PDF (Whole Thesis) - USQ ePrints - University of Southern ...

“centrally prescribed curriculum based on declarative knowledge” (D. Henderson, 2005, p.
311).
The ideologies of school curriculum with a broader neo-conservative political climate are
highlighted in the two subsections that follow, framed within a values discourse; similar to
that surrounding the aforementioned Simpson and his donkey; through two case studies to
illuminate the issue. First, debate surrounding the inclusion of provocative questions in SOSE
textbooks, and second the ongoing national curriculum debate concerning school History
curriculum.
A1.8.1 Crusades and September 11.
A significant debate within the history/culture wars entered the classroom domain on March
8, 2006 with reporting, first in The Australian and followed by The Weekend Australian, that
students were expected to draw comparisons between the medieval Crusades and the
September 11 New York terrorist acts. The story broke with the following lead paragraph: “A
textbook widely used in Victorian high schools describes the Crusaders who fought in the
Holy Land in the Middle Ages as terrorists, akin to those responsible for the September 11
attacks” (Ferrari, 2006e, p. 1). The textbook at the centre of the controversy was Heinemann
Humanities 2: A narrative approach. Although published in Victoria specifically for the
Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) with a significant portion of the content
specifically for Humanities standards, many Queensland schools use this textbook with
teachers adapting the VELS to match the Queensland SOSE syllabus outcomes. The aspect of
the textbook taken to task was in an activities section, with a suggested topic of discussion
being: “Those who destroyed the World Trade Centre are regarded as terrorists. Might it be
fair to say that the Crusaders who attacked the Muslim inhabitants of Jerusalem were also
terrorists?” (Ferrari, 2006e, p. 1).
Debate of the appropriateness of this topic as a discussion area for year 8 students centred on
“...the comparison as meaningless and historically inaccurate, saying history should not be
taught to place 21 st -century morals on events of the past” (Ferrari, 2006a, p. 28) and quoting
historian Ernie Jones two days later “One of the basics of studying history is that you are not
a moral judge. It’s an utterly different society and with totally different morals, customs and
traditions” (Ferrari, 2006c, n.p.). The pedagogical practice and usefulness of a devil’s
advocate approach to classroom discussion was largely ignored, with only one sentence
written on this topic, summarising the response of an un-named teacher, “teachers defend the
486