Education is more than an obligation of government to its citizens; it is an investment, not only in the individual, but our collective future and success as nation.
It provides the building blocks of calculus, language, logic and history upon which reason, expression, knowledge and scientific inquiry are based.
It cannot be allowed to become a reflection of fashion, or influenced by political agendas. Yet this is what has occurred throughout our curricula; where sense has been replaced by nonsense, and history distorted through prisms of misplaced revisionist guilt to better suit the popular narrative of the time.
Chetna Mahadik writes on Page 14 of the revised national curriculum which again seeks to weave Indigenous culture through a variety of subjects. This conflation serves no one's interests. She cites an example where Year 1 students are to learn maths by "creating and performing addition and subtraction stories told through First Nations Australians' dances".
Mahadik does not have a problem with the teaching of counting, dances or Indigenous culture. She says, though, that by combining them in this manner children learn none of the three things properly. It is a valid point. This does not help our children and is lacking the logic they need to learn.
