The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > The History Wars: now for the hard part! > Comments

The History Wars: now for the hard part! : Comments

By Mervyn Bendle, published 23/8/2006

Australia desperately needs to promote a unifying sense of national identity.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. Page 3
  5. 4
  6. All
By the way, the History Summit seems to have pleased nobody, so on balance, it looks like the delegates got things just about right.
Posted by Mercurius, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 5:35:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
>Lets stop pussyfooting about. From the beginning of time, people of different races have
>lived in different parts of the world, and the separation of race and creed has enabled us to
>live relatively peacefully. We traded with each other, visited each other and appreciated the
>differences.

This is utter racist rubbish. How would you explain the European settlement of Australia with this model of history? Then again, maybe Leigh is a closet leftie who thinks Australia should have been left to the aborigines.

Anyway, Brendle's piece is a confusing mess of assumptions about the nature of history, its purpose, and its practice. It history merely a tool of poorly defined policy as he suggests or is it an objective and independent academic displine? Who does history? teachers? historians? politicians? And does history do all the things he wants it do? Is a lack of coherent history teaching in schools what undermines Australian identity, or is it a generation of kids growing up on CSI and The Simpsons and Grand Theft Auto?

5/10. Must try harder.
Posted by mhar, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 6:36:47 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Whose version of history is the author talking about.

I am all for more ACURATE history being taught.

Will the true history tell of of the policies of dispossession, slavery, cultural and physical genocide of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders by the colonists and their governments?

Will this history reveal the presence of official documented policies of stealing Indigenous children to breed out their colour and or turn the children into a servant class.

Will the history tell of how govternment officials ignored children being stolen and kept as sexual slaves, some as young as 8, by some poor lonley white male 'settlers'.

These are all provable via the colonialists desire to write everything down.

And before you ask me for references etc I suggest interested people can find ample information if they want to. You could try 'Broken Circles' by Anna Haebich.
Posted by Aka, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 6:41:47 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I'd be prepared to take this Australian History Summit a bit more seriously if the Fed Govt was prepared to put its money where its mouth is. However, as they fund something in the order of 10% of public education, this is just political grandstanding. I had to scratch my head over the participants in the summit; no State education ministers, but they invited Bob Carr? I suppose Bob promised not to ask any awkward questions.

As far as the threat to tie funding to a national curriculum, I seem to remember a similar threat about schools flying flags. Really, the Fed education ministers only seem to have one trick.

The end result of the Summit was a pile of motherhood statements, which you can read here http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Bishop/2006/08/b002170806.asp They also recommended:

"1.The development of a series of open-ended questions to guide further curriculum developments. 2. The development of a chronological framework of key events." (some of the best history brains in the country and that was the best they could come up with?)

A national history curriculum? Funnily enough, Australian history is the one curriculum area where you CAN justify different state curricula. After all, NSW has a different history from WA or the NT (for example).

Really, this whole thing deserves to be forgotten as quickly as the Centenary of Federation. Do you folk really care when James Cook sailed from Albion's shore or who Australia's first Prime Minister was? No, I didn't think so.
Posted by Johnj, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 9:56:48 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
BROCKY
we don't need a policy of Multi culturalism in order for people to bring their own preferred food to the park :) It just happens.

Such things have nothing to do with a sense of national Identity.

WHAT YOU MISSED. In the middle of your mini diatribe about all of our ancestors hating each other, you missed the sense of love of this land that I'm sure most of them shared. You failed to point out the basis for the attitude that caused young men from all those backgrounds to volunteer to fight together against the common enemy.

FRANKGOL The 'Hearts and Minds' issue is important. The idea that our history is not currently being used or.. deliberately neglected..or.. selectively used to bludgeon young minds into a sense of 'We are a pack of evil thieves and culture killers who should feel continual shame' by political influences coming from the Education Unions etc... is a bit naive mate.

History should be taught warts and all, to teach us honesty about ourselves and our nation and our identity. But if we limited it to just our own short history, without connecting it with that of other places, and times, we may indeed gain a distorted view on things.

Tragic (such as the lack of resistance of Aboriginals to our diseases)or Cruel incidents (like the killing of 'pesky boongs' by Squatters) all need to be faced up to so we don't repeat such things, and indeed, to the extent that it would not rip the country apart, make some kind of restitution for these things.

MERCURIOUS We should add to the list of 'things to be avoided' in history classes a 'hyper negative mindset' :) Now off you go to Woomera for a stint in 'Australian-ness' re-education. Diet.. PIES PIES PIES..and daily practice of Aussie rools. Morning assembly singing 'Australia RUUULS'
Posted by BOAZ_David, Thursday, 24 August 2006 6:07:44 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sounds good, Boaz. As long as there's free beer and tomato sauce, I'll be re-educated in no time!
Posted by Mercurius, Thursday, 24 August 2006 8:08:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. Page 3
  5. 4
  6. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy