Australia Day has become contentious. It’s difficult now to see it as a day when all Australians are unified.
Australia Day
In my mind, I’d remove 26 January as a gazetted public holiday. It hasn’t always been a gazetted public holiday. In my opinion, it’s still an important day worthy of teaching about in school. It’s still a day to be reminded of in terms of Australia’s modern history. The facts of what happened then will not change.
In balancing primary and secondary education syllabuses, getting all the factual information together and teaching it in a manner that avoids bias but encourages analysis and synthesis of thought is vital. I despair that students aren’t encouraged to engage in independent unbiased thinking about “big issues”. What I see from where I sit is undue influence rather than impartial imparting of factual knowledge.
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