A Shared History

This web site is designed to support teachers to develop and implement effective Aboriginal perspectives for the New South Wales Human Society and Its Environment K-6 Syllabus (pdf - 493kb).

The New South Wales Department of Education and Training and New South Wales Government have responded to the strong Recommendation 290 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody through legislation, policy and curriculum inclusion.

curricula of schools at all levels should reflect the fact that Australia has an Aboriginal history and Aboriginal viewpoints on social, cultural and historical matters. It is essential that Aboriginal viewpoints, interests, perceptions and expectations are reflected in curricula, teaching and administration of schools.

One of the more challenging and exciting aspects of the HSIE syllabus is the concept of Australia's shared history with Aboriginal people. This resource aims to promote an understanding of Shared History by supporting the inclusion of Aboriginal perspectives in the teaching and learning of the K-6 syllabus that reflect the diversity of Aboriginal society.

Aboriginal perspectives:

• recognise and affirm Aboriginal identity and cultures
• include Aboriginal viewpoints on events and issues
• maintain curriculum and cultural integrity
• achieve a balance between contemporary and historical content.

About the information

The relevant Outcomes and Subject Matter for the inclusion of Aboriginal perspectives, have been identified and linked to background information and resources each in the four Stages of the primary years. There are readings on important issues such as:

The Racism of Omission
Consultation With Aboriginal Communities

It is not intended that information on this site be used to teach discreet units of work. Rather, it is designed for use in developing informed and effective Aboriginal perspectives to the syllabus.

Shared History

The HSIE K-6 syllabus promotes the concept of shared history.

Shared history recognises that Australia’s history began long before 1788 and that, since then, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians have occupied the same country and share a destiny based on recognising and respecting the rights of all Australians beginning with Aboriginal people as the original inhabitants.

Most Australians have been presented with a version of Australian history that minimised
or ignored events concerning Aboriginal people. Many violent and painful events have
been, until quite recently, part of Australia’s hidden history. It may have been taught that Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth were the first people to cross the Blue Mountains, in 1813, yet both the Wiradjuri and Dharug people had been making the crossing for thousands of years.

The historian, W.E. Stanner, described the omission of Aboriginal people from Australian
history as:

A view from a window which has been carefully placed to exclude a whole quadrant of the landscape. What well may have begun as a simple forgetting of other possible views turned under habit and over time into something like a cult of forgetfulness practised on a national scale.

Howard Groome illustrates the concept of shared history by referring to the view from the ship and the view from the shore. Most Australians learned the view from the ship when they studied the British colonisation of Australia at school.

Shared history means acknowledging that there was a view, or perhaps more accurately, views, from the shore and exploring what these views might have been.

Shared history means acknowledging and including Aboriginal points of view as an
intrinsic part of the HSIE curriculum. It means leading children to the understanding that
there are different points of view on the same set of circumstances depending on where
you stand in relation to those circumstances.

Shared history refers to the fact that Australia has an Aboriginal history and Aboriginal viewpoints on social, cultural and historical matters.
Recommendation 290, National Report Overview and Recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody AGPS, 1991

It means acknowledging Aboriginal people as the original occupants of Australia and recognising that past events and government policies have impacted upon and continue to affect all Australians.

Aboriginal history did not occur in isolation from Australian history. By teaching about Australia’s shared history, and being inclusive of Aboriginal perspectives, we begin to redress the racism of omission that has long characterised Australian history and contributed to the achievement of social justice and intercultural understanding among all Australians.

John Gore
CEO, HSIE