Table of contents for Vol 59 No 1 2024 in Agora

Critical and Creative Thinking In an in-depth study of British children and computer usage, a group of researchers set out to investigate how young people interact with, make sense of and use computers in the home. Instead of digital natives who have sophisticated understandings of how computers have impacted social life, the researchers found that young people lacked both knowledge and interest about how information was produced for and within digital environments.1 Overall there was either a lack of interest in or lack of knowledge about how ‘information’ was produced for and within digital environments. These resources were often seen as originating not from people, organisations and businesses with particular cultural inclinations or objectives, but as a universal repository that simply existed ‘out there’.2 Two decades have passed since this…

Intercultural The task of the intellectual is not to produce the ‘correct’ interpretation of the world, but to offer a more nuanced and complex understanding of the world, one that recognizes the diversity and complexity of human experience.1 ‘Intercultural capabilities’ refer to the ability and capacity of individuals to effectively interact with people from different cultures, to appreciate and value cultural diversity, and to develop empathy and respect for others. The Victorian Curriculum includes intercultural capabilities as one of the general capabilities, which aim to equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to participate effectively in a global community.2 This article will discuss how intercultural capabilities can be integrated into the History classroom, why this is important, and provide specific examples of how one might do so. One of…

Personal and Social As History teachers, one of the most prominent areas of content that we teach is warfare, especially at Years 9 and 10. However, relatively little research or discussion has considered how to teach various aspects of warfare in general, especially contemporary warfare, in classrooms with student cohorts who have experienced warfare themselves or have family in the armed forces. Victoria has the largest refugee intake and the highest numbers of asylum seekers in Australia, with many being students in our schools. According to the Victorian Department of Health: Around 4,000 refugees settle in Victoria each year through the Humanitarian Programme... Another 10,000 people who arrive as asylum seekers live in the Victorian community on bridging visas while they wait for the determination of their refugee status...1 The…

Ethical The objectives of the Victorian Curriculum’s ethical capability are explored through two strands. 1. The ‘Understanding Concepts’ strand ‘strengthens students’ capacity to make decisions informed by an understanding of the values, principles, concepts and ideas that underpin [one’s own and others’] assumptions’.1 2. The ‘Decision Making and Actions’ strand aims to strengthen a student’s ‘ability to analyse and evaluate’ these values, principles, concepts and ideas.2 Set out as a continuum of learning, the ‘ethical capability curriculum aims to develop knowledge, understandings and skills to enable students to: • analyse and evaluate ethical issues, recognising areas of contestability • identify the bases of ethical principles and ethical reasoning • engage with the challenges of managing ethical decision-making and action for individuals and groups • cultivate open-mindedness and reasonableness.’3 Importantly, the…

Intercultural Personal Reflections We start this article by acknowledging the owners of the lands on which we work. Although we travel across many Countries in our roles, we acknowledge the Kulin Nation and clans of the Dja Dja Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woiwurrung. In particular we acknowledge the work of Elders past and present who have persisted through prejudice and hardship to ensure there is an education and spirit for mob to inherit. We take our roles as educators as being forward-looking but based on the foundations of resilience and resistance. So much has been done, but there is more to do. Throughout this article we offer personal reflections as a way of honouring our relational ontologies and epistemologies. This is so you may know us a little better, to see…

Personal and Social Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and our Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum have all demonstrated that political majorities can be won by the insistent repetition of misinformation backed by a largely partisan media. Dishonest messaging has also come to dominate our discussions of the most valuable forms of education. Unless we move quickly to change it, the damage to our students’ career prospects and personal satisfaction might become irreparable. The clearest recent example of the problem was in 2020 when the Coalition government’s Job-ready Graduate Package repriced university courses in a manner that made some disciplines, mainly Humanities, much more expensive and others, mainly STEM, much cheaper. Whether the government really believed this would lead to better graduate outcomes is unclear. It may simply have been…

