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for people in other places and times and their genuine joy of learning about the past.
In so many classrooms history teaching and learning are alive and well. (2006, n.p.,
emphasis added)
A1.5.10 February 7, 2007: Launch of Donnelly’s Dumbing down.
Influential conservative commentator on the history/culture wars and general critic of current
school curriculum, particularly SOSE and Outcomes Based Education (OBE), Kevin
Donnelly authored and published a book, released in early 2007, titled Dumbing down:
Outcomes-based and politically correct—The impact of the culture wars on our schools. In it,
he criticised what he considered to be the politically correct nature of schooling across states
in Australia. John Howard, in launching the book, took the opportunity to make criticisms of
State government Departments of Education, and included a brief criticism of SOSE by
stating, “...there is something both deadening and saccharine in curriculum documents where
History is replaced by ‘Time, Continuity and Change’ and Geography now becomes ‘Place,
Space and Environment’” (Howard, 2007, p. 2).
Despite criticisms that Donnelly’s book was superficial at best and contained “...slipshod
argument, poor scholarship and meretricious presentation” (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 12), it proved
to be both popular and significant in continuing to maintain the relationship between the
history/culture wars and education, particularly school curriculum. The relevant arguments
contained in Donnelly’s books are echoed in his regular newspaper columns, and covered
throughout this overview.
A1.6 Continuation and Proliferation of the History/Culture Wars
Proliferation of the history/culture wars during the time period 1993-2007 occurred through
many different modes: public speeches, newspaper articles, letters to the editors, and other
media such as political cartoons. Robert Manne, in his Alfred Deakin Lecture at Capitol
Theatre, Melbourne on 20 May 2001, commented on the ongoing history/culture wars,
demonstrating the extent to which it had entered general public discourse, stating:
Having belatedly discovered something which Charles Rowley, Bill Stanner and
Henry Reynolds could have taught me twenty years before, the historical questions
concerning the dispossession and the political questions concerning reconciliation
have become dominant preoccupations over the past few years. (Manne, 2004, p. 67)
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