Last week, I wrote about the appointment of Gerard Henderson to a panel to revise the draft national history curriculum. In my post, I suggested that the history summit last year had results which went beyond the narrow brief that Howard had mapped out for it, and demonstrated that it was impossible pedagogically and with any intellectual credibility to draft a unilinear narrative of Australian history for teaching in schools. I also suggested that the announcement had Howard’s fingerprints all over it, despite the fact that his hapless Minister, Julie Bishop, was left holding the pie.
Crikey has a bit of a scoop today, publishing a leaked draft of the curriculum [pdf].
Sophie Black writes:
Crikey has been told by informed sources that the main thrust of the curriculum that came out of last year’s History summit and the subsequent draft consultation centered around the teaching of milestones and encouraging student questions. It was widely believed that the milestones and questions approach provided for a more traditional teaching of history (milestones/narrative) but with a question component to ensure that children were offered an opportunity for deeper analysis.
There are strong suggestions that the Prime Minister’s main objection to the draft curriculum was the inclusion of the ”question” component.
This falls in line with some recent off-the-cuff remarks that the Prime Minister made at the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian history presentation on the 20th of June. Mr Howard gave a prepared speech at the start of proceedings, but after lunch, when he stood up to announce the winner of the prize, Mr Howard raised eyebrows amongst the audience of historians and museum staff when he stated that history should only be about teaching ”just what happened”.
It does appear now that Howard personally over-ruled the draft, and that what stuck in his craw so much was that students would be able to question historical narratives. So we have educational policy by Prime Ministerial fiat, and a government approved version of our nation’s history which can’t be questioned. Predictable but pathetic.
This is a man who places his own ideology, and his concern for his own legacy, above educational goals.
Howard is correct on how History should be taught at high school level. It should overwhelmingly be Rankean – wie es eigentlich gewesen
Ranke’s historicism didn’t even survive as a viable approach to historiography much beyond his own lifetime – in the Methodensreit that erupted in German social science in the late ninenteenth century, his narrow empiricism ended up with few defenders.
It’s probably of interest, though, that Ranke was honoured by the Prussian crown:
After all:
That suggests that Ranke himself was unable to “stick to the facts” and his selection of them was influenced by an unacknowledged ideology.
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/historian/Leopold_von_Ranke.html
Mark
Not one of your more reliable calls, Mark. I would also add a touch of Hegelian liberal teleolgy to the mix. After all, this style of historiography was the basis on the NSW HSC in the 1980s, which was a darn sight superior curriculum to the one currently in use.
Oh and neither I nor high school students could give a tinker’s cuss about Ranke’s honours.
Howard has some very strange views re History. As I recall, when asked about Australia’s involvement in Iraq, he said something to the effect:
“The history of why we are involved is interesting but not really important”.
I imagine Howard is also uncomfortable with:
“Growth of trade unions internationally and nationally and impact on social and political landscape”
And I don’t think he would want any time devoted to the Harvester judgment.
But most importantly, Howard doesn’t want an approach based on Questions. Howard simply wants to feed students the Answers. For Howard, one should not think about history, one should simply learn it.
Since Ranke’s method was directed against Hegelianism, that doesn’t make any sense. And Hegelian teleology is hardly “liberal” either.
We’re always hearing that you don’t give a “tinker’s cuss” about stuff, John, but that doesn’t make it so – perhaps you should heed some of these philosophers of history on generalising from the particular to the universal. The whole point is that Ranke’s history in practice was a conservative and nationalistic version, which is precisely what Howard wants to impose on Australian schools – no questions asked.
A style of historiography you claim did not survive the 19th century. A claim that is well, nonsense.
Hegelian historiography not teleologically liberal? Ah, dude, it is you who needs to hit the books for some revision.
Yep, Howard’s “all the way w/ LBJ!”…or should we say GWB…when it comes to the teaching of History.
“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”
(Quote from ‘1984′: George Orwell)
wpd
Hmmm…we all studied this in the 1980s before the pomo crowd took over.
You could try reading historiography, cut ‘n’ paste, which you have obviously never done. At least start with EH Carr.
John, the thread is not about your strange view of Hegel (where exactly was the liberalism in either a notion that history moves through the dialectic or in his universal class?), but about Howard’s personal intervention in the national history curriculum.
Please note that the comments policy states this type of commenting as unacceptable trolling:
Sorry, Mark.
No probs, FdG.
Teaching milestone history without any critical analysis?
Isn’t that roughly akin to teaching science without bothering to teach the scientific method?
Howard’s approach to History reminds me of those students insisting on getting a 72 or above (or whatever the requisite mark) so that they can get into Law.
“But I included all of the necessary facts and I need to get into Law!”
