the history of Germany, which is integral to the formation of democracy as much as is that of france and england.

another one is communism. People weren't taught in my school any of australias communist history, or that the labor party is socialist in nature, or that the principal of egalitarianism (so prominent in australia) is the foundation of communism. And we were not taught what led to communist thinking, how the revolutions panned out etc.

Feminism is taught with regards to the rights that women have gained, with no mention of how they gained them (or a critical study of thier validity regarding abortion, in fact abortion was definitely encouraged in my school).

what the prime minister was saying was to get rid of the isms and return to chronology. Isms will obviously always be studied at the tertiary level, but teaching in this manner before critical thinking is available to children is a serious mistake (witness the acceptance of abortion in the public, compared to medical experts who see it as killing, if legalised).

This article, like the almost weekly articles attacking current trends in history and calling for a more traditional approach to history following narrative and fact which appear in the Australian, is excellent.

Having very recently finished my schooling, I can say with confidence that the Australian history taught is quite inadequate. The early Australian history, especially that of the early colony, is woefully inadequate. White settlers are portrayed as being ignorant, violent, sexist and racist. Aborigines are potrayed as enlightened, peaceful, inclusive and accepting. It's worse that the goodies/baddies of the old cowboy and indian films. The treatment of 20th century Australian history is not much better, though it's harder to mess it up. The glorification of Whitlam, shunning of Menzies, and lack of talk of the development of our institutions and our traditions from their roots to now are shameful. I remember in my textbook that the position of women was described as "near total oppression" when that of Aboriginal girls forced into marriage at the age of 13, or having their fingers cut off as a rite of passage... well, those things wern't mentioned at all.

Thanks to some good teachers, we ignored our textbooks.

I fear the Australian will continue to print such stories until Labor looses some state elections.

Greg.John Howard is not about a new guide line for open minded and enlightened debate about Australia's history.It is about re-writing history, to suite his own political agenda.John Howard is reviled by the so called left historical critics,who see him as a jingoistic pretentious apostle of imperialism.Now I didn't have a long education,due to family circumstances I left school at 2nd year high to go out and work.This meant I didn't have a lot of time to have my mind muddled by university accademics,however I have read a few books,and Charles Dickens was writing about history and the humane condition long before his own mind became muddled by "residual marx".I don't think it was really fashionable to be a marxist before, Das Kapital 1867.Although Rudyard Kipling the par excellance of imperialism probably did.Are you still with me Gregy.

Of course what all this clap trap is about at the end of the day is,it is either a fact or it aint,simple I would have thought.But the bottom line here is really about the history of the Aboriginals of this great land.Cause you see we started to educate them, and they are gaining credibility for their causes, they can even tell sh@% from clay.And of course when you are settling a mining claim or such like this is very important.Im so glad I got through life with out all those dogmatic idealogiccaly driven teachers.

John Howard is simply deflecting debate away from other issues such as the AWB scandal. He is very deft at tapping into racisms as these posts demonstrate. Remember the children overboard lies that deflected people from looking too deeply at Howard and co.
Australia has a black history and learning the past can help people understand the present and plan for the future.
Try reading the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Taskforce on Violence Report, Qld 2000, to see what impact past and present policies have had on peoples lives. If you do read it, try to imagine what your life was like when a 40 year old woman tells her story of servitude, abuse and torture by the property owner who she was forced to work for as a young person. Check the dates, and you will see that some of the horrors of the past are not that far past.

No wonder people aren't doing history anymore if this is what is being offered up. People want to look forward not backward.

To the First, Second Fourth, Fifth and Eleventh Posters. The PM is entitled to his enlightened opinion. That some take all and every opportunity to bash him for doing so is a sad reflection on those small minds so obsessed.

As DFXK (Interesting name – are you a courier service?)

rightly said and as has been confirmed by the public expressions of certain school union luminaries following the last election “I fear the Australian will continue to print such stories until Labor looses some state elections.”

Imho, history is an important subject for anyone who seeks an analytical role or has an analytical interest. Only by studying the past do we discover, for ourselves, the pitfalls, dangers or opportunities of what we might plan to embark on today.

Acknowledging the old adage “history is written by the victors” and the natural human desire for self aggrandisement, both individually and nationally, the best strategy is to read the perspectives from many sides wherever possible.

If I have two perspectives on which to consider the same event, I am better equipped to resolve what I believe is the “underlying truth” than relying on just one.

From an Australian perspective, any view which denies the significant contribution which our “enlightened British heritage” contributed to forming the Australia of today is that of a moron.

If we were to look at history as a jigsaw puzzle where each view is a piece, ignoring That British Heritage is akin to attempting to finish the jigsaw after discarding 90% of the pieces. Whilst some might claim it is “complete”, anyone else would see the gaps and recognise the utterers of such claims as gullible fools.