Personal and Social When I think about the regulation of learning, I can’t help but be reminded of David Foster Wallace’s now famous ‘This Is Water’ speech. Within its important lesson about living intentionally and choosing one’s attitude, it draws upon a thought-provoking parable about awareness. There are these two young fish swimming along andthey happen to meet an older fish swimming theother way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning,boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swimon for a bit, and then eventually one of them looksover at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’1 While Wallace may not have been talking explicitly about learning, worthwhile comparisons can be drawn from the story. Within the Victorian Curriculum, ‘awareness’ falls within the personal and social capabilities.2…

Linear timeIs something Settlers brought hereA version of timeThat creates distanceThings that happenedA hundred years agoAre further awayThan things that happened yesterday … In Indigenous systemsTime is not linearIt moves in cyclesIt exists in spaceIn CountryAnd is as susceptible to action and interactionAs any other life … How far we have comeFrom the apocalypses and dystopiasOf settler-colonialismIs measured by the degreeTo which affected relationshipsHave been brought into balanceHave been healed.1 The teaching of Indigenous history should include the teaching of Indigenous ways of knowing history. The cultural processes by which histories are remembered, interpreted and taught provide frameworks for understanding how those histories affect us today.2 In Aboriginal cultures, time and history are not linear. History unfolds across Past, Present and Future, with all three elements intricately interwoven and connected…

Intercultural In a paper commissioned by the NSW Department of Education, the cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham argues that critical thinking is not a generic skill that, once demonstrated, can transfer to all contexts. One’s ability to ‘think critically’ varies according to the amount of relevant background knowledge one has. This point is rather obvious in the case of a critical thinking skill like evaluating an argument: abstract principles like “look for hidden assumptions” won’t help much in sizing up an op-ed about the war in Afghanistan if you know very little about the topic.1 This idea that skills depend on knowledge holds equally true for intercultural capability, one of four high-level capabilities that Victorian schools are expected to teach students. In short, one cannot demonstrate respect for, say, Chinese culture…

Personal and Social A Quick Chat about Gary I’m developing an interesting relationship with an AI chatbot. Our family has come to call it Gary. Gary reassures me that it’s quite common for people to personify AI to help them interact with the software. While I’m a little disturbed at how easily we can slip into a rather passive and strangely personal relationship with a non-human entity, I am also cautious about reactively succumbing to an Orwellian view of current technological advancements. However, I am concerned about Gary’s potential to homogenise our thinking and perspectives. I’m simultaneously concerned about the way in which social media has blossomed into a cult of charismatic influence driven by emotion and opinion, and tailored by the mystical algorithms of social media that ‘streamline’ our…

Ethical How can we make meaning of slavery in the Roman Empire, the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the White Australia policy, the Holocaust or the Rape of Nanjing without discussing ethical concepts and perspectives? Teaching History, especially the ethical dimension of the History curriculum, can be challenging and complex. Making ethics explicitly visible to our students—by developing their understanding, and providing them with opportunities to engage with and navigate the ethical dilemmas presented to us by historical actors and events—is an integral responsibility of the History teacher. The study of History involves interpreting and understanding a wide range of human experiences and events through the actions, decisions and consequences of people and civilisations. Teaching History students to understand ethical concepts and perspectives, and to explore…

Intercultural Teaching History is all about making connections. The aim is to help students understand how people in the past lived and why they made certain choices, which in turn helps all of us to place our own lives and experiences in context. History is also a subject that requires us to consider how knowledge is created and who tells the stories that live in our collective memories. It is therefore the ideal lens through which to approach the four capabilities proposed by the Victorian Curriculum: critical and creative thinking, ethical understanding, intercultural understanding, and personal and social capability. As a specific field of study, archaeology can act as a powerful conduit because it engages with these questions through physical traces left by previous inhabitants. Research continues to prove that…

The curriculum requires teachers to introduce four different capabilities within their classes: critical and creative thinking, ethical, intercultural, and personal and social capabilities. This article provides class activities that address each of the capabilities. The personal and social capabilities activities described here are worth commencing first. Not only do they teach various capabilities and historical skills, but the activities are hands-on and fun. The archaeology activity (Activity B) is also a great way for the students to meet and work with their new Year 7 classmates, thus becoming aware of others while building personal relationships. Critical and creative thinking is actively used in historical studies, but ethical understanding and intercultural understanding are more limited in scope. Gallipoli is an obvious place to find the latter, where the Turks and the…