Young Dark Emu ‘shouldn’t be in school curriculum’

Dark-Emu-view of Indigenous history will continue to be promoted as schools resource despite claims it contains significant errors.

Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe at the Ballawinne festival in Cygnet, Tasmania. Picture: Luke Bowden

The ABC’s education division will conduct a review of a scathing critique of Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu to ensure its own resources based on the contested portrayal of an early Indigenous agricultural society merit continued use in classrooms.

However, the 2014 book, which argued against the description of Indigenous people as “hunters and gatherers”, will continue to be promoted as a key resource to help schools teach Indigenous history, geography and culture, despite the latest rebuttal to its claims.

Both Dark Emu and the adapted children’s version, Young Dark Emu: A Truer History, are recommended for use in Victorian primary and secondary schools, alongside several teacher guides. They have also spawned a range of associated texts and lesson plans.

However, the release of a new book, Farmers or Hunter Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate, by anthropologist Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walshe, has reignited calls for the book to be removed from classrooms.

The academics have accused Professor Pascoe of misusing historic sources to erroneously claim Indigenous Australians were farmers and lived in villages. In an interview with Sydney radio 2GB last week, they expressed concerns that school students were being “misinformed”.

“It shouldn’t be in the school curriculum because of the errors and incorrectness of the entire work,” Dr Walshe said.

While Dark Emu is not referenced in the national school curriculum or any state curriculum documents – which stipulate ­essential subject content rather than prescribed resources or textbooks – its widespread critical acclaim and multiple literary awards has seen it become a common fixture in classrooms and school libraries across the country.

Publisher Magabala Books has produced the spin-off Dark Emu in the Classroom, providing lesson content for ­geography classes, and several educator guides to assist teaching of Pascoe’s work in classrooms, which feature on the Victorian Department of Education’s website.

According to the Young Dark Emu teaching guide, which is aligned with the primary school humanities and social sciences curriculum, “Pascoe provides irrefutable proof of complex First Nations societies which existed prior to colonisation”.

In another resource aimed at schools, a series of videos produced by ABC Education and featuring Pascoe, Dark Emu is cited for challenging the “belief that First Australians were hunter-gatherers”.

However, it also includes a caveat noting that “since 2019, Pascoe’s work has been evaluated differently by some people, who don’t agree with his interpretations of historical sources”.

A spokesman for ABC Education said the organisation was reviewing the contents of the new book, “as we do regularly with all our resources to ensure they remain relevant and useful additions to the Australian Curriculum”.

The Victorian Department of Education said schools would use their own “professional judgment” on use of the book.