For the past two years I have been directing a large ARC funded research project about history teaching.[32] The research was developed in response to some of these national concerns over history teaching — generated in particular by a popular belief in the subject’s nation-building potential.
In all, 246 high school students, history teachers and curriculum officials from each of the eight Australian States and Territories were interviewed for this research. (I have also interviewed around 80 respondents from four provinces in Canada as a part of comparative study.) This qualitative study did not set out to present yet another statistical survey of what students do not know about their national past. Rather, these classroom perspectives challenge assumptions that the national benefit of Australian history education lies in doing ‘more of it’ or returning to ‘the basics’ of an affirming national narrative. It is not that the students I spoke with question the importance of their nation’s heritage — far from it — but they do have strong opinions about what it offers them and other young Australians.
Overwhelmingly, these students support the teaching of Australian history in school. When I asked a group of boys at an Islamic school in Western Sydney whether Australian history should be a compulsory subject, Oyuz thought it probably should, ‘Because it’s good to know what happened in the past’. His classmate Ahmed captured the sentiment even more strongly: ‘It’s not just good to know,’ he said, ‘we should know.’[33] Jill, a year nine student from a public school on the New South Wales Central Coast, thought that everyone should study Australian history. ‘I can’t understand why other states don’t learn about it,’ she said, ‘because it’s really important that we do’.[34]
Even those students who doubted the effectiveness of mandatory Australian history per se sensed the importance of the subject. Jill’s classmate Les said that he didn’t think the subject should be mandated, because ‘I’ve always found from personal experience that if you try and make things compulsory it’s the fastest way to make people not interested’. But he acknowledged that ‘you have to Australian history’ in some form.[35] Chen, a year 11 student at a public girls’ school in Sydney was similarly ambivalent about the extent of any exclusively national historical education, but she thought it was nevertheless essential to teach: ‘Yeah, I think it should be compulsory, like at one stage of your life, but not like throughout your primary school and throughout your high school.’[36]
Despite this widespread acknowledgement by students that Australian history should be taught, they didn’t suggest its value comes from any parochial or chest-thumping patriotism. In fact, the opposite is almost certainly true: time and again, students described their understanding of the subject’s importance in terms of learning about Australia in an international context, considering multiple perspectives, and engaging in more open-ended learning. At an independent girls’ in Canberra, for example, Annie thought Australian history should be compulsory in school, but that a broader and more critical context would make it more engaging for students: ‘I think that we need to move away from the Australian perspective because we are not the only country in the world, whatever they might have us believe. And maybe just [have] more discussions as well.’[37]
For so many of these students, history’s worth stems from how it helps them to think, above and beyond any core national knowledge. When I spoke with a group of students from a girls’ school in Brisbane, Lily thought history was ‘different to a subject like maths and stuff, because you can look at it and interpret it’. That interpretation ‘may not be the same as the person next to you,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong’.[38] Jeff goes to a Catholic boys’ school in Brisbane and also thinks the subject is more engaging ‘with the student going out and being a proactive learner, rather than the teacher sort of feeding them information’.[39]
That’s not to say students would prefer laissez-faire discussion-based lessons with no content at all. But they’re critical of approaches to the subject that preclude any historical engagement from them. Maddison, a year 12 student from Perth, did not like learning history when the lessons were ‘Entirely textbook focused. I mean, textbooks are important for a lot of it, but entirely textbook — especially the textbooks we get — is horrible.’ ‘Yeah,’ said his classmate Eva, ‘I don’t like the kind of style where you just read and answer questions. It’s okay if you’re reading and kind of talking about it.’[40]
Many Australians believe the purpose of Australian history teaching is essentially nation-building. Yet in classrooms around Australia students want a much more complex appreciation of the subject, where knowing the nation’s past and critically engaging with it are not mutually exclusive. These year 12 students a public school in Darwin recognised the place for learning historical content, but they also wanted teaching methods that included and encouraged different points of view:
Daniel: We’ve never really had anything other than classroom discussions.
