True; particularly the reference to 'critical thinking'. Too many young people merely parrot the opinions of their teachers.

Steve said:

"Neither should we continue to entertain the postmodernist fallacy that the time of grand narratives has passed and that we are somehow liberated if we have no sense of who we are, where we come from, what we stand for and where we are seeking to go as a nation."

Wellll Halelujah brutha.. TESSSSssstify ! At last..... that 'itch' is finally being scratched.

If young Australians don't know how we came to have the freedom we now have and the cost and turning points it involved, then we will be a nothing nation, a social slime, a toxic algal bloom on the planet, and morph into philosophical zombies with glazed eyes and furrowed broughs.

'WE'... are free because of:

BATTLE of TOURS. 732

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/732tours.html

The first Military leader to succeed against the horrific, land grabbing, booty seeking,religious madness of the Spanish Muslims.

SIEGE of VIENNA 1683

http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/siege_of_vienna.htm

Muslim Ottoman Turks stopped in their dirty tracks by the bravery of Count Sobieski and the Poles.

The United Kingdom, Cromwell, Henry the 8th, Protestant/Catholic struggles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell

Industrian Revolution.

The British Empire.....warts and all.

Australian Settlement/Invasion... again..warts and all.

Philosophy..... Hume, Mill, Sartre, Adam Smith, Decartes, Neitchze ..etc etc...

The Media and Art world and their connection to the above.

We are by and large 'blank pages' when it comes to knowing where we came from.

For crying out loud WAKE UP Australia.

I can match soft anecdote for soft anecdote with Mervyn Bendle. My four children have excelled in the school system and their wide and specific knowledge is amazing. One is majoring in history and is increasingly liberated by the systematic knowledge he continues to build up. Far from resenting “not knowing about important historical events, such as the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the industrial, scientific and communication revolutions”, he is so grateful that his (public) school taught him those fundamentals.

Mervyn Bendle tells of one of his tutors who complained: "The students like the way you present so many different views on these topics, but what they really want to know is which opinion they should have." Last year three of my tutors gave feedback that my lectures really challenged their students to think and the students were delighted to have it confirmed that all conclusions were satisfactory so long as they were based on sound evidence and logical argument.

So we have competing anecdotes - and no hard evidence. Where does that leave us? Peddling opinions and feeding pre-judgments?

Mervyn Bendle hopes, naively, that the Prime Minister’s History summit August 17 will be more than just a talk-fest. John Howard knows exactly what he wants from the Summit – that’s why the balance of numbers among his hand-picked participants (historians and non-historians alike) falls heavily to the right. After all, Mr Howard's view of what is taught in the name of history has hardly been kept private.

True; particularly the reference to 'critical thinking'. Too many people merely parrot the opinions of propaganda merchants. They will never grow up.

Leigh/Boaz et al, I just set up blogspot. If you want to check out my identity, meet me and see what i look like check out the second picture down. Very pretty aren't I. Don't go there if you don't like swearing.

http://www.rancitas.blogspot.com/

Thanks Mervyn, your essay is so timely. Am one, turned 85, originally poorly educated and has acquired in retirement a post-grad in social science majoring in Third World Problems with Honours. Also have had much to do with Westralian history, turning out three historical novels aided by uni' elective studies.

Probably classed among our Onliners as a bit of a historical nut, Mervyn. Remembering of course that Churchill was a bit of a nut about history also - as his comment that political leaders without a belief in history will never get as far as they should, does show.

In this sense it makes one wonder about John Howard, whom some historians say has got the political knack but not the historical knowledge. Are such comments caused by his remarks about how Aborigines should forget about their pasts and learn to live like us white people?

Also has his meekish following of George W Bush also shown that he does not care so much about illustrious characters such as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln but more about the brand of democracy that Condoleeza Rice has just talked about so much needed for the Islamic Middle East.

Looking back through history, sounds very much like the colonial India-style Dyarky Democracy, with imperial commissars watching every critical puppet government move - these days of advanced communication easily managed from the White House.

George C, WA - Bushbred

It would be nice if the motives of the meeting were such but they are not. it will be a fight between liberal and conservative worldviews and truth will not be considered. School be it high school or other is about job training and very few people get jobs in history so it should have the same level of focus as it has now. Information is at people's finger tip like never before. Learning how to sperate the wheat is the key skill. Kids are much more clued up on important things then they have ever been.