Climbed out of bed this morning at some hideous hour… if I was back in Aus I could have said I slept in but here on the other side of the world 6am is a hideous hour. I think it has something to do with the sun not setting until 10pm and taking so damn long to sink. Nothing seems to stir beyond 8:30am here so our hour of rising is considered hideous. Continue reading
I must admit that I had a smile on my dial when read the wondrous geographic and social errors in the US media this week. They do seem to regularly get this stuff hideously wrong and it is a sore reflection on their education system. It does seem that educational systems through out the world are more concerned with fantasy than reality often, controlled as they are by Government and Religious mainstream doctrine.
We have reason to wonder if the national education of our kids, once they have conquered the A B C’s along with the 1 2 3’s should be more about how to learn what is relevant to you than about what to learn. Consider this… the reality that once you enter the tertiary education level … the 1st year is more about repeating old lessons than actually learning anything new. Perhaps it is time we took a serious look at just what our kids need to really learn, given the social pressures and social nightmares we are now dealing with from within our communities. Social behaviour seriously is at a historical all time low in our society today.
We have been on the Gold Trail in NSW now for several weeks and it has been a wonderful experience. I have written about it in a number of my posts but today, as we contemplate leaving the gold trail I want to tell you about something about which we know very little, and acknowledge even less.
I love research, and when I go into an area to explore I love to delve into the history related to where I am. It is one of my passions, but with moving into the gold fields I found it hard to discover the older history of these places, that which related to Australia’s unwritten history. It was difficult to find out information about the Aboriginal tribes of the area’s we visited, as with others.
Acknowledging that people of Aboriginal heritage actively participated in colonial history and particularly in the gold discoveries of the mid 1800’s is a reality that is rarely recounted.
It is no wonder to me that our kids do not know our own history in Aus. I have spent the last few days examining just what our vegemiters are taught of our national history at school and further down is a breakdown in case you yourself are wondering. The data presented here is collected from Queensland but can be applied as an example across our country.
It is little wonder to me that we are now dealing with endemic racism and gross misunderstanding and ignorance about who we are and how we got here. Most believe we were English crim’s who having arrived in a convict boat with a couple of the landed gentry, hopped off in old Sydney town to a land full of roos, sheep and ockerisms to be greeted by Aboriginal savages and there we started the fighting. This is a load of crock! Having received such a strong response to my recent post Just Who are Aussies I have consistently heard of how history as a subject is failing to inform Australians about ourselves, and our national heritage and history.
I sincerely believe that if we were taught something of our rich and varied experience as a colony and a nation, we would not be dealing with the racial dissention we are now seeing, this about WHO Australians are and just where we each belong in our world.
The RACISM I see everywhere, sticking its head up like a ferret out of a nest to be shot at by others is truly disturbing. We need to understand WHO we are and how we got here to truly appreciate our diversity with due respect.
Our kids spend a small part of Year 5 learning about our Colonial History, that which forms the basis for our self-awareness as a nation and valued individuals and I sincerely think that this is grossly inadequate. While the topics relevant to our self-awareness are so blatantly absent from the curriculum, or are barely mentioned if addressed at all, our children will lack in self-awareness and due respect in their varied heritages.
Jan Hawkins Author 