I agree with the sentiment and content of the article.
We are lead by a man of vision. That he has a clearer and better vision for Australia than that of the dull, grey, levellers of socialism is merely an issue for those same socialist to come to terms with. Maybe they should read history (real history that is, not the fabled bunkum they would teach to our children)

I always found history to be quite a dull subject mainly because it seemed to me to have no real relevance and no real application. It was a subject that i learnt maybe a few interesting things about Australian involvement in the wars, the treatment of Aborigines by early settlers, and even a little about ancient Egypt.
But of what practical use is any of this information apart from something i can talk about to impress my friends or some basis for opinions on war and indigenous affiars to influence my vote?

I don't know how history is studied at school these days but I think a core curriculum subject of History would much better serve if it first aimed at the purpose and practicalities of studying history, so kids learn why studying history is of use and how to go about it, ie. how to sort fact from fiction, how to verify reliability and impartiality of sources, how to analyse contrasting accounts, etc. That way they get the tools to critically analyse historical accounts (both past and present) and are better able to determine the truth for themselves as opposed to taking some Historian's word for it in a text book. Then they can go on to use these tools to study a specialised field of history like Australian military history or Australian settlement history and find out what really happened and draw conclusions on causes and outcomes from there.
To me that would be much more interesting and enjoyable to learn than just memorising specific events in a specific period of history.

The teaching of history in schools is fraught with many difficulties. History in the Junior School no longer exists. It has largely been replaced by Studies of Society and Environment - a national curriculum initiative which tries to squeeze history, geography, economics, business, civics and environmental studies into a single "subject".

However, apart from the curriculum difficulty, SOSE or history is simply not valued by politicians, the media, business or even the educational hierarchy. Its place in the curriculum is contested and the amount of time allocated to it has been significantly reduced in favour of studies such as dance, drama, industrial arts etc.

SOSE teachers generally do not have access to funded and supported in-service training. They are regarded as generalists. The assumption is that they can effectively teach anything in the broad range listed above. They usually have larger classes including numbers of unsupported special education students.

Students are encouraged not to 'take' social studies subjects. They are often supported by the education hierarchy when they challenge the teacher with , "Why do I have to do this? This won't get me a job." Maybe it won't. And maybe few of our 'leaders' value the development of informed, well rounded, questioning students who, given some understanding of our history and institutions, might go on to make worthwhile contributions to the development of our civil society.

Schools should be taught how ,in such a short time, this country is equal to the rest of the world in everything that counts.
We do not have ancient cathedrals and palaces, very little of our convict heritage survives because some felt shame about it.
I am intensly proud of our history,proud of this country and proud that we now tend for our indigenous people .
Children should learn about the pioneers, how they came and why they came and what they built.
There is much to be proud of in our beautiful Australia.

Predicting the past gets tedious.

Today is busy enuff as is.

Tomorrow is another day.

As one who in his retirement has spent much time in study owing to having had to leave school very early during the Depression, one has gained the impression that the main thing that John Howard has learned from history especially while in politics is to practice the steady gaze, stiff upper lip and so on, very typical of a 19th century Btitish stateman. Indeed, his political abilities, which include clever rhetoric and evasiveness, go close to being second to none.

However, part of this superior statesman-like manner is the way he can change his tune and be so humble with American leaders, especially George W Bush, with whom he acts the colonial stateman to a T, when present with a higher authority.

Furthermore, never has Howard questioned the way the US has conducted itself in the Middle-East, making many political philosophers believe he must have a poor understanding of the actions of both Britain and America in the Middle East since WW2, much of it related to a hegemonic grab for oil and strategem.

Finally, the way John Howard has obediently obeyed and accepted what many social scientists term both in politics and economics a tragic reawakening of 19th century colonialism, made worse by the fears, that oppressed peoples, the new indigenuous, may ultimately procure what we all fear so much, a nuclear device that can fit in a suitcase.

Certainly the problem will not be fixed by taking over more countries like we fear about Iran, but by learning from history, which the Howard agenda, knowing Howard's record, would surely not be about learning from the past.

Although many people would find joyous excitement coursing through their veins after reading this article, simply because of its high academic calibre, I am flabbergasted by the ridiculous approach of this almost immature journalist. Whilst obviously well read and apparently quite clear on his knowledge of Australian and European history, he has somehow manages to turn what started off as an interesting article into an overly drawn out waffle that mentions more prestigious names than I can count on both hands and uses more words uncommonly understood than I can count on both hands and both feet. So to be honest, I did not find this article comprehensible in the slightest; however, my apparently feeble mind did manage to pick up some sort of a propositional argument being made at the beginning of the piece. He makes a suggestion that John Howard wants a balance between the aboriginal and post-colonisation history taught at schools. Well, obviously, this fellow isn’t as smart as he claims to be, I would have though this would be obvious. Howard has always admired Menzies, and in case some of you have forgotten, God Save The Queen was played before the screenings of films during the Menzies era, Howard will most certainly support a monarchy, and will not stand for sympathy being felt towards the Indigenous people purely because the history they have been taught is completely subjective to the views of the teacher. This little point, I found, as also brought up in the article. Funny that a journalist, someone who projects their opinions to the world, should comment on the inability of history teachers to rise above personal prejudices when teaching. So, what a waste of time, I’ve read a pointless waffle of an article, and written an even more pointless waffle about it (without all the name dropping), the worlds a funny place.