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.

Hi FrankGol, what would you suggest we teach as history then?

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?

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?

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.

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.