Is Classroom Boredom Hidden Guilt? A Comparison between Teaching Aboriginal History in Australia and Post-Holocaust History in Germany

Nora Seebach

doi:10.5130/nesais.v4i1.1528

Abstract

History contributes in an essential way to the formation of a nation’s self-perception and identity and the education system is a key mechanism by which this knowledge is dispersed. It is therefore of great concern that students in both Australia and Germany consistently report being bored when learning of their respective nation’s fraught history. This essay analyses the shortcomings of Australia’s Indigenous history education in comparison with Germany’s Holocaust education, examining via psychoanalytic theory how the phenomenon of boredom often acts to suppress difficult feelings such as guilt. KeywordsAboriginal history; genocide studies; history wars

Highlights

History is a key pillar of how a society constructs its identity through collective memory
Is it too difficult and confronting to do what right-wing politicians would call ‘smudging’ the white Australian history by, for example, giving the historical Indigenous peoples agency? Often the part in history class about Indigenous peoples does not describe their warriors or their political struggle, as a student describes in an interview with Anna Clark: “...we studied white Australian history a lot more in depth than Aboriginal history
Considering the fact that history contributes in an essential way to a nation’s self-perception and identity, the way history is being taught in school is of this essence

Summary

Introduction

History is a key pillar of how a society constructs its identity through collective memory. Both in Australia and Germany, the classroom and the history curriculum play an important role in that construction and are subject to a lot of controversial discussion. Students report being bored in history classes and have insufficient knowledge, as Anna Clark’s (2007) study shows. This essay will look at the issues arising when Aboriginal history is taught in Australia. The framework that is adapted here to link the two cases is borrowed from psychoanalysis and this essay discusses the hypothesis that students are bored when learning about their country’s blood-drenched history because they are suppressing emotions they cannot, or find it difficult to, deal with: for example, inherited guilt. NEW: Emerging scholars in Australian Indigenous Studies 2018 curriculum. It will conclude with an outlook on the future of teaching Aboriginal History. The essay will rely heavily on Aboriginal scholars and educationalists and give room for their voices because it is them who know best, especially when discussing the outlook into the future and what can be done

Analysis of Indigenous History in Australian Schools

Findings

Conclusion