I studied history in the NSW HSC about five years ago… That was after the new syllabus came in… didn’t seem “pomo” to me…
I think talking about dialectics and Ranke’s historicism is over-philosophising the practice of HS history teaching… in reality it doesn’t stick rigidly to any model, and never has.
The real practical questions aren’t so abstract: do you focus on individual actions or structural issues? Do you focus on an itemised list of chronological events (which would seem to call for multiple choice or single answer tests) or more interpretive deliberation (eg. longer essays)? Do you focus on key moments or cultural trends?
These aren’t really epistemological questions or even political ones.
Remember it’s not simply an intellectual discussion – as teachers remind us, the central difficulty is “what will the kids bother to listen to?�
The earlier compulsory history in year 7 however did seem a bit too much “now lets learn about some isolated popular events like Ned Kelly, Bradman, Gallipoli.� Kind of history by brand names. (I fail to see how this is particularly “postmodern�). But some teachers claim kids won’t listen to anything else.
The Australian recently published an article by conservative historian Greg Melluish, who also attacked the summit for being ideological. He suggested that compulsory history teaching at high school should be scrapped altogether.
I did Extension History for NSW HSC about four years ago and I’d largely concur with David — save Ranke and theorists for the three unit course. In my experience what made the ‘brand name’ approach to Australian History even worse was the way disperate chunks were staggered across the yr. 7-8 compulsory component — advocates of compulsory history have got to realise that the two years in early high school aren’t likely to build an interest in history if they’re disjointed by the need to jump around to episodes of Australia’s past to absorb some good old fashioned values: you’ve got to make kids interested in history first.
Good points David and Leinad.
Me thinks Howard has some history that he wants the mug punters to forget, well for a few months, at least. Ah, but not working too well this time,eh.
The COW is at war with
IraqIran. The COW has always been at war withIraqIran.Students for Orwell
I wouldn’t place too much faith in Howard’s knowledge of history, or for that matter, literature to be imposed in any curricula.
The one focus of his political agenda (from which he gets his reputation for consistency) has been industrial relations, which he’s been banging on about since he was running the autocue for Billy McMahon.
He was all for overhauling the IR system (in fact many apologists have said we should not have been shocked by Workchoices). He once described the Australian Award system as “Dickensian”.
This seems to be an appalling misreading of Dickens and history. Dickens literature describes the conditions prevailing in the laissez-faire system of 19th century UK.
It can be claimed that Award conditions, unions, conciliation and arbitration were a consequence of laissez-faire failure.
In other words, a consequence of the inhumanity Dickens described.
Dickens also had something to say about interminable court cases that drag on forever, and the biases of the legal system, which might contain a message for anyone trying to assert any rights under WorkChoices.
As it is axiomatic that Mr Howard is a very clever politician, it would be presumptuous to conlcude from this remark that he is simply a naif in the field of historiography.
It seems therefore, that Howard has been worded up on von Ranke’s empiricism. I detect the influence of Gerard Henderson here.
On the general issue of empiricism, there is nothing objectionable, per se, in adopting this as an organising principle for secondary historical study. In a properly constructed course, a systematic investigation of the shortcomings of empiricism could then follow.
One senses, however, that Hendo and Howard may have another purpose for their championing of old von Ranke.
Empiricism, notoriously, cannot justify why it casts its historical gaze at one set of facts about “what happened” over an infinite number of other sets of facts. All those facts are equally about “what happened”.
But which set to include in a syllabus? Howard pictures pioneers, diggers, prime ministers and blokes in corporate boardrooms. He does not want this priority to be contested.
Yet Hendo and Howard can justify their choice of pasts to be studied only by pointing to their view of the present and their hopes for the future.
And this habit of mind is anything but empiricist.
Von Ranke would be turning in his grave!
I sincerely doubt it, Katz. Hendo, for his faults, is a trained historian and would know better than to indulge in the vulgar Whiggism of popular Ranke-worship. If you have a read of Menzies’ Child, which is excellent, you’ll find no lack of competing narrative.
Personally I think Howard’s insistence on [Dragnet theme] The Facts simply comes from his own training as a lawyer, which in common-law countries imposes a strict worldview in which [Mad Max theme] Two Truths Enter, And One Truth Leaves. It’s not a sinister conspiracy. To quote PJK, it’s just Howard being Howard.
But my little Cape-rounding mate, you haven’t take full account of the subtlety of my argument.
1. Suburban lawyers do not quote German empiricists without help.
2. Hendo is Ratty’s Mr History.
3. Hendo doesn’t have to believe in empiricism to quote von Ranke to Ratty, with the following advice: “A famous historian wanted the sort of history that you want Mr Howard. You don’t have to know his name, just say, “just what happened.” Trust me.
1. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, I don’t really know what suburban lawyers get up to when they’re not lawyering. I don’t really want to know.
I *do* know that Howard is in the habit of reading history on his own, preferably big tomes like Les Carlyon’s One More Book On WWI and Another Fucking Gallipoli.
2. That was certainly true in the 1990s, I’m not sure how true it is today.
3. I’m telling you, the words “just what happened” would go against Hendo’s every professional instinct.
Katz,
Not sure that “just what happened” gets the full sense of wie es eigentlich gewesen – the closest I can get (with the help of my trusty German/English dictionary) is “the only way it went”. Leaves a lot less breathing room than “just what happened”.
Isn’t it interesting how the people most enamoured by war history and willing to glorify it and ride on its coat tails, are usually the ones who were never at war, nor in any danger of being so.
Just a thought.
Closer is “as it was essentially”.
It means that the historian strives to understand what is particular and significant about that event, or that sequence of events, without appeal to archetypes or generalisations.
Often von Ranke’s formulation is translated into English as “what actually happened”.
It’s not such a big step from “what actually happened” to “just what happened”.
I take the meaning of those words to be, “We can talk about this event or sequence of events and understand them without reference to generalisation or theory, or culture, context, precedent, or memory.”
I think what is captured in all of these formulations is the belief in essentialism.
So we have educational policy by Prime Ministerial fiat, and a government approved version of our nation’s history which can’t be questioned. Predictable but pathetic.
I’d call it something other than pathetic. More like dangerous. John Howard has no mandate for personally determining how history is taught in Australian schools. Under that blokey exterior, he’s an authoritarian who brooks no dissent – no questions. (Not that there was ever much doubt about that.)
“The one focus of his political agenda (from which he gets his reputation for consistency) has been industrial relations, which he’s been banging on about since he was running the autocue for Billy McMahon.”
Ha. Nice one Don.
He’ll probably get his name in the history books for his IR fixation too, although not for the reason he wanted.
I reckon he’ll go down as the only tosser to have lost an election because of a piece of hugely unpopular IR Legislation.
As for his views on history, you’ve got to understand that when little John Winston attended school, the maps on the class-room walls were still mostly coloured Empire Pink, the teachers could flog the crap out of students and popular culture was still awash with tales of the derring-do of the Few in their Spitfires, blasting The Hun from the skies over Mother England. Christ, the first popular fiction he probably read was Biggles and the first feature film he was allowed to go and see on his own was probably The Dambusters.
He’s a product of his time. And it shows.
Howard is one of the best off-the-cuff speakers in headphones around. He is highly respected amongst his parliamentary confreres for his ability to talk under water, with a string of unexamined cliches in words of not too many syllables. This is why he is so much in his element on talk-back radio.
But he is not a thinking man, not a writing man, and he famously despises intellectuals. Most of his ideas about good governance come from long ago in his past, when he was a keen young branch-stacking Liberal in the 50’s and have not varied much since, as evidenced by his white-picket fence view of the world. To the extent that he does read books, and who knows whether he really does, his reading aligns with his own predetermined positions. Never do we hear of Howard reading anything that might contradict his own viewpoint.
And Howard the former suburban solicitor does not write his own speeches, he reads speeches written by others, based on his well-understood ideological passions from the past. If you see Howard at a lectern, moving his eyes down to the written word, then the only real question is, who wrote what he is saying. In relation to history education, Henderson is obviously Howard’s paid wordsmith, serving up Howard’s thin pasty gruel with lashings of purported academic respectability (I have a PhD and have written a book or two, so there).
The only problem for Howard is that Henderson is not held in high regard as an academic historian or educator, more as a mouthpiece for a particularly narrow ideological viewpoint, as expressed all over the media each week. Henderson’s eventual report might well suit Howard, and carry the imprimatur of that eccentric joker Blainey, but it will fall in a heap once it is examined and judged by those who know a bit more historiography than von Ranke, and actually have the job of translating such rubbish into the classroom. It won’t happen.
‘as it was’ according to whom?
not aboriginal people, convicts, combinationists, frenchmen, midwives, gays, irishmen, chartists or kids – thats for sure
its just typical howard state authoritarianism and censorship. maybe he will go the way of the king of prussia at the next election
In the secondary curriculum I note “Australia’s cultural, commercial and sporting contribution to the international community since 1960s”
I assume that Nobel prizes in sciences are “cultural”, but it’s great to see that “commercial” and “sporting” activities aren’t! Even in the view of the right-wing apologists!
(Oh well, at least it’s Henderson not Bolt – and there’s too much on pre-white culture to be the work of Windy)