Teaching the next generation of young Australians about the collective history of those who have existed on this land we call home is obviously a vitally important undertaