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 > Time to ditch compulsory study of Australian history > Comments

Time to ditch compulsory study of Australian history : Comments

By Jeff Schubert, published 4/7/2007

Teaching history: there is more to the history of Australians than the history of Australia.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. All
Couldn't agree more.

I wonder if the Government's focus on Australian history is in fact for the purpose of ensuring that students _don't_ get to spend so much time studying world history.

The writer mentioned Bismarck: it happens that lately I've read a bit of slightly more recent German history. Given the current international situation and our country's participation in it, I'm sure the Government won't be wanting students to read of the writings and thinking of Bernhardi and Kaiser Wilhelm, and thinking about the numerous parallels to the present day situation.
Posted by jeremy, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 10:14:30 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
Jeff writes: "So why force the virtually useless Bradman and ANZAC stuff on them? All its does is promote ignorance and bigotry".

It's not time to ditch the compulsory teaching of Australian history. It's time to ditch the hyperbole.

Yes, Australian history should be taught in a way that reflects the diversity of the Australian experience. Yes, Australian students should be taught world history.

But to say that teaching Australian history -- and/or particular episodes like the Bodyline cricket test series or ANZAC "stuff" -- ONLY promotes ignorance and bigotry is just not sustainable.

Here are a few other things it does:

# Helps Australian citizens and residents to piece together a story about how Australia came to be what it is today

# Helps migrants to participate in conversations and ideas that people born in Australia take for granted

# Arms students with some of the facts and ideas they need to start critically pulling apart assumptions about what Australia is and should be

Australia history should be retained, expanded and taught to all students, along with other basic fields of knowledge such as world history
Posted by steven_noble, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 10:28:46 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It's prudent to be skeptical of any compulsory curriculum in the humanities/social studies area. Experience shows it's even more important to be wary of a State-endorsed history course.

One mediocre or sanitised course inflicted on everyone could do immeasurable harm to the national interest and to the minds of vulnerable children. If Australian history is to be made compulsory, let there be many versions of that history and let the debate about historical truth rage throughout the land.
Posted by FrankGol, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 11:21:33 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
As a retired cockie who managed an Honours in his old age studying the ravages of the colonial Tea Economy in Sri-Lanka, and later under supervision wrote a series on WA called A Land in Need, must reveal a true account of Midgerocoo, the father of Yagan shot at twenty paces outside the Perth military barracks, with all white colonists invited as well as the natives.

It is also stated that Midgericoo was executed for stealing from the whites as well as being a general nuisance as many of the local natives had become.

It was also stated that Midgericoo was shot more as a lesson or an example.

As we now own the country, it could well be asked should true events of colonial times like the above be forgotten, as it seems our present Federal Government would wish?
Posted by bushbred, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 12:54:55 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've often wondered what is 'Australian history'. Sandgropers probably don't care a fig for Blaxland Lawson and Wentworth anymore than Sydneysiders care about Batman. And, apart from to tourists, what importance is Port Arthur? We (the white we) have never had a civil war nor been invaded. Sometimes I think we are still a bunch of colonies fighting against London disguising itself as Canberra although there has been some interesting politics and again its Lang, Kerr and Whitlam that are the history. The ANZAC battle was the story of the men who died for the incompetent British. Maybe it's role in history is to examine how a military disaster has been turned into a quasi-religion, an excuse to roll out the Anglo-Australian flag. As for the bodyline series, are we reduced to calling entertainment history?

Funnily I think history will see a comeback. It's one of those subjects that really lends itself to self-teaching via the internet and some interesting books on interesting characters.
Posted by PeterJH, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 2:14:18 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
Jeff Schubert may have had to learn about English kings in history, but I’ve never taught about them and, as someone who started in prep in 1958, I was never taught them. It sounds like the history taught in the 1930s or the 1830s to me.

Australian history is taught in years 9 and 10 in Victoria, and it is in a world context. You cannot understand Australian history without knowing about the world wars and the Great Depression, each of which had its genesis beyond our shores. Year 7 studies ancient civilisations. Year 8 studies the Middle Ages. History lessons are not restricted to Australian history.

The history of Australia is not just the history of the ancestors of those who now live here but the history of the institutions, which stretches back through British history to ancient Roman and Greek times.

History is not taught in a sanitised way: there are neither black armbands nor white blindfolds. No one I have ever taught the “ANZAC stuff” to has ended up ignorant and bigoted as a result. I do not see how they could be.

The danger is that the practice of the SOSE years, when teachers with no relevant subject training were given classes, will continue even though history has been returned to its rightful place in the curriculum. You can’t teach history if you don’t know it.
Posted by Chris C, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 4:05:50 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
Unfortunately, there still seems a decided mindset even among our Online historians - to forget about our colonial history from the First Landing, which also includes our First Landing in WA in 1829.

Has corporate culturisation already taken over our historical agenda, part of which includes Howard's apparent desire to shape our history as it suits the political agenda - especially concerning our Aborigines?
Posted by bushbred, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 5:17:26 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
If you don't know your history,you do not understand where you came from or treasure the values which gave you prosperity.How can you also know in which direction you should be headed?

If I emigrated to Iran and wanted to become a citizen,it is an imperitive that I should know the history that has moulded their present psyche.

This article has no legs.
Posted by Arjay, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 7:18:04 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
All,

I am not anti-Australian history per se – but its “compulsory” (and I emphasis this word!) study takes time away from learning the history of others, and putting the history of Australia in context of the world of people. There is a limit in any school about the time spent on history studies.

Rather than having a mob of robots nodding at each other about Australian history, let’s mix the pot with a variety of knowledge and views about the basic universal nature of the human psyche – and including in this, Australian history – and have a dialogue. I think that I am not too far away from some of the views already expressed.

Jeff
Posted by Jeff Schubert, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 7:41:41 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 find it interesting that this is only being said now, since the government has instituted reforms in this area - long overdue, about the utterly bizarre method that history was being taught it.

Now that HSC students have to study articles by Keith Windschuttle couldn't have anything to do with this could it?

This is ridiculous. There are places in the western suburbs where white kids are bashed on sight. You bet we need more history, more pride, in what makes this place so great.

Leftist academics who up until very recently have written outrageous curiculums for history teaching that Australia is a racist society and the like, need to be hauled before the courts.

It is such sentiment that the racists from ethnic communities have latched onto, adding to their already severe racism (just look at their marriage practices for crying out loud, or if that don't make you see it look to their youth gangs based on ethnicity that bash Anglo's for sport) of Anglo's.

We need to teach not only Australian history, but western history, for it is the values of the enlightenment that we inherited from Europe that makes this place great.

What are you afraid of? You've hogged the pulpit for over thirty years, spewing your bile about slaughtering Aboriginals, colonising the planet, yet don't want to hear such arguments being smashed by the likes of Windschuttle?

If your views are so right why not hear the other side?

Cowards! But moreover, nihilistic elitist bigots.
Posted by Benjamin, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 7:52:56 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
Jeff, you said:

'Melleuish’s call for a “real debate about the teaching of history in schools” makes a lot of sense.'

Should be, 'a real debate about Teaching in schools.'

I have without question learnt more in the last year from the internet than from all the school years combined.

Students should be taught How to learn and think, not What to learn and think.

School was a massive waste of time, which I am now trying to make up for. I found school to be a humiliating and degrading experience that stifled personal development.
Posted by Ev, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 9:54:55 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
The abject failure of the current process that has the audacity to call itself education, is only further highlighted by the "dumbing down" again of the curriculum by removing History.

The current lot of students leaving Primary School are entering Secondary School, largely functionally illiterate in English, Maths, Science Geography and History. With this illiteracy, they in effect have become "learning disabled", as the students cannot comprehend, let alone progress without the basics upon which Secondary Education depends. They can draw pretty pictures, but that's about it. One cannot build a house without decent foundations, this is the purpose of Primary School, to build the solid foundations upon which a successful scholar can be developed.

We need to go back to the basics of a solid foundation of education, English, Maths, Science, History and Geography, then when the students have a solid foundation, they then can achieve their full and complete potential.
Posted by zahira, Saturday, 7 July 2007 12:39:10 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
zahira

Any evidence for your diatribe against schools? Or is this just talk from the seat of your pants?

I hear all these stories ot woe about the education system; but they don't match my experience or that of any of my friends.

I have had four children go through and now three grandchildren going through the State schooling system and all are avid readers and history buffs (even the one who is an engineer).

The grandchildren are still at primary school. They are being taught brilliantly. My oldest children have tertiary qualifications (two at the Masters level). My youngest son is doing a History Honours course - his last semester results being 3 1st Class Honours and 1 2nd Class Honours. My oldest grandson is fascinated by history and reads endlessly about it (often under the bedclothes with a torch after lights out).

So when you talk airliy about "the current lot of students leaving Primary School are entering Secondary School, largely functionally illiterate", "dumbing down" of the curriculum and removing History, I just scratch my head and wonder what you mean. Are you softening us up for more cuts to State schools and transfer of funds to private schools?

Sometimes I wonder whether this type of posting tells us more about the state of mind of the poster than the state of education.
Posted by FrankGol, Saturday, 7 July 2007 1:20:12 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
Frank you are only making reference to the experiences of your highly intelligent prodegy.I assure you that this is not the norm in our education system.We need to get back to teaching the basics and not just let children Google their way through school.History should not be excluded,nor Maths,English and Science.

Highly intelligent children will learn regardless,however the masses need guidance and good dedicated teachers.
Posted by Arjay, Saturday, 7 July 2007 1:51:26 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Arjay,

Schools have not given up teaching the basics. Even during the thankfully now gone SOSE years, it remained possible to teach history in good schools, and now that Victoria has returned history to the curriculum and the other states and territories (other than NSW, which never gave it up) are to follow suit, all schools should be teaching it again.

International studies show that Australia performs well in comparison with other countries in education. We do, however, have a significant number of students who do not reach a satisfactory standard. We have been told incessantly for close to thirty years that you don’t solve problems by “throwing money” at them, yet in all those years there hasn’t even been one month in which education had money “thrown at” it. Perhaps we will start to invest seriously in education, meaning highly, paid highly able teachers with small classes and healthy, manageable teaching loads. Then the low achievers will improve, in literacy, numeracy and history.

If you leave aside the underfunding and the continual attacks on the teaching profession, the real danger to education (certainly in Victoria and maybe in other states) is the recycling of the failed and relabelled open classroom of the 1970s, under which more than a hundred students can be placed in the one room for a large part of the week, with teachers placed there with no or little regard for their subject expertise, so that everything becomes a stew of projects, and actual teaching, which Ken Rowe of ACER has pointed out has 500,000 studies showing is necessary, becomes impossible.
Posted by Chris C, Saturday, 7 July 2007 3:14:45 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
Arjay

So you and I and zahira swap anecdotes. Your experience against mine. Your negative outlook versus my positive one. You say my experience is not typical and I go tit for tat.

That's why you have ask posters to provide the hard evidence - and there is plenty of it. Take the OECD research for example.

Look at its 2003 results on PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment)
(http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/60/34624460.pdf)

Approximately 276 000 students aged 15, from 41 countries took part in PISA 2003. In Australia just over 12 500 students were tested from 321 schools around Australia in PISA 2003. The schools and students were randomly selected.

Australian results were “good to excellent” compared to these other 4o nations. Australia’s results were above the OECD average in each of
* mathematical literacy, including each of the mathematical literacy subscales
* scientific literacy
* reading literacy and
* problem solving.

Only one country - Finland - achieved significantly better results than Australia in reading literacy. Three countries - Finland, Japan and Korea - achieved better results than Australia in scientific literacy.

Only four countries - Hong Kong-China, Finland, Korea, and the Netherlands - outperformed Australia in mathematical literacy in PISA 2003.

Only four countries - Korea, Hong Kong-China, Finland and Japan - performed significantly better than Australia in problem solving.

These are reputable measures by an internationally regarded authority.

Now what does zahira mean when she/he talks about the "abject failure of the current process that has the audacity to call itself education"? And what do you mean when you say we should not "just let children Google their way through school".

Why do we continue to slander Australian children, teachers and their schools when we continue to stack up well against world standards? Credit where it's due. Let's leave the slander to the tabloids.
Posted by FrankGol, Saturday, 7 July 2007 6:09:14 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
Hi FrankGol, I actually speak from experience as a Secondary School Geography and English teacher in a State School. I was teaching a grade 8 SOSE class, who weren't able to do the following: a) write in cursive writing, they were still printing at a grade 3 level, in pencil - at best, b) weren't able to comprehend, let alone even read a very basic grade 8 text, c) had no science education at all, they didn't even know what an atom was, which is basic science, d) they had no knowledge at all of basic Australian History, e) they didn't know how to write text from the blackboard into their school books, they were never taught how to, etc, etc, etc. I was also teaching year 9 and year 10 classes who were also functionally illiterate as well!

Oh, and these children were supposed to be one of the top grade 8 classes in our school! and trust me the experience as described above is common.
Posted by zahira, Saturday, 7 July 2007 7:14:09 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
Yes, zahira, as I said: we can swap extreme and somewhat implausible anecdotes about hopeless teachers and desperately badly taught students. (By the way, where do they still ask children to copy from the blackboard? How nineteenth century!)

I have met mediocre secondary teachers who bemoan the fact that their classes can’t do things that they think should have been taught. It happens at every level of education – it’s comforting to blame the teachers the kids had before they came to me. Makes me feel better when I’ve fixed them up. And I’ve met students who wind up gullible teachers. I was in a class once who conned the teacher that the front of the room room was shifting away from their desks!

But I’ve also met brilliant teachers who wouldn’t dream of asking kids to copy text from the blackboard; they really teach. And these brilliant teachers see it as their task to identify weaknesses in students and to teach them what they don’t know.

But my key point is: international testing agencies like the OECD show that Australian students are in the top flight compared with equivalent students in similar nations. Why do you carry on with this caricature of illiteracy while totally ignoring the solid evidence that Australian education is in very good shape?
Posted by FrankGol, Sunday, 8 July 2007 1:32:35 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
Hi FrankGol, I think you and I will need to agree to disagree. Like others have said - your experience was based on that your children and your grandchildren succeeded and performed very well with a State School education. I am not denying that there are some very good schools around and that these children more than likely also have the support of their parents in their education.

My year 10 of whom I speak, well, with a lot of hard work by all of us, they all went onto year 11 and 12 and passed, despite initially coming in with extremely low literacy levels. They learnt to use the resources around them to help them succeed. These kids were great kids, they just needed to know that they could succeed despite their lack of literacy.

I speak from experience in a regional area. I speak also from the collective experience of a local highschool who abandoned their entire year 8 curriculum for 6 months, just to teach the new lot of grade 8 the basics. The feeder primary school does have a bad reputation for illiterate children.

Actually, the blame just doesn't lie at the door step of primary school teachers, it lies at the door step of government who have designed the curriculum that doesn't set goals or achievements at the end of each year level from grade 1 to grade 7. The blame also lies at Universities who fail to teach their primary school teachers,how to teach. Here again I speak of experience, I asked a friend who was in her final year of Primary School Teaching how do you teach your children to read? she said " I don't know". Her entire geography knowledge for all seven years of primary school consisted of a page and a half of A4 paper - that was it! Others in my same year of Secondary Education also asked the same question, and the answers were the same.

When we say get back to the basics, we need to get back to the basics even at University and Primary School.
Posted by zahira, Sunday, 8 July 2007 4:51:04 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
Zahir, I’ll give it one more shot.

I used my experience of my own children and grandchildren to make the point about what counts as evidence. You used your experience in one school in a regional area plus one high school. Oh, and “a friend” who knows nothing about teaching literacy and only a page and a half about geography. Maybe you need more intelligent friends.

You take no heed of the issue about evidence - anecdotes are strictly limited, and swapping anecdotes gets us nowhere near the truth in assessing a whole school system (presuming it's truth you are interested in).

That’s why I used the evidence from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/60/34624460.pdf) which examined more than half a million students aged 15, from 41 countries including 12 500 randomly selected Australian students from 321 schools around Australia.

The Australian students came out exceptionally well on all measures of the four literacies: mathematical, scientific, reading and problem solving.

Why do you ignore that evidence and continue with yet more personal anecdotes?

Why do you carry on with this caricature of Australian schools while totally ignoring the solid evidence that Australian education is in very good shape?

Why this fetish for going back to the basics? Why not forward with the fundamentals?
Posted by FrankGol, Sunday, 8 July 2007 8:42:37 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
Hi FrankGol, You talk about going forward with fundamentals or back to basics. It is one of same thing, the fundamentals of anyone's education is Maths, English, Science, History, Geography.

To use some of the evidence to which you refer. The PISA study noted Students in a metropolitan area performed at a significantly higher level than students in a provincial city,who in turn performed at a significantly higher level than students in rural areas. ESCS and computer resources in the home were positively related to mathematical literacy. there still exists a distinct advantage for those students with higher socioeconomic backgrounds.

This is a comment from The Hon. CHRISTINE ROBERTSON Hansard 2005 where she commented . I remember my considerable shock when I discovered that the New England region as a whole—the New England health region, which includes the electorates of Barwon, Northern Tablelands and Tamworth—had one of the lowest literacy rates in the State

Hansard 2 March 2006 Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES Referring to the PISA study noted: Students attending schools in outer regional areas and remote and very remote parts of Australia achieved lower results than students attending schools in major cities and inner regional areas.

So, if the children have parental support, have the economic means to support their education and the basics are taught, they will succeed.
Posted by zahira, Sunday, 8 July 2007 10:10:56 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
zahira

I think we might be getting somewhere. You’ve moved some distance away from excessive blaming of teachers, children and their families. And you’ve moved away from your earlier abusive descriptions like the “abject failure of the current process that has the audacity to call itself education”. Maybe you’ll move further and agree that we should be resourcing schools better to do more of the excellent things many of them do now.

On locational disadvantage. All large-scale educational testing will show variations across regions and across social groupings such as low/high income families; English/non-English speaking backgrounds; urban/rural; etc. This should not be surprising. After all, the very concept of average – and below and above average – is a statistical construct. People are sometimes alarmed to find that a school or region or country is “below average”. By definition, 49% of any sample must be below average. We just don’t like it when one of our schools (or one of our children) is in that category.

The questions then should be:
(a) when is the level of difference among groups not tolerable? and
(b) if we are unhappy with the level of difference, what should we do about it?

For decades Federal Governments (of both persuasions) have provided additional resources for rural and isolated schools (and for other disadvantaged groups). Not all the interventions have succeeded, but many have, and we need to continue to search for better answers and better programs (e.g. broadband and other forms of telematic delivery of curricula).

In the meantime, let’s praise the thousands teachers who teach really well and help those who aren’t as good as they might be to do better. Australian education is in generally good shape – but could get better – and teachers and children don’t need to be bashed up with over-the-top condemnation.
Posted by FrankGol, Monday, 9 July 2007 5:29:54 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
Since when does Donald Bradman have anything relevant to do with Australian history? He was a sportsman and then a stock broker, so that studies of his cricketing prowess should be found in sporting books, not history books.
Australian history should be an essential part of every Australian's education. There are many obvious reasons that I could give for this, best summarised by simply stating that we need to know what sort of country we're living in, but one often overlooked benefit is to allow people to understand the environment we live in. In this modern age of climate change, global warming, salinity and water shortages, our historical inability to comprehend that most of us are Europeans trying to live a European lifestyle in a harsh Australian environment has created many serious problems. Ditching Australian history in our schools will make our current problems even worse.
Posted by Bernie Masters, Wednesday, 11 July 2007 6:24:05 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
Dear FrankGol, You present as "evidence" one study and also anecdotal evidence of your family. Yet, you chose to ignore other evidence of a now retired practicing teacher, and that of others.

I have never suggested that funds be reduced in schools, in fact I would love to see the day that Secondary Classes are reduced to 20 students maximum, I would love to see the day that students who have learning challenges get the support they need throughout all their education.

Like I've said before, you cannot build a great building on zero foundations. We all learnt to walk by crawling first and then some few tentative steps; Primary School is all about foundations. History for example, is not just about Australian History, it's about the history of those who have gone before us.

Like wiser people than you and I have said, if we fail to teach History then we fail to learn the lessons of the past. If we fail to learn the lessons of the past, how then can we build a successful, productive, inclusive future?
Posted by zahira, Wednesday, 11 July 2007 11:58:37 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
Dear zahira

To characterise my evidence as just "one study" as against that of "a now retired practicing teacher (credentials unstated) and that of others" (unspecified) is disingenuous. I cheerfully discount my personal experience because I was merely using it to demonstrate that anecdotes are an inadequate basis on which to make overblown condemnation - or overblown praise - of an entire sysem. There will always be someone who knows someone who knows something...etc. But that won't be good enough to allow you to pass judgment on an education system.

The study I cited was from the OECD which, as I said, examined more than half a million students from 41 countries including 12 500 randomly selected Australian students from 321 schools. The OECD is one of the most respected international research bodies you can find. Its credentials could hardly be questioned.

It's improbable to think that the excellent standing of Australian education that the OECD reported could be a fluke, or an aberration. I could give many more research reports but I thought you would be aware of the high reputation of the OECD. Australian schools, although not perfect by any means stand up well by comparison with other like countries.

I agree that funds should be increased to allow secondary classes to be reduced to 20 students maximum, and that students who have learning challenges should get the support they need throughout all their education.

I agree that learning the foundations is a top priority for primary schools but I'd include in the foundations such attributes as a love of learning, some of the basic skills of learning and a willingness to share and help others.

You've no need to convince me of the importance of history. That was my major study at university. But what you might have to convince me about is the need for just one view of history. History teaches us that school systems that are compelled to teach an authorised version of history are usually engaged in a spurious nationalism at best and indoctrination at worst.
Posted by FrankGol, Thursday, 12 July 2007 12:35:47 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
As a student that has recently studied 'Australian history', I would have to disagee entirely as to 'ditching' the study of it.

Personally; I think that the study of it has added to my understanding of my country and has brought upon me an appreciation towards the kind of life we live now; the study also helped me to understand why so many of the Aboriginal people of this land were so angry towards the white man when they first settled in Australia.

The study has definately increased my interest in the political system of Australia; due to doing a decade study of the 70's.

I've gained understanding in they many different fights for freedom women, children and Aboriginals have had to face; and the amount of hardship vietnamese veterans suffered during the war and so much more.

'Ditching' the compulsary study would not ensure that Veterans of our past gain the recognition they deserve; what is the point of ANZAC day; without knowledge of what happened, and what is the use of paying our respects to the Aboriginals and their land without the knowledge? What was the point of women fighting for equal rights; if no one is going to care about what those women did for us?

The young generation of Australia are already selfish and self absorbed, and we continue to get worse. We rely too much on technology and take things for grantid; the history of our country hopefully can help others to respect our land just like it has me, and hopefully produce a greater understanding of 'who' we are and how 'we' have become that.
Posted by Ashlee-Vendetta., Sunday, 22 July 2007 10:03:57 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
Hi Ashley, Well said. I commend you on your insightful view of the reasons why we need to study history.

z
Posted by zahira, Sunday, 22 July 2007 11:49:31 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
The author wrote: "The first is that there is more to the history of Australians than the history of Australia because many do not have white English speaking ancestors."

Yet the Australia we know and love is a product of our core Anglo-Celtic Australian culture and Western civilisational heritage. And while our society and culture have changed profoundly in recent decades, the reality is that Australia fundamentally remains an outpost of Western civilisation in a region surrounded by instability and violence.

Australia's European founders built what remains one of the world's most decent and prosperous societies. Is this not a legacy worth teaching younger generations?

On the current approaches to the teaching of Australian history, Dr Kevin Donnelly, author of "Why Our Schools are Failing", wrote:

"European settlement is described as an invasion, Australia’s Anglo-Celtic heritage is either marginalised or ignored, Indigenous culture is portrayed as beyond reproach and teachers are told they must give priority to gender, multicultural, global, futures and Indigenous perspectives."

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4109

No wonder we now have entire generations of confused, culturally disinherited Australians.
Posted by Dresdener, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 7:38:11 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
Dresdener

If we now have what you call "entire generations of confused, culturally disinherited Australians", it's because they have been taught that "the Australia we know and love is a product of our core Anglo-Celtic Australian culture and Western civilisational heritage...and that Australia fundamentally remains an outpost of Western civilisation in a region surrounded by instability and violence."

In other words, they have been brainwashed with the rosy glow of patriotism uncritically presented as the 'story of our nation' when what would have served them better would have been a critical ability to confront, assess and evaluate the competing 'facts' that explain how we came to be the way we are.

When they leave school, they find the world is not at all like they were taught in history classes and that the real world is far more complex and problematic than they had been seduced to believe.

Kevin Donnelly has a lot to answer for
Posted by FrankGol, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 8:59:07 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
FrankGol

With all due respect, you are certainly showing your age in regards to today’s education system. Far from being brainwashed with the rosy glow of patriotism, the politically correct, post-modernist history curriculum of today resembles a full-scale assault on our nation’s moral legitimacy.

Young people are not taught in the multicultural, politically correct schooling system about their ancestor’s nation-building achievements. They are not taught about Western civilisation or our predominately Anglo-Celtic heritage. Rather, the bunk taught in schools today is the moral equivalent of vandalizing the graves and desecrating the corpses of our nation’s founders. I support a ‘warts-and-all’ approach, but how can a version of history that plays up our nation’s sins and crimes be considered objective? How does destroying patriotism, killing pride in our achievements, denigrating our heritage, demoralizing our people and deconstructing our national culture and identity make young people better citizens?

Rather than using our national history to unite and inspire us, the current approach to the teaching of Australian history shames and divides us into the children of victims and the children of the villains of Australia’s past.

Cultural Marxists like yourself have a lot to answer for.
Posted by Dresdener, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 11:27:53 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
Dresdener

On the one hand you say people like me are 'Cultural Marxists' because we advocate a critical approach to the teaching of history; and on the other hand we're responsible for 'the politically correct, post-modernist history curriculum of today [which] resembles a full-scale assault on our nation’s moral legitimacy'.

Now which is it? Cultural Marxists or post-modernists? Can't be both, can we?

I think you're hopelessly confused about the role of history in education. What you seem to want is not history but a program in propaganda: your curriculum would be what you call a ‘warts-and-all’ approach, so long as it doesn't mention 'our nation’s sins and crimes'. Your 'history' would be 'objective' so long as it was only about the nice things we have done.

I don't know what you would call it - using the curriculum 'to unite and inspire us', teaching blind patriotism, pride in our unsullied achievements. Whatever it is, it's not history, and it's not education.

In totalitarian nations 'approved' school history is used to teach chidren the 'right' way of thinking. In democratic nations we teach kids to think for themselves.
Posted by FrankGol, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 11:58:11 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
Hi FrankGol, what would you suggest we teach as history then?
Posted by zahira, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 12:04:11 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
FrankGol

"Now which is it? Cultural Marxists or post-modernists? Can't be both, can we?"

Who says? That's a false dichotomy and you know it.

Your 'critical approach to the teaching of history' sounds awfully like Critical Theory. The Frankfurt School's Critical Theory being essentially the destructive criticism of the main elements of Western civilisation.

I think you're hopelessly out of touch with not only the current education curriculum, but also with reality. You come across as a wannabe 'intellectual elite' advocating the indoctrination of young Australians in anti-Western, multicultural moral relativist nonsense. Rather than teach a chronological record of how Australia developed into undoubtably one of the world's most free and prosperous nations, you support the current warped version of history being taught in our schools. A version of history which judges Australian society in terms of ethnicity, culture, gender and class. A version of history aimed at condemning mainstream Australian society through repeated assaults on its past.

Self-flagellation is not history, and it's not education.

You speak of democracy, but yet condemn the civilisation that brought it to this continent. You speak of free thinking, but yet disparage those who weight up Australia's history and conclude that we have more to be proud of than ashamed of. You speak of critical approaches, but yet support an intellectually bankrupt ideology like multiculturalism.

Alexander Solzhenitzyn stated: "To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots." And how does one sever a people's roots? By destroying their memory. Deny the knowledge of who they are and where they came from. A nation which is too timid and irresolute to teach its own history risks disinheriting its own people. Is this your idea of education?
Posted by Dresdener, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 9:33:54 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
zahira asks: what would you suggest we teach as history then?

First my negative answer. It would not be a state-sanctioned course designed to make children 'proud' or 'loyal'. So it wouldn’t be a single ‘approved’ narrative because there are many ways of understanding our history; nor would it be a whitewash of our past.

The specific topics would vary but could encompass elements such as:
• the origins of each student's personal history;
• the origins of the students' political, economic, cultural and social contexts;
• Australian heritage in all its diversity including Indigenous history, and how different people have experienced the past and how the past shapes us;
• historically-based aspects of popular culture;
• key moments in international history and the role, if any, that Australia played.

In many ways, other learning may ultimately be more important than specific topics. I refer to historical thinking, skills and values. These include research skills, critical examination of evidence, drawing inferences and putting forward careful explanations of why things happened the way they did (or why they didn’t happen the way you might have expected).

I would expect schools to teach students how to present informed, sequenced and persuasive argument based on historical evidence and interpretation.

This intellectual toolkit will last much longer than knowledge of the specific facts taught at school. The toolkit would enable and encourage students to continue to learn long after they have left school and to contribute as adults to debates on politics, economics, culture and social issues.

Dresdener,

Your frantic search for a label to stick on me is pitiful. ‘Cultural Marxists’, ‘post-modernist’, ‘Frankfurt School, 'intellectual elite'. And now I’m trying to destroy Australians’ memory. And all before supper. What will I do tomorrow?
Posted by FrankGol, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 10:09:58 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
FrankGol advocates the teaching of fashionable nonsense such as 'the origins of each student's personal history' and 'the origins of the students' political, economic, cultural and social contexts.' No mention of the major events and figures that shaped Australia's genesis and development as a nation, just fragmented interpretations of Australian history relative to one's own culture, attitudes, values and place.

Assigning disproportionate importance to minority 'perspectives' is not educationally sound. And it seems even students are rejecting the current misguided approach.

Read:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21751866-2702,00.html

The reality is that Australia's history as a nation cannot be properly understood without recognizing that our legal and political institutions, language and much of our culture are Anglo-Celtic in origin and heavily influenced by Western tradition steeped in Judeo-Christian ethic. This may be a truism for most, but apparently not for FrankGol.
Posted by Dresdener, Thursday, 26 July 2007 12:43:32 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
So Dresdener thinks the study of (a) 'the origins of each student's personal history' and (b) 'the origins of the students' political, economic, cultural and social contexts' is fashionable nonsense.

What arrogance to suggest that the many hundreds of thousands of Australians pursuing genealogy are studying nonsense. It's meaningful and important to them.

Incapable of making sense of a simple sentence, Dresdener claims I make "No mention of the major events and figures that shaped Australia's genesis and development as a nation" despite the fact that he quoted my similar suggestion that students study "the origins of the students' political, economic, cultural and social contexts". (If my 'nonsense' is 'fashionable' what does that make Dresdener's?)

My "Australian heritage in all its diversity including Indigenous history, and how different people have experienced the past and how the past shapes us", becomes in Dresdener's mind "assigning disproportionate importance to minority 'perspectives'" And to him, this is not educationally sound - although he gives no reason why it is unsound.

Now, beleiving he's on to something grand and novel that I missed, Dresdener says: "The reality is that Australia's history as a nation cannot be properly understood without recognizing that our legal and political institutions, language and much of our culture are Anglo-Celtic in origin and heavily influenced by Western tradition steeped in Judeo-Christian ethic."

It took him a lot more words to say what I said: "Australian heritage in all its diversity". What part of 'all' doesn't he understand?

And I take it Dresdener doesn't think much about students learning "research skills, critical examination of evidence, drawing inferences and putting forward careful explanations of why things happened the way they did (or why they didn’t happen the way you might have expected)."

Nor does he comment on my expectation that schools "teach students how to present informed, sequenced and persuasive argument based on historical evidence and interpretation."

Dresdener would have all children learn the 'facts' he thinks are important. I'm happy for my children to appreciate that history is complex and many-layered.
Posted by FrankGol, Thursday, 26 July 2007 2:16:21 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
Frankgol suggests the following:

• the origins of each student's personal history; - this is generally how history is introduced to students in early PRIMARY school
• the origins of the students' political, economic, cultural and social contexts; - see above
• Australian heritage in all its diversity including Indigenous history, and how different people have experienced the past and how the past shapes us; - this is how it is presented in SECONDARY SCHOOL
• historically-based aspects of popular culture; - like what?
• key moments in international history and the role, if any, that Australia played. In Secondary school in year 11 and 12 students had/have a choice of ancient or modern history - this is taught in modern history. The two topics above cover primary school to about year 3 or 4, so we need history from year 5 through to year 7 and then in secondary school right through to at least year 10.

Thinking skills....historical thinking, skills and values..... research skills, critical examination of evidence, drawing inferences, putting forward careful explanations of why things happened the way they did .....

- but don't you understand that this can only come about through the teaching of history, geography, sciences. By teaching students these subjects from the very early years of primary school - they develop the SKILLS for this critical thinking. Students cannot think critically, research effectively etc if they do not have the foundations upon which to build

I would expect schools to teach students how to present informed, sequenced and persuasive argument based on historical evidence and interpretation. - The toolkit would enable and encourage students to continue to learn long after they have left school and to contribute as adults to debates on politics, economics, culture and social issues.

- I agree with you here, but don't you see, we need to teach the children the basics, the very foundations upon which these skills can develop. We wish for these lofty ideals, but they very quickly collapse, wanting for solid foundations in literacy and numeracy etc.
Posted by zahira, Thursday, 26 July 2007 8:23:59 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
Dresdener,

The quotation from Kevin Donnelly is not an accurate account of how history is taught in schools. I say this as a former history teacher. You are able to get course documents from various education authorities for an outline of what is covered in history. I was never told to “give priority to gender, multicultural, global, futures and Indigenous perspectives”; nor was “Australia’s Anglo-Celtic heritage…either marginalised or ignored”; nor was “Indigenous culture…portrayed as beyond reproach”. In Victorian secondary schools, students are taught about ancient civilisations, the Middle Ages, the First Fleet, Gold, World War One, the Great Depression, World War Two and our political system.

From the aboriginal perspective, European settlement was an invasion, just as the Romans invaded Britain and so on through human history. That is not to say that the invasion can be undone or that if the British had not come here no one else would have or that there were not benefits as well as costs that resulted, but it is foolish not to see it for what it was.

Students are not taught a “politically correct, post-modernist history curriculum” which “resembles a full-scale assault on our nation’s moral legitimacy”. There is no “indoctrination of young Australians in anti-Western, multicultural moral relativist nonsense”. The teaching of history is not “warped”.

I keep reading about the PC takeover of our schools as they are dumbed down by cultural theorists, deconstructionists, post-modernists, Marxists and Maoists in some mind-boggling conspiracy to produce illiterate slaves to the New World Order, yet all my experience has been that the far more serious attacks on education have come from the economic rationalists who have cut resources, imposed soul-destroying and time-consuming accountability requirements, harshly exploited teachers while cutting their pay and bogged schools down in inefficient competition.

The under-achievement of some of our students is a national disgrace, but the continual false claims of left-wing indoctrination will not help them.
Posted by Chris C, Thursday, 26 July 2007 9:32:28 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
Chris C

Very well put...but will it be read?

zahira

You asked me what I would like to see taught as history. You didn't specify and age level so I gave a generic answer - how can you cover P-12 in 350 words?

But I don't think some history topics are intrinsically easier to do than other topics. Genealogy, e.g., is studied at adult levels but I agree it would be interesting to primary students. Age is not crucial - it's what the teacher and student make of the topic that counts. It can be sophisticated or elementary.

I think popular culture is so pervasive in our lives that it's important for students to study how it has become so infusive across nations and how technology has shaped our lives (and continues to do so). The scope is enormous - mass media, film, TV, mass consumption music, popular fiction, advertising, the internet, body adornment, dress etc. There are fascinating historical explanations to the development of all of these. And sociopolitical issues like state control (or lack of it), the spread of ideas internationally, etc.

The skills I mentioned develop along with the content - one can't learn them in serial fashoin; they interact. You can't teach skills and attitudes like respect for evidence without content...but there is so much content to choose from. The price of any curriculm you choose is the curriculum that might have been.

And it's perfectly obvious that children can't study history adequately without being literate. That's not an argument.

I love history and want my kids to love it too. It's a crucial area of learning. But I don't want a government to dictate a syllabus that all must endure.
Posted by FrankGol, Thursday, 26 July 2007 11:11:32 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
It may not be read, but it can exist for future reference, as can the following year 8 history course, with its absence of Marxist post-modernist PC lefty propaganda:

A student should:

1. show knowledge and understanding of medieval societies:
1.1 daily life, the role and work of various groups, the division of labour between men and women, education, rituals and family, clothing, housing;
1.2 the values and beliefs of medieval societies through their religions, myths and legends, and their social and political structures;
1.3 the ways that medieval societies were governed, political features and the nature of the political system, the dominant groups and how they established and maintained power;
1.4 key events and significant individuals (the fall of Rome, the Viking raids, the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror);
1.5 the influence of trade and contact with other cultures.

2. know and use historical concepts:
2.1 time – chronology and sequencing, change and continuity, the ability to locate periods within a time frame;
2.2 cause and effect.

3. compare key aspects of medieval and present societies;
3.1 aspects of 1 in medieval and modern times;
3.2 influences of medieval societies on contemporary societies; for example, the origins of written law, democracy and the calendar; the limitations on the power of the monarchs (through the rule of law and the writ of habeas corpus); and the origins of major world religions;
3.3 key concepts of democracy, governance, the rule of law, justice, religion, liberty, authority, leadership, culture;
3.4 key individuals’ contributions and legacies.

4.use historical conventions:
4.1 use of a variety of primary and secondary sources;
4.2 evaluation of historical sources for meaning, completeness, point of view, values and attitudes;
4.3 reflection on strengths and limitations of historical documents;
4.4 identification of the content, origin, purpose and context of historical sources.

5. use historical processes:
5.1 framing key research questions to guide their investigations, planning their inquiries;
5.2 using appropriate historical evidence to present a point of view and to report on their findings;
5.3 documenting sources by using a bibliography and footnotes.
Posted by Chris C, Friday, 27 July 2007 3:14:13 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. 3
  5. ...
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. All

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