NSW curriculum reform: deception by omission

June 1, 2021
Issue 
Young people鈥檚 education extends beyond the classroom but what students learn or do not learn there has a significant and long-term impact. Photo: Tumisu/Pixabay

For the first time in three decades, the NSW school curriculum, from Kindergarten to Year 12, is undergoing a complete听. It is important to note what is being omitted.

As Howard Zinn once听, the way in which we are deceived by history is not that lies are told, but that things are omitted. If a lie is told, you can check it, whereas if something is omitted you have no way of knowing.

His argument needs to be heard in this instance, in which听dissenting voices are silenced and inconvenient truths omitted.

Professor Geoff Masters was commissioned to undertake a systematic curriculum听听and recommend changes. A Legislative Council (LC) committee recently released its own听听on his听NSW Curriculum Review and addedits听own recommendations.

Masters鈥 review is written in measured terms. The LC committee鈥檚 report, by contrast, is full of incendiary language 鈥 but has the merit of making clear some of the parts it wants the new curriculum to omit.

It states it 鈥渢akes seriously Minister Sarah Mitchell's public declaration that overtly political content must be removed from the classroom鈥 and goes on to say that such political content 鈥渋ncludes the growing trend in education for neo-Marxist propaganda like post-modernism and post-structuralism to pollute the minds of students鈥.

Reflecting the new national educational policy 鈥斕, which sets out a 鈥渘ational vision for education鈥 which, in reality, is an听听鈥 the LC听report is silent on climate change.

It is also hostile to the idea of retaining 鈥渟ustainability鈥 as a cross-curriculum priority, stating: 鈥淚t is difficult to know why 鈥楽ustainability鈥 is a higher cross-curriculum priority than say 鈥榚conomic growth and recovery鈥欌.

The greatest omission from the LC report is any mention of school鈥檚 contradictory purposes: preparing young people for听听and the听听of听young people becoming 鈥渁ctive and informed citizens鈥 who 鈥渨ork for the common good, in particular sustaining and improving natural and social environments鈥.

This tension between the economic and political purposes of education is part of the inherent contradiction between capitalism and democracy.

Less radical, but no less important, is that the LC report ignores the high rates of unemployment and underemployment 鈥 denigratingly referred to as 鈥渦nderutilisation鈥 鈥 among听听people between the ages of 15 and 24.听

Instead, it maligns the 鈥渓eft-wing economic theory that the nature of work is being transformed 鈥 with automation supposedly creating mass unemployment in Western economies鈥 and, in a striking rejection of current work place inequities, dismisses those who attempt to 鈥減unt wildly on matching up the school curriculum to unpredictable labour market trends鈥.

The report鈥檚 treatment of First Nations people鈥檚 history and culture is similarly dismissive. It glosses over the 鈥渟ignificant mistakes鈥 of colonial Australia and concludes that the colonial governors 鈥渢ried to civilise those around them鈥.

It argues that students should be 鈥渓earning about the joy and wonder of historical events鈥 rather than being 鈥渞equired to question how our knowledge of history has been 鈥榮ocially constructed鈥欌, which might encounter opposing historical perspectives.

While the LC听report agrees with Masters鈥 review to include a standalone subject on 鈥淎boriginal culture and history鈥, the latter recommended that First Nations communities听鈥渟hould play the central role in the development of this curriculum鈥.

However, the LC report said: 鈥淚t seems extraordinary for the new subject to be devised by the Aboriginal community itself鈥. It went on: 鈥淚t is unprecedented to hand over curriculum content to a group who themselves are the subject of the content. The potential loss of objectivity and historical accuracy is obvious.鈥

But the LC听support of 鈥渁 return to the linear 鈥 teaching of history, with an enhanced focus on the heritage of Western civilisation and the development of modern Australia鈥 would lead precisely to a loss of objectivity and historical accuracy.

It would not be adequate, as the LC report proposes, to leave the 鈥渟erious work鈥 that the Masters' review neglected to the NSW Education Standards Authority, whose听听is composed of 14 members, only one of whom is a First Nations person.

Masters' review and the LC听report are just part of the battle over the school curriculum.

Young people鈥檚 education does extend beyond the classroom, but what students learn, or do not learn there, has a significant and long-term impact on what is considered common knowledge and what might be used as a popular platform for lasting social and political change.

Politicians understand this and thus take every opportunity to bend the curriculum towards the content and values that serve their interests, whether or not those match the intertwined goals of ecological sustainability and social justice.

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