THE emphasis on teaching Australian history in recent years will be scaled down in the national curriculum, as its initial draft, to be released today, outlines a course that places the national story in the context of broader global events.
The draft says restricting the study of history to Australian history is inappropriate, and while it retains an important place in the national curriculum, knowledge of world events is necessary to understand the nation's history.
The national curriculum stems the push to privilege Australian history, which culminated in the call by the Howard government to make the study of Australian history compulsory in Years 9 and 10.
"If only to equip students to operate in the world in which they will live, they need to understand world history," the draft says.
Pardon me if I'm concerned that so many of the generation after mine today's children don't know any Australian history now, or what they know is someone's idea about history, not facts.
Read more in The Australian.
5 comments:
'equip students to operate in the world in which they will live'
The Primary School Social Studies curriculum we studied in the 50's-60's did exactly that, I find. Knowing about things like Magna Carta, the Wars of the Roses, Queen Victoria and the British Empire helped me understand the world we live in, as others who did not study those things apparently do not.
In any case, to just study 'History' without a focus is simply confusing. You could choose to study from an Indonesian, or Filipino, or Tamil perspective, and you would not be 'equipped to operate in the world in which we live', but if you just study British history you will be so equipped, and will know something about other areas as well.
There shouldn't be a national curriculum in History anyway, it smacks of indoctrination. Let diversity rule.
Hi Bruce
They might even learn how we got to where we are and how important it is to protect what we have, our freedoms and our rights.
Hi kae, just linked to you on this thread. Enjoy.
I strongly opposed the idea of a national curriculum (for any subject) when Howard first came up with this idea. It's just another horrific homogenizing, centralizing idea which places the minds of all Australian students in the thrall of a bunch of faceless bureaucrats in Canberra. Parents should have the right to choose from a variety of courses of study not just have to accept whatever Cultural Marxist garbage is current Orthodoxy from the State (Federal or State). Even apart from this, the fact is that history curricula should be different in every State. Some history of your home state should be taught. A national History curriculum will mean that we will be taught New South Wales history to the exclusion of anything about Queensland (for instance).
Whatever happened to "Social Studies"?
Christ only knows what that 'tard subject would be brainwashing the stupidiferous students with today.....
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