The History Wars (in our schools)

Martin Luther King ,US civil rights leader and Baptist minister, once said: Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

I wonder what the revered black leader would say if he was around in Australia today, witnessing the incompetence regularly played out on national television of our current crop of leaders on race issues; state and federal, Labor and Liberal, as they hastily manoeuvre fanciful notions into policy.

Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop, inexperienced but eager to impress, is seemingly unhappy with history teachings in our schools. Trying hard to imitate her illustrious leader, John Winston Howard, Minister Bishop demonstrates an overzealous desire to stamp her authority on her portfolio, by changing the way children are taught Australian history.

It sounds familiar – sack ATSIC (we know what is best for our blacks), change Industrial Relations laws (we know what is best for our workers) and now change the teaching of history (we know what is best for our students).

I am not suggesting for a moment that her rhetoric is akin to an imposition of The Little Red Book treatment: the book from the Chinese Cultural Revolution that tells readers how to apply Mao Zedong’s Thoughts (circa April 1964) to problems encountered in pursuit of the revolutionary path. But after being stunned out of her complacency by revelations made by a journalist upon return to Australia from the United States, the honourable Minister has steadfastly embarked on an overhaul of history teaching in our schools.

In her address to the Australian History Summit Dinner on August 16 in Canberra on  the topic ‘Forgetting Our Past, Failing Our Future: The Teaching of Australian History’, Minister Bishop opened with the following emotive point on why she has undertaken her noble crusade.

“Last year Roy Eccleston, a journalist at The Australian newspaper, returned home after four years living and working in the United States.

In the US, his young son learnt the basics about important Americans in first grade – from George Washington to Martin Luther King. His daughter’s fourth grade history book traced the national story from native Americans through the revolutionary war and onwards.

Since returning to Australia, Mr Eccleston’s children have looked at how their suburb has changed over time. They’ve done some work on a family tree. But, as Roy lamented earlier this year, ‘a structured, consistent study of the nation’s history’ was nowhere to be found.

When he expressed his concerns to the local school principal he was told not to worry. His children wouldn’t be alone in their ignorance.

Parents all around Australia are worried that their children will grow up with virtually no understanding of their country’s history. Unfortunately, they have good reason to be.”

Does the Minister have a valid point?

Whilst her commitment to remedy the apparent shortcomings of the history curriculum is admirable, by introducing courses such as Studies of Society and Environment (Years 1 to 10 Syllabus); Time, Continuity and Change – Place and Space – Culture and Identity – Systems, and Resources and Power, I worry about the speed of this government in introducing new policy and the Department’s minimalist approach to consultation with stakeholders in all new policy initiatives.

It is easy to direct teachers to impart knowledge to our students based on some fanciful notion that this new material will remedy past mistakes in history teachings. But whose history will be taught? And how qualified are our teachers to cover all content impartially?

The Age newspaper reported on 21 August that the summit considered a paper by University of Wollongong history and politics professor Greg Melleuish, outlining what he thought a student should know of Australian history by the end of year 10. Melleuish sought to rectify some of the imbalances and omissions in standard accounts of Australian history. The eminent professor wanted more attention paid to middle Australia, to the role of religion, to economic history and to the NSW Free Trade Party in the early days of the Commonwealth.

Melleuish proposed a number of other changes to the history curriculum. These included a number of questions. How did a convict society change into a free society? What were the relations between Aborigines and settlers? Why did Australia become so prosperous? What were the relations between men and women? What were the plans and dreams for Australian society? Melleuish proposed that students would deal with three or four such questions in a year, working in each one chronologically through at least a century.

Am I to believe that these views as well as those of the other 23 distinguished historians and commentators present at the exclusive summit, including respected Indigenous historian Jackie Huggins, will be the extent of consultation on this debate before the final policy document is proposed? I hope not!

