Citizenship Learning in Australian History

Inquiry: How might the removal of a cultural element impact an individual’s identity?

In this unit Year 5 students will be actively engaged in historical investigations of the past, to establish citizenship intelligence. Citizenship through history is important for students, as it enables them to make connections about the choices and actions done in the past and how these can impact on those choices and actions today, (National Curriculum Board, 2009). Students will begin the unit by investigating the historical impacts of colonisation in Australia through analysing the map, ‘Aboriginal Australia,’ and answering the inquiry question ‘Why does the Australian map not look like this anymore?’ This will lead to them answering the inquiry question, ‘how has colonisation impacted on Indigenous Australians?’ with the focus on the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains.

(Reconciliation South Australia, nd)

Students will then complete a Venn diagram of the daily life of Kaurna people and the patterns of change when colonist arrived. This will help students to gain knowledge and understanding of the historical impacts of colonisation in Australia, which is part or Year 5 History curriculum. 

The historic skill promoted through historical inquiry is one of empathy. Empathy is a powerful emotion that helps students to recognise and understand diversity, which enables them to build a perspective of how they should act in the future (Brett, 2018). 

To further students understanding of empathy, the focus of the unit will then shift to establish the importance of culture to a persons’ identity. We will invite local Indigenous educators to the school to talk about their language, kinship groups and relation to country. Inviting members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities into our school provides us with an important insight into Indigenous cultures, (AISSA, 2005). I extend an invitation to you to attend this ‘Culture Day,’ so you can see first hand what students are learning.

Australians Together, 2017

In small groups, student will be set an inquiry task to find out what culture means to them. As a class we will combine these ideas to create a class definition. We will also discuss why a persons’ culture is important. Students will then fill in the sheet ‘What’s important to me?’ This sheet will enable students to describe their own cultural identity of; people, places, special events communication and rules/values. You are welcome to discuss with your child your family’s culture and why this is important to a person identity. To further establish the skill of empathy students will write a narrative in the form of a diary entry on how it would feel if one of their cultural identities was taken away. This final task will form part of the unit assessment.

(Australians Together 2017)

Establishing and recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people's culture and all cultures is a way of truly relating to another person. This is part of the Year 5 civics and citizenship curriculum to be learnt by students. “Learning about Indigenous culture, valuing and celebrating it in our mainstream society, is one way we can begin to address the challenges we see today,” (Australians Together, 2017, para 10).

References

Adelaide City Council (n.d) Adelaide City Council, Protocol and Guidelines on ‘Welcome to country’ And ‘Acknowledgement of country’ Adelaide. Retrieved from https://www.cityofadelaide.com.au/assets/documents/GUIDELINES-welcome-to-country-protocol.pdf

Association of Independent Schools of SA [AISSA]. (2005). Reconciliation in Action Protocols for working effectively with local Indigenous families and communities. Commonwealth of Australia. Retrieved from https://www.ais.sa.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Reconciliation-in-Action-Indigenous-Protocols.pdf

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2016). The Australian Curriculum:  HASS (Version 8.3), HASS, Year 5, All curriculum elements, all curriculum dimensions. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/download?view=f10

Australians Together. (2017). Our Cultures. Concilia Ltd. Retrieved from; https://australianstogether.org.au/education/our-cultures/

Brett, P. (2018). Retrieving the civic dimension in history: Creating meaningful and memorable links between History and Civics and Citizenship in primary classrooms, The Social Educator, 36, (2) pp. 15-29.  Retrieved from

National Curriculum Board (2009) Shape of the Australian Curriculum: History ACARA. Retrieved from http://docs.acara.edu.au/resources/Australian_Curriculum_-_History.pdf

Reconciliation South Australia (nd) Map of Aboriginal Australia., Reconciliation South Australia Retrieved from; http://www.reconciliationsa.org.au/learn/map-of-aboriginal-australia#prettyPhoto