That, I suspect, is part of the problem behind the story in today’s Australian — Students do badly in study of civics. I really don’t think results would have been much better fifty years ago when I was fifteen.
STUDENTS’ knowledge of Australia’s system of government is lower than expected, with only one in three Year [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Australian culture’
18 Feb
For many kids Civics is arid, deadly dull and is thus hard to teach
14 Feb
The bushfire and the Australian imagination
There is a good article in today’s Australian by Simon Caterson: Living with the embers.
IT would be hard to overestimate the strength of the hold that bushfire has over our physical environment and over the Australian imagination. When in 1988 a series of ceremonial bonfires was lit during the Australian bicentenary celebrations, historian Geoffrey Blainey [...]
4 Jun
Radio Australia’s special English sites
Related to the last post here, I have been exploring:
Radio Australia: Learn English
Worth a look.
29 Mar
Fascinating stats
On Jim Belshaw’s Personal Reflections the following appeared this morning, though dated yesterday.
Australia’s Global Ethnic Rankings
We all know that Australia is a country of migrants. A short search of Wikipedia shows that, measured by ancestry, Australia is in global terms:
The second largest Irish, Maori and Maltese country.
The third largest English country.
The fourth largest Scottish country.
The [...]
13 Feb
13 February 2008
Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of
this land, the oldest continuing
cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations – this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in [...]
4 Feb
Great resource for Journeys and multicultural education
Last night I watched Who Do You Think You Are? on SBS.
Go there not just for that one, but for the others in this currently ongoing series.
Naturally, too, I commend Inspiring Teachers which begins on Wednesday 6 February, 2008 at 8pm.
27 Jan
Multicultural Australia: you’re standing in it!
A small swag of human interest stories in today’s Sun-Herald in the wake of Australia Day say more about the comparative success of Australian multiculturalism — diversity AND cohesion — than a whole peck of moanings and mutterings on talk-back radio or similar venues. Aussie pride? Stories like this give it to me in heaps. [...]
7 Nov
More on Journeys
That post on Physical journeys and Peter Skrzynecki’s poems has now had 2,743 individual visits. I thought I would share how I approach teaching this unit, keeping in mind it is not the only approach that would work.
First, I would have a study of the set poems for their own sake, almost (but not quite) ignoring [...]
1 Oct
Accent on otherness
Yes, this is an excellent supplementary text for NSW HSC “Journeys” but it is more than that: Pauline Webber in The Weekend Australian (September 29, 2007).
THE point at which cultures and ethnicities intersect is fertile ground for the creative arts. Such hybridity has been a riff running through the history of international cinema from the [...]
Latest comments