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It is unlikely that self-proclaimed expert opinion will change the accepted view of
Simpson and his donkey. In other words, it seems that the Nelson interpretation will
prevail. The fact is that, whatever his background and whatever his views, the values
which Simpson demonstrated at Gallipoli are much admired - from the bottom up.
(G. Henderson, 2006a, para. 13)
How the Anzac legend and WWI more generally act as examples of British heritages in
school History textbooks, is the focus of Chapter 5: Before and Immediately After WWI.
A1.6.2 End of the history/culture wars?
Leading up to the federal election of 24 th November, 2007 the history/culture wars had
widened in scope to, as Wimmer described, a paradigm wars focusing significantly, almost
solely, on the impact on education of the ideological struggle between the conservative right
and (so-called) progressive-left. Miranda Devine, a journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald
and supporter of John Howard and the conservative right approach to the history/culture
wars, particularly its application to school contexts, interviewed Howard and his wife Janette.
During the interview, the topic of history/culture wars and their impact on schooling was
broached. This topic was seen as so important to the Prime Ministership of John Howard that
on the eve of contesting what could have been his fifth term as Australian Prime Minister he
considered it a topic in need of discussion. Reporting on the aspect of the history/culture wars
that surfaced in this interview Devine writes:
Rudd's party has long been hostage to the education unions and educationists of the
so-called progressive left, who persist with 40-year-old radical theories such as
whole-word reading and student-directed learning, despite a generation of conclusive
proof they do the most harm to the underprivileged children they profess to care most
about. As Janette Howard, a former teacher, said during my interview with her
husband at Kirribilli House, education is the ground zero of the culture wars, which
she prefers to call a "standards war".
In her travels with him on the campaign trail she has found that "people are
concerned about what [children] can't do anymore, that they can't spell, they can't
add up … or they don't know enough history".
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