Natalie: We did a lot of debating last year, like arguing our different sides, and I think one of the really big components is having good teachers. I think what made that so interesting was that we had really good teachers who know their stuff and have like actively engaged us and they’ve questioned our opinions, and it’s just been a really good experience.
Gabby: I think on the whole, I don’t want to speak for everyone in our history class, but I get the feeling that we all learn better through the discussions.
Others: Yes.
Gabby: Through being able to ask those questions and that sort of thing, rather than just reading dates out of a textbook. Although that is helpful in some instances, I think as a whole a lot of our learning has been through discussion.[41]
Comments such as these are vital in the midst of these public and political debates over history teaching. Indeed, far from being challenged by the possibility of multiple perspectives, the students I spoke with overwhelmingly say that’s how they learnt history best.
Teachers also understand the importance of learning both the content and skills of historical inquiry. And, like their students, they are not sure that teaching a more nationally-oriented curriculum is necessarily the answer. In Tasmania, Margaret thought that Australian history should be compulsory, but she wasn’t convinced by the current public discussions about core national knowledge. ‘There are basics about geography and history that kids need to understand who they are,’ she insisted. ‘But I never want to see a situation that says you’ll teach this to this person on this day and in this way, because you have to come from where kids are at.’ She was exasperated by the political pressure that had been generated following Howard’s 2006 Australia Day speech: ‘Oh look, you read in the paper all the time about the history the kids should know and I keep thinking, “Right, come into a classroom and teach it”. It doesn’t work.’[42]
By contrast, at a public school in Brisbane, Mary says the reward for teaching historical complexity is when her history classes really come alive: ‘It’s fun, it’s good — you create critical kids,’ she explained. ‘The really bright ones will actually learn to challenge you as well as the texts and the sources and stuff.’[43] Stephen from Adelaide was similarly open about the skills of critical analysis he hoped to instil in his students: ‘I like students to think, I like them to be critical thinkers. I like them to question what they’re being fed, and even question what I might say to them as well.’[44] Such classroom perspectives provide a stark contrast to the public calls for an affirming and exclusive national approach to the subject.
These teachers and students acknowledge the importance of teaching Australian history, but they expressed real concern about implementing a narrowly national approach to the subject. The limitations of history teaching for nation-building certainly weren’t lost on these students at a Catholic boys’ school in Perth. In fact, they sensed the merits of the subject lay precisely outside any narrowly national appeal:
Q. Do you think Australian history should be a compulsory subject?
Adrian: I don’t think it should be to the extent that American history has been taught. Like I think it should still be taught from the perspective that it’s open to interpretation.
Brendan: Yeah, I think if it’s compulsory, it shouldn’t be inward-looking like America, and I think it should be the whole investigative sort of history. I don’t like the idea of just learning facts, and then being told what to think.
Jeff: Because that would be boring.
At a public girls’ school in Sydney, Andie also thought the subject’s interest and importance depended on understanding its complexity and encouraging the questions it raised in class:
For me, it sort of puts everything into perspective, because in other subjects it’s sort of like me, me, me, and sort of like thinking in a small scale, but in history you can think in a really broad scale. It’s not that we’re insignificant, but in a global scale we’ve lived for so many years and people have done so many great things, it’s just really interesting to learn about it.[45]
Such comments reveal that discussions of history’s value beyond any national appreciation are not restricted to the academy. The teachers and students I spoke with certainly understand the complexities of history education — what is more, they suggest, the subject is more interesting and engaging for it. And that means fostering history classes that not only connect students to Australia’s past, but also help them become critical thinkers who can engage with challenging ideas and different points of view. When I asked the group of students from the New South Wales Central Coast whether they enjoyed studying history, Les was effusive: ‘I love it’, he said. ‘I really like the flexibility in history because you can look at everything and there’s no direct answer.’ Added Ryan: ‘And everyone’s allowed to have their own opinions. Like, you’re allowed to have yours — I don’t care — as long as you can kind of back up your evidence.’[46] This critical capacity, I argue, is exactly the sort of ‘nation-building’ that Australian history education should encourage.