One of my duties as an academic at my university is to teach a compulsory unit on Indigenous Australians to primary and secondary school trainee teachers. Every semester I witness students in my classes, either straight out of Year 12 or of mature age, wishing to becoming teachers, who don’t have the faintest idea of the past, recent or present lifestyles of our people.

I generally ask a couple of questions to my classes on their first day that, in the main, provides me with sufficient and predictable information to confirm my worst fears: How many of you have been taught by an Indigenous Australian school teacher? What is the name of the local Indigenous tribe of the town you grew up in? What is terra nullius? What was the significance of the 1967 referendum? What can you tell me about the stolen generation?

One student, in my latest intake, raised his hand to the first question only to disappoint me when I asked him the name of the school and the teacher. The student responded confidently that it was a school in New Zealand and promptly gave the name of a Maori teacher.

I don’t care how comprehensive the Minister’s proposed changes are to the teaching of Australian history. One thing I am confident about saying is that unless the next generation of teachers undertake a compulsory Indigenous studies unit at their tertiary institution, they will fail miserably, through lack of formal knowledge, in their task of delivering quality history lessons in the classroom.

A simple solution for the Minister is to make it a condition of federal funding to universities that all their enrolled trainee teachers undertake a compulsory unit in Indigenous Australian Studies. Many universities have such units in their education programmes. The list below is just a random sample of modules and concepts I teach and would certainly cover the essential learning outcomes required for a graduate teacher in the acquisition of a balanced grounding on the history of this country.

For the module on Society, Culture and Identity students are asked to explore, consider and discuss the concept of society, cultures, identity and representation with reference to the Australian community and to Australian Indigenous peoples as a whole.

In the module on Australian Indigenous Cultures the students are asked to explore the cultures and societies of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, examining traditional cultures and focusing on issues as a religion/belief, philosophy, custom and social organisation.

The Impact of Colonisation is a challenging topic that attempt to examine the dispossession of land and the way of life experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people under British colonial rule.

In respect to the Government Policies and Practices module, students are asked to examine the issues dominating Indigenous interaction with ‘authority’. Students are also required to examine and discuss past policies and practices of government and non-government institutions and the impact they have had on the lives of the first Australians.

I believe a graduate teacher, taking a core unit that covers a similar range of modules from any Australian university, could adequately cover the pre-1788 history of Australia through the invasion years post first fleet arrival, the protection, assimilation and integration policy eras, post-Whitlam years with the introduction of a multitude of indigenous service organisations, native title years; Mabo, Wik and the Ten Point Plan, reconciliation years and finally the era of uncertainty post ATSIC.

I also believe teachers would be confident in relating to the past 218 years of white history in Australia by talking about the above issues and by comparing and contrasting dates and issues identified by Professor Melleuish. These include a number of critical questions. How did a convict society change into a free society? What were the relations between Aborigines and settlers? Why did Australia become so prosperous? What were the relations between men and women? What were the plans and dreams for Australian society?

The history of this country, black and white, would become clearer to students and teachers alike if they admitted that ‘White Australia has a Black History’. Denial is what got us to the place we are in today and we all know first hand that ignorance breeds contempt.

The principal reason for the high level of racism in our society towards non-white Australians, especially Indigenous Australians, is because educators failed in their duty to depict us in a positive light and dispel the myths peddled by bigoted parents. Students leave school after 12 years, many not having met an Indigenous Australian, and continue through life with a stereotypical view based on a lack of knowledge and a propensity to believe biased views of conservative social commentators who saturate the media.

One only has to read our social indicators of life expectancy, incarceration rates, unemployment, home ownership, education, income and health statistics, to realise that governments of all persuasions have failed in their programmes to address our disproportionate level of disadvantage.

If Minister Bishop’s radical proposal was implemented, provided that the Indigenous component was signed off by our Indigenous education leaders, I believe the effectiveness of the new history teachings would have the potential to produce a new generation of politicians who hopefully will be more culturally informed and inclusive in their dealings with us.

Only then might the apt words of Dr King: sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity, become inconsequential when referring to our celebrated politicians.