Change the date? Let’s change the curriculum first to address widespread ignorance of Australia’s history | Matthew Bach
This January, as normal, we’re having a heated and largely historically illiterate debate about whether the date of Australia Day should be changed, from 26 January. A brief perusal of social media shows those in favour of maintaining the current date believe, variously, that on 26 January 1788 the first fleet arrived, Australia was federated or Captain James Cook landed somewhere – normally Botany Bay (the first fleet relocated and arrived at Port Jackson in Sydney Cove on this date).
Those who wish to change the date or abolish a national day altogether don’t get much higher marks for historical accuracy. Interestingly, many of them cling to the same falsehoods, notably that Captain Cook landed on 26 January, and then went on to commit genocide – both claims which would greatly surprise the cartographer.
As a former history teacher this appalling ignorance of Australia’s past doesn’t surprise me one bit. Change the date? If that’s the considered will of the people, fine by me. Yet, to foster far greater knowledge of our complex history, let’s change the curriculum first.
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Right now, it’s in a sorry state. Here in Victoria, there is only one subject that focuses entirely on Australia’s history – “Australian History”. A VCE subject, it is completed by minuscule, and declining, numbers of year 11 and 12 students. Only 624 of 51,746 students completed the subject in 2021. The overall number of students enrolled in the subject has halved in the last decade. Based on this trend, soon it will be gone altogether.
That would be a tragedy in its own right, made worse by the broader context: Victorian students, across the secondary years, simply aren’t being taught about our history. In years 7 and 8, pupils complete a brief unit focused on ancient “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures”. In years 9 and 10 there is another unit that seeks to foster an understanding of Australia from 1914 to 1945, with passing reference to Indigenous Australians.
For many students, that’s it. That’s all they learn about our history during their secondary years. There’s one more optional unit for years 9 and 10, on the period from 1750-1918, but in my experience, many schools go for the other option, which is a study of Asian society during the same timeframe.
In 1968 the celebrated anthropologist William Edward Hanley Stanner popularised the notion of the “Great Australian Silence”. He was talking about the airbrushing of Australia’s history: the almost total exclusion of Aboriginal voices and experiences. He said, “What may well have begun as a simple forgetting of other possible views turned under habit and over time into something like a cult of forgetfulness.”
His ideas had a huge impact. Today, barely a meeting, ceremony or sporting match starts without some sort of nod to our Indigenous heritage, yet Victoria’s curriculum still remains almost totally silent, especially on the critical and contested period directly following 1788. That has to change.
It should be compulsory for all secondary students to complete units on Australian history from 1788 to 1914. These units should cover, among other things, Indigenous responses to colonisation, disease, the frontier wars, the establishment of western institutions and norms, official policies regarding Indigenous Australians (including the removal of Indigenous children) and the framing of the constitution.
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This period of our history includes many shameful elements. At the same time, institutions and systems were established that enabled Australia to become, arguably, the most successful multicultural nation in the world. It’s imperative that young people come to an understanding of this complex history: the very good, the bad and the downright racist.
There is nothing inherently boring or unappealing about our history. Making history a specialist learning area, rather than being subsumed within humanities, would force schools to employ more specialist teachers who can make this come alive.
There are many debates worth having as we seek reconciliation. Yet, as discussions about 26 January have shown, these will likely be tedious and divisive if our current lack of basic historical knowledge is not addressed, and fast.
Dr Matthew Bach is the Victorian shadow minister for education