It must be obligatory for all highschool college students to study the great, unhealthy and downright racist of Australia’s previous
This January, as regular, we’re having a heated and largely traditionally illiterate debate about whether or not the date of Australia Day must be modified, from 26 January. A short perusal of social media exhibits these in favour of sustaining the present date imagine, variously, that on 26 January 1788 the primary fleet arrived, Australia was federated or Captain James Prepare dinner landed someplace – usually Botany Bay (the primary fleet relocated and arrived at Port Jackson in Sydney Cove on this date).
Those that want to change the date or abolish a nationwide day altogether don’t get a lot increased marks for historic accuracy. Apparently, a lot of them cling to the identical falsehoods, notably that Captain Prepare dinner landed on 26 January, after which went on to commit genocide – each claims which might drastically shock the cartographer.
As a former historical past trainer this appalling ignorance of Australia’s previous doesn’t shock me one bit. Change the date? If that’s the thought-about will of the individuals, fantastic by me. But, to foster far higher data of our advanced historical past, let’s change the curriculum first.
Proper now, it’s in a sorry state. Right here in Victoria, there is just one topic that focuses totally on Australia’s historical past – “Australian Historical past”. A VCE topic, it's accomplished by minuscule, and declining, numbers of yr 11 and 12 college students. Solely 624 of 51,746 college students accomplished the topic in 2021. The general variety of college students enrolled within the topic has halved within the final decade. Based mostly on this development, quickly will probably be gone altogether.
That may be a tragedy in its personal proper, made worse by the broader context: Victorian college students, throughout the secondary years, merely aren’t being taught about our historical past. In years 7 and eight, pupils full a short unit targeted on historical “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures”. In years 9 and 10 there's one other unit that seeks to foster an understanding of Australia from 1914 to 1945, with passing reference to Indigenous Australians.
For a lot of college students, that’s it. That’s all they study our historical past throughout their secondary years. There’s yet another non-compulsory unit for years 9 and 10, on the interval from 1750-1918, however in my expertise, many faculties go for the opposite possibility, which is a research of Asian society throughout the identical timeframe.
In 1968 the celebrated anthropologist William Edward Hanley Stanner popularised the notion of the “Nice Australian Silence”. He was speaking in regards to the airbrushing of Australia’s historical past: the virtually complete exclusion of Aboriginal voices and experiences. He stated, “What could effectively have begun as a easy forgetting of different potential views turned beneath behavior and over time into one thing like a cult of forgetfulness.”
His concepts had a huge effect. In the present day, barely a gathering, ceremony or sporting match begins with out some kind of nod to our Indigenous heritage, but Victoria’s curriculum nonetheless stays nearly completely silent, particularly on the essential and contested interval instantly following 1788. That has to alter.
It must be obligatory for all secondary college students to finish items on Australian historical past from 1788 to 1914. These items ought to cowl, amongst different issues, Indigenous responses to colonisation, illness, the frontier wars, the institution of western establishments and norms, official insurance policies concerning Indigenous Australians (together with the removing of Indigenous kids) and the framing of the structure.
This era of our historical past contains many shameful components. On the similar time, establishments and methods have been established that enabled Australia to turn into, arguably, essentially the most profitable multicultural nation on the planet. It’s crucial that younger individuals come to an understanding of this advanced historical past: the superb, the unhealthy and the downright racist.
There's nothing inherently boring or unappealing about our historical past. Making historical past a specialist studying space, reasonably than being subsumed inside humanities, would pressure faculties to make use of extra specialist academics who could make this come alive.
There are numerous debates value having as we search reconciliation. But, as discussions about 26 January have proven, these will doubtless be tedious and divisive if our present lack of fundamental historic data is just not addressed, and quick.
Dr Matthew Bach is the Victorian shadow minister for training
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