Culture wars? The Left knows how to fight those battles too

There is no more important priority than learning how to read, write and do maths. Australian children are doing poorly in all three areas because educators have shown little interest, over decades, in evidence-based teaching methods.

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In pursuit of the kind of even-handed, impartial reporting the ABC is statutorily required to undertake but rarely does, this newspaper last weekend gave considerable space to controversial views put by Professor Clare Wright at the Sydney Writers Festival. The professor of history at La Trobe University has for many years complained about the way we, as a nation, teach and commemorate our history.

In particular, Wright dislikes what she regards as an overemphasis on the Anzac story at the expense of what is known as the frontier wars. Wright is quite capable of the odd incendiary remark. When she told her audience at the festival there was “a kind of brainwashing” about being told that “Australia’s true national identity, and the birth of the nation happened at Gallipoli”, she would have had her inner-city audience politely putting down their chai lattes to applaud.

Many others, who don’t attend such festivals, might have been offended. However, as this newspaper editorialised on Saturday, “fair enough; history is always contested ground and Professor Wright has a case to make”.

It would be a fine thing if the magnanimity of our editorial writers were shared more widely. The ability to disagree yet give the opposing view space and respect is something seen too rarely, especially on the left.

La Trobe University history Professor Clare Wright. Picture: Susan Papazian

While Wright is free to lob her grenades, too often those who politely return serve are viewed as the perpetrators of some kind of “history war” raging in Australia. There is no war. Simply a debate, heated at times, but still, we are dealing with ideas. As esteemed historian Geoffrey Blainey said in 2015: “Controversy, not war, will continue for a long time to come. It is in the nature of history and of most intellectual activities, and the more so in a nation where the main strands of history – ­Aboriginal and European – are utterly different.”

There is something Trumpian about those on the left who brand defenders of mainstream views as warriors – be it history warriors or culture warriors. It is not unlike Donald Trump labelling Ukraine as the cause of its war with Russia.

History is not the only battleground that could do with less Trumpian behaviour. Sadly, education is another field full of unnecessarily adversarial behaviour. One expects big political fights about taxation, energy, industrial relations; indeed, about Australia’s place in the world. But why on earth is education infected with kneejerk political responses? If we could extract the politics from the debates, sound education reform would have happened long ago.

I raise this after reading Noel Pearson’s otherwise sensible piece at the weekend about reforming the national curriculum, and other parts of the education system.

There is, one hopes, much agreement – even if it is a long time coming – that returning to basics is exactly what is needed in Australian classrooms. The evidence is in. Our children are doing poorly compared with their peers in other countries. Our children have suffered for too long because politics has infected debates about how best to teach children to read, and how to add, subtract and multiply. These foundational skills can set a child up for a life of learning and achievement, through their years from primary to high school – and beyond. Who doesn’t want this for the current and future generations of Australian children?

But it was disappointing to see Pearson take a silly potshot at me. “Her obsession with culture wars means she attributes too much to the ‘cross-curriculum priorities’ mandated by the Australian Curriculum,” he wrote. “In the scheme of things that are problems with the national curriculum, this is trivial.”

Pearson has every right – and a responsibility as a trailblazing reformer of education – to challenge me if I get things wrong. That is very different from misrepresenting me. I made it clear the problems with the curriculum are “far deeper” than the shallow imposition of cross-curriculum priorities in the national curriculum. But placing basket weaving in a maths class to satisfy misguided “cross-curriculum priorities” does scream how bad things are.

There is no more important priority than learning how to read, write and do maths. Australian children are doing poorly in all three areas because educators have shown little interest, over decades, in evidence-based teaching methods. The deeply flawed national curriculum is just the canary in the coalmine. If the curriculum does not focus on the basics, the path to success is a more difficult one for children.

Some of the problems were exposed by Pearson: the Gonski review was a waste of time because it was about money, not teaching skills. Dollars won’t teach kids how to read; well-trained teachers will do that. So, don’t we want to find, and implement, the methods that work? This is a no-brainer.

Just because we disagreed vehemently over the voice – which was, after all, a political project – should not mean Pearson and I cannot agree on evidence-based teaching.

I am no more obsessed with “culture wars” than Pearson. I want every Australian child to benefit from a rich and robust teaching culture in our schools – if they can’t read and add up from an early age, the odds are against them.

Ever since I started writing, I have been subjected to this hoary old technique. To diminish those of us who challenge and test so-called progressive ideas, we are labelled culture warriors. If you push back against the left’s censorship, you are labelled a cultural warrior. If you are concerned about cancel culture, you’re a culture warrior. If you challenge the left’s takeover of education, you are labelled a culture warrior. If you disagree with radical trans activism, you are a culture warrior.

The motivation is plain as day: to taint what opponents say. Better still, if only we would shut up so that the poorly named “progressives” can have their way on whatever cultural front they happen to be fighting that day.

The left has been playing that game for years. Pearson should be bigger than joining in that racket.

I can look after myself. But throwing gratuitous potshots won’t help people of good faith, right across the political spectrum, work together for the ultimate good of improving how and what children are taught.

To that end, may I suggest that Labor Education Minister Jason Clare (and Pearson) read an upcoming paper called “Academic and cultural orphans: the legacy of policy reforms in Australian school education”, by Dr Deidre Clary, Dr Kevin Donnelly and Dr Fiona Mueller.

The paper is produced by the Page Research Centre, a not-for-profit organisation with a focus on regional and rural Australia. It is loosely aligned with the National Party. Some will agree with the proposals, some will disagree. But let’s put petty politics aside; any disagreement should be based on the merits, rather than on the messenger. The paper, to be released next month, calls for an overhaul of education that is squarely driven by evidence, by teachers and principals – rather than the same bodies and vested interests that have overseen decades of educational failure.

When critics focus on who is talking, rather than what they are saying, they may be more prone to misrepresent what is being put forward. And, patently, that gets us nowhere. Given what is at stake, it’s high time enmities and politics be set aside.