Real History
To The Herald Sun Friday, August 18, 2006
I support the return of real history to our schools. I believe the academics have pulled a swifty on us and our children. They’ve said all history is biased – that any way of telling the past is a political statement. Then they say: oh well since history is political, we are going to use it to peddle our politics. They pick through history to find any bits which show sexism, racism, classism or anti-environmentalism.
Preaching should be done by preachers, parents, journalists – politicians if they dare. But our kids also need what the young have always needed – a factual account of what has actually happened before. Only this way do they have a sporting chance being ready for the future, making realistic choices – and not being sucked in by whatever utopian fantasy is served up to them.
They need to know how nations have behaved, how empires have risen and fallen, how people have had to drop everything and defend themselves at very short notice. This is fact, very relevant to human progress and survival. It does not have to involve preaching at all. If we don’t tell them the past, we are setting them up to blunder blindly into avoidable pitfalls.
Philip O'Carroll