Don’t mess with history
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 127 No 2, 11 March 2022, page no.12
The current Australian Federal Government’s hate-hate relationship with the truth has recently extended to ministerial interference with the school curriculum, most particularly the history curriculum.
In the interests of transparency, it is important that I declare that I am, among other things, a teacher of history. I have had a passion for history in all its guises from my own school days, benefiting from great teachers who opened my young eyes to the “truth” of history: without a constant critical eye, questioning, probing and challenging, we are doomed to a view of history written by those in power.
Over my career, the history curriculum, like the curriculum as a whole, has not been spared the constant and destabilising effects of persistent review and amendment. More than once history teachers have uttered despair at ham-fisted curriculum changes, such as blending history with other social sciences creating such monsters as “studies of society and environment” or the requirements for compulsory history teaching in primary schools. While most of these mistakes have been abandoned, the consequences for students and teachers remain a feature of our system.
So, in the wake of all of the fallout from COVID-19 and in the face of the myriad genuine issues that urgently need to be addressed in our education systems across the nation, the then Federal Education Minister chose to reject the collaboratively developed replacement history curriculum in favour of something that will promulgate the government’s own version of history: one deeply ingrained within prosperity doctrine, the patriarchy and perpetuating colonisation, and which is disparaging of equity, diversity, collectivism and sustainability.
Why this and why now? It stands to reason that a tried-and-true distraction, one that panders to the conservative right of our nation, is to attack both the preposterously labelled “leftist” curriculum and those who teach it.
In my previous role as President of the QTU, I have written many times about the nature and importance of the social and political roles played by teachers and school leaders and the critical impact of political activism by the QTU and its members. I have experienced and witnessed the impact of less constrained governments on teachers and their trade unions in nations such as The Philippines. I know the strategies and tactics that will be employed to obfuscate, misdirect and entangle the voting public, so that they might not notice the gross failures of the current federal government when it is held to account at the election.
We cannot afford to be complacent. We cannot afford to be silent. Taking on the federal government over its latest attack on the history curriculum may not seem to be the most urgent campaign focus for the QTU and other education unions, but we will be failing ourselves, our students and the Australian community if we do not meet this challenge head-on and with all the energy we can muster.