History Wars: A guide to the teaching of Australian History.
It appears that John Howard will be in Sydney today launching his Guide to the teaching of Australian History. This guide is the result of several conferences/summits last years between the Federal Government and Historians to bring about a national curriculum. The purpose of the curriculum for those you haven't followed this in the news is to make Australian History a core, stand alone subject as opposed to the current non-core subjective subject it currently is. In most Australian states (not including NSW and Victoria) it is taught within the frame work of Studies of Society and its Environment This includes geography and related environmental studies as well as political and other social studies.
Howard, along with Julie Bishop, current Federal Education minister, has pushed for the national curriculum because they believe Australian history was being taught as some kind of fragmented stew of moods and events, rather than some kind of proper narrative. It is Howard's belief that our sense has been lots because of the themes based teaching and wants proper narrative and chronological based teaching.
As a historian (as amateur as I am) it has always been my belief that history can not be taught, nor understood, without both of the above approaches. A purely theme based system makes no sens without a chronological structure, and a chronological/narrative based system without a sense of themes, moods or events undermines the real purpose of history study - social evolution. Historian Anne Curthoys agrees.
So, as I said Howard appears to be launching the guide today in Sydney. This has been reported by three news outlets that I read, the Australian, the ABC news and the Daily Telegraph. However I can not confirm this as Lindsay and I have spent a large part of the morning looking through Government websites and have not found the document in questions. My first cynical thought was the government wasn't going to release the document until Howard's launch to avoid complex questions from Journalists however an article in the Australian claims that the Guide has a foreword written by Howard and includes his picture. This would suggest that Journalists have been given advanced copies. Maybe Howard hasn't released it on line until the States accept it as the curriculum, which will he begin to urge them to do so from today.
This is not the first time the Howard government has meddled in education, which has also been, under the constitution, a state responsibility. A few years ago he, along with Brendon Fraser, then minister for Education, tied Federal funding in education to report cards. About a decade or more schools moved their report cards from the bell grade A-F grading system to more complex system of understanding the subject. Students were no longer rated against each other but rather in their understanding of the subject. I was in high school when this was brought in. My report card showed my position in the class, my overall mark in the subject and the comments "High expections" "Understands most concepts" "Understands some" etc (not the actually words, it was a decade ago). I personally believe that it was a superior system, especially as I was in a small class (around twenty students for my entire year) and the bell curve (which has only 5% of students achieve top marks, 10% next top makrs, 80% middle range, 10% low and 5% bottom) didn't really work because it meant that in a class of twenty one had to fail, no matter what they did.
To be fair Howard's return to the A-F grades does not include a return to the bell curve, yet. Of course there is no mention of the return to the bell curve. Howard's reasoning for the return to the A-F grades was that the other system was too complex for parents to work out and some arguments I heard was that it showed the teacher had less understanding of the student's abilities (WTF?)
Howard then tied school funding to the flying of the Australian flag. Only schools that flew the Australian flag would receive funding. Schools had didn't have a flag pole were allowed to claim a special grant to buy one to fly the flag.
Now History is his next target. In 1996, at the Playford lecture John Howard said that "One of the more insidious developments in Australian political life over the past decade or so has been the attempt to rewrite Australian history in the service of a partisan political cause." However is this exactly what Howard has done? Especially if the report that his proposed curriculum has a foreword and his picture in it?
Howard, along with Julie Bishop, current Federal Education minister, has pushed for the national curriculum because they believe Australian history was being taught as some kind of fragmented stew of moods and events, rather than some kind of proper narrative. It is Howard's belief that our sense has been lots because of the themes based teaching and wants proper narrative and chronological based teaching.
As a historian (as amateur as I am) it has always been my belief that history can not be taught, nor understood, without both of the above approaches. A purely theme based system makes no sens without a chronological structure, and a chronological/narrative based system without a sense of themes, moods or events undermines the real purpose of history study - social evolution. Historian Anne Curthoys agrees.
So, as I said Howard appears to be launching the guide today in Sydney. This has been reported by three news outlets that I read, the Australian, the ABC news and the Daily Telegraph. However I can not confirm this as Lindsay and I have spent a large part of the morning looking through Government websites and have not found the document in questions. My first cynical thought was the government wasn't going to release the document until Howard's launch to avoid complex questions from Journalists however an article in the Australian claims that the Guide has a foreword written by Howard and includes his picture. This would suggest that Journalists have been given advanced copies. Maybe Howard hasn't released it on line until the States accept it as the curriculum, which will he begin to urge them to do so from today.
This is not the first time the Howard government has meddled in education, which has also been, under the constitution, a state responsibility. A few years ago he, along with Brendon Fraser, then minister for Education, tied Federal funding in education to report cards. About a decade or more schools moved their report cards from the bell grade A-F grading system to more complex system of understanding the subject. Students were no longer rated against each other but rather in their understanding of the subject. I was in high school when this was brought in. My report card showed my position in the class, my overall mark in the subject and the comments "High expections" "Understands most concepts" "Understands some" etc (not the actually words, it was a decade ago). I personally believe that it was a superior system, especially as I was in a small class (around twenty students for my entire year) and the bell curve (which has only 5% of students achieve top marks, 10% next top makrs, 80% middle range, 10% low and 5% bottom) didn't really work because it meant that in a class of twenty one had to fail, no matter what they did.
To be fair Howard's return to the A-F grades does not include a return to the bell curve, yet. Of course there is no mention of the return to the bell curve. Howard's reasoning for the return to the A-F grades was that the other system was too complex for parents to work out and some arguments I heard was that it showed the teacher had less understanding of the student's abilities (WTF?)
Howard then tied school funding to the flying of the Australian flag. Only schools that flew the Australian flag would receive funding. Schools had didn't have a flag pole were allowed to claim a special grant to buy one to fly the flag.
Now History is his next target. In 1996, at the Playford lecture John Howard said that "One of the more insidious developments in Australian political life over the past decade or so has been the attempt to rewrite Australian history in the service of a partisan political cause." However is this exactly what Howard has done? Especially if the report that his proposed curriculum has a foreword and his picture in it?
posted by Renegade79 at 9:47 am
1 comments
