Deranged theory
BELLA D’ABRERA
Kids at school deserve better than a politicised environment
THE authors of the radical new National Curriculum being proposed by the Australian Curriculum and Assessments Reporting Authority (ACARA) are so obsessed with racism that they have written it into the Health and Physical Education syllabus.
In the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures crosscurriculum priority, the curriculum states children will “gain insights into the impact systemic racism and discrimination have had on First Nations Australian Peoples and investigate strategies that promote truth-telling and build cultural awareness to develop empathy and respectful relationships”.
This means that while children are playing on the monkey bars, they should be pondering how they are oppressing and discriminating against Indigenous Australians.
This is pure, unadulterated Critical Race Theory. Critical Race Theory was invented by American academics in the 1990s and it claims that the defining principle of the structure of Western societies is race, and that “whiteness” is the dominant system of power.
According to Critical Race Theory, racial inequality is present in every aspect of our lives. It also says white people have “white guilt” and “inherited guilt” which they have to overcome in order to be good people.The theory is now being pushed with such energy by its proponents that parents’ groups in the US are taking action against boards of education, and over 10 states have passed, or are proposing, legislation to ban it from being taught in schools.
Yet the ideologically driven and faceless bureaucrats at ACARA have completely bought into Critical Race Theory. It is they who are currently dictating what should be taught to your children.
For them, there is nothing that is not potentially racist, so that even school children running around outside at lunchtime is considered a racist act.
They believe that everything is racist all the time and such is their desire to prove this point they don’t even want to let children play in peace anymore.
Critical Race Theory hasn’t just been written into Health and Physical Education, but it has also been embedded into the History curriculum. It will tell children that their success or failure in life depends on the colour of their skin.
While it bills itself as “anti-racism education for Australian schools”, the reality is that this project has turned the classroom into a highly politicised environment in which children are being taught that both Australia’s history, as well as its institutions, are racist.
Recent polling commissioned by the Institute of Public Affairs (data collected by Dynata) reveals that Australians do not support radical ideologies that are infiltrating classrooms.
The polling shows that 82 per cent of Australians disagree with the statement that school students should be forced to apologise for their skin colour, and 86 per cent disagree that schools should make boys ashamed of being male Meanwhile, 69 per cent do not believe that school students should be taught that Australia is a racist country.
When asked if school students should be taught that all Australians are equal regardless of their skin colour, race, or religious beliefs, a total of 85 per cent agreed, while only 8 per cent disagreed.
This exposes the massive disconnect between the educators and mainstream Australians who want the best for their children. Schooling should be about teaching students how to read, write count and think, not used as a tool to politicise them.
Education should not be about teaching Australian children to hate themselves and to hate their history.
Australians are rightly saying no to Critical Race Theory. They are egalitarian and do not support divisive ideologies in the classroom.
Parents are right to push back against these dangerous, and quite frankly deranged, ideas which are detrimental to the fabric of civil society. We need to make sure that Critical Race Theory stays out of the both the classroom and the playground.
Dr Bella d’Abrera is the Director of the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program at the Institute of Public Affairs.