Former Prime Minister John Howard calls the Gillard Government's new history curriculum "bizarre." In a piece in the Australian of 28 September 2012 titled "BIZARRE HISTORY CURRICULUM STUDIES KYLIE NOT CAPITALISM" the former PM writes:

>>An illustration of the bizarre is to be found in the Year 10 curriculum. In it, students are required to do what is called an in-depth study of one of three aspects of globalisation from 1945 to today: the options are popular culture, environmental movements or mass migration movements>>

(http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/bizarre-history-curriculum-studies-kylie-not-capitalism/story-e6frgd0x-1226482887138)

The thrust of the former PM's attack is that the new curriculum has a left wing bias and certainly this is true. As Howard points out such landmark events as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of China are either absent or minimised. For some strange reason Chinese history stops at 1976.

Howard's solution is to provide a counter-balancing conservative agenda to the curriculum.

With respect to the former PM I think he is missing the point as much as the obviously blinkered left wing academics who compiled the curriculum. There is more to history than left versus right. Here are some overarching topics that I think could be included as options for in-depth study as aspects of globalisation:

--The rise of Asia

--The rise of China and India as great powers

--The internet

--The globalisation of technology

--The role of religion in international affairs

--Demographic trends – especially the dramatic fall in human fertility in most parts of the world

--The globalisation of finance and the global financial crisis

--The global surge in income inequality – a phenomenon in almost all countries

--Energy

--Food and water

Are the left wing academics who drew up the new syllabus even aware of these topics?

I would be interested to hear from OLO about the sort of topics they feel could be included as options.

Steven we have been infiltrated by the Fabians...they lurk in every corner of the public service and academia.

One of my daughters recently graduated from 6 years tertiary study. She is a product of a household that embraces social democracy, excepting when the freedoms of the majority are restricted so as to accommodate a group in society that encompasses a single digit percentage of the whole.

In a conversation with her last week where I was drawn to point out her skewed reasoning on a subject, she responded by telling me that I was right and she had noticed that her whole way of reasoning was skewed towards socialist ethos. She then went on to say that the uni admin and the academics were socialist bent and that the whole education environment guided your reasoning and ridiculed any dissenters by peer and admin pressure.

The Fabians were named after Fabius Maximus, a Roman general who won through stealth and not open aggression; he placed fifth columns to control an outcome.

I sonofglion think the Fabians, they do exist, are the equal of the extreme right.
Both to be feared and in the end both not representative of the majority.
However this country is part socialist, and even the less than extreme right would not change it.
I have, for most of my life, thought we need to be accountable for that socialism, needy not greedy should get it.
History yet to be written, will both reward Howard for his ability's as a politician, and question his attitude to those who had less.

Personally I think the most significant development since 1945 has been the globalisation of science and technology. For most of the second millennium most science was conducted by men, not women, who traced their ancestry to Europe. As recently as 1950 most scientific research was produced by men in labs in Europe and North America.

Of course there were exceptions. Japan was a significant player by 1950. There were great women scientists such as Emmy Noether. The Muslim scientist, Alhazen, was a pioneer in optics.

But most of the work was being done by men from Europe.

This is changing rapidly. Everyone knows about the rise of China; but how many people know that Turkey increased its R & D spend sixfold since 1995?

However it is not merely that scientific enquiry has become a global endeavour; it is that increasingly scientists are collaborating across national boundaries. Today 35% of all published scientific work involves scientists located in two or more countries. In 2006 only 16% of publications by US based scientists involved colleagues in other countries. Today over a third do.

What has made this possible is the internet and cheap telecommunications. Scientists can cooperate in real time. Scientists in, say, Delhi, can use facilities in Singapore. I know of one collaboration in plant genetics that involves scientists from India, Israel and Italy. It's not completely alliterative; the collaboration includes scientists from Brazil and Germany. They are able to talk to each other as if their labs were next door to each other.

What a change from the 1940s when the biologists Max Delbruck in the US and Salvador Luria in Italy had to communicate by airmail letter! It made real collaboration in the sense of bouncing ideas off each other much more difficult.

Not only are more and more top ranking minds addressing scientific issues but the ability to collaborate across great distances is multiplying the effectiveness of those minds.

The future for science, with all that implies, has never looked better.

I'd like to encourage contributors to this thread to think beyond the increasingly sterile "Left versus Right" paradigm and take a look at global developments since 1945.

Which of these could reasonably be themes that are suitable for high school level projects? To me the ones mentioned in the article in The Australian look appallingly narrow and unimaginative.

sonofgloin - I can totally agree with what she said an example is on the site on the main page go to "The Domain" there is a teacher posting on their under "En Passant with John Passant" usually posts a lot one regular of his is "Saturdays’ socialist speak out"
This person teacher own children, if you read his blogs he is totally off his rocker.
I was called racist and a few other choice names now he won't post any of my comments. So much for free speech.
Follow him for a few days and you will understand what she says.