The idea that our young people could grow up as experts in so-called climate change Armageddon but ignorant of the state-sponsored genocide of six million Jews in the Holocaust should cause every voter in this country to demand a rethink of our educational priorities.
But that’s where we are headed unless some sanity is written back into our school curriculum.
As Italy this week crowed about putting compulsory climate change subjects into schools, I wondered how long it would be before Victoria’s Daniel Andrews followed the Italian lead.
Not that he really needs to; his good friend Julia Gillard did it all by stealth when she altered the national curriculum a few years back to require all subjects address issues of sustainability (code for climate change), indigenous issues and Asia; be it English, maths, chemistry or woodwork.
The Jesuits, teachers for centuries, have a saying, ‘give me the boy until he’s seven and I will show you the man.’ And they’re right. What we teach our young people matters and, in the end, will determine what sort of Australia they build and lead in the future.
Here, the curriculum is key – how well-rounded they are, how well skilled they are for the careers of the future and how well they understand humanity’s mistakes of the past. Granted, I studied history through to Year 12 and into university, but the subject matter of the Holocaust was something I encountered multiple times (and I read, I didn’t ‘swipe’ or scroll for pleasure). Not so today.
Read the article by Peta Credlin in The Daily Telegraph.