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Curriculum review: Schools already shedding ‘white-washed’ version of…
Curriculum review: Schools already shedding ‘white-washed’ version of history
What would a reader infer about the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples based on the ordering
Thinking about your knowledge of Australian history and culture, what information is included and excluded? Are there any taken-for-granted assumptions about Australian history or culture?
How is the information in the article ordered? Which material is presented first? Which sources or experts are presented first? How is this ordering positioning readers to interpret the information?
Is there an Indigenous viewpoint included in the article? If yes, how does the author use Indigenous perspectives to support or contradict the main message? If no, how could this influence a readers' perception of Indigenous Australians and of the main message in the article?
What evidence of overt and covert assumptions about Indigenous Australians are present in the text? What would a reader infer about the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples based on the ordering and presentation of information in the article?
The article starts off by talking about the Reservoir East Primary School students and how they begin each morning with an acknowledgement of the land and why it’s important to care for it in the way that Aboriginal people have done for many centuries (white perspective)
The routine is one way the school embeds Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture, one of the curriculum’s three “cross-curriculum priorities”, in its teaching (white perspective).
A review was released last week about how the curriculum overlooks "truth-telling" the curriculum fails to discuss the First Nations experience of invasion.
It’s unlikely those reviewers were referring to Reservoir East Primary, where any teaching of a “white-washed history” has long been excised in favour of an approach that confronts tough truths about stolen lands and stolen generations, according to prep teacher Alinta Williams (white perspective). She says students should be given a lot more credit for their empathy toward the situation. There is so much great resources and media out there, she says (hmmmmm?)
Any changes to the curriculum that follow the review will take effect next year - must be signed off by all federal and state and territory education ministers (why????)
Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge last week said he was concerned that the draft version might not have got the balance right between honouring Australia’s Indigenous history and its Western heritage.
Debra Bateman, Dean of Education at Flinders University and an expert on curriculum development, said the proposed changes to Australia’s curriculum reflected an increasingly sophisticated understanding of Aboriginal reconciliation and of Australia’s place in the world.
“History is not a singular narrative,” Professor Bateman said.
In Australia, for a very long time we have kind of depended on a narrative of sameness, that to be an Australian means that we reflect a whole range of stereotypes.”
Debate about the proposed changes – which also include replacing reference to the nation’s “Christian heritage” with references to its multi-faith, cultural diversity – reflect a long-standing “tension between the traditional and the dominant cultural view and the emergent, changing world view”, she said.
Victoria has its own curriculum, which has the same cross-curriculum priorities as the national versionReservoir East principal James Cumming said all the necessary material is already there within both existing curriculums to take a more “open” approach to teach First Nations culture and history.
“When we are talking about the Australian curriculum there is a lot of smoke and mirrors, with people jumping up and down and talking about what they’ll lose, but for me it’s what you’ll gain by teaching a broader perception of what history is about,” Mr Cumming said.
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At the Knox School, an independent coeducational school in Wantirna South that uses the Victorian curriculum, Australia’s history is also taught as something that is “contested”, principal Allan Shaw said.
“We try to place in front of the kids that there are differing perspectives on this,” Mr Shaw said.
“That often history is written by the winners, one, and, two, that’s not necessarily the whole truth or the only truth.
“History is often a contested space once you get past the bald facts of who arrived where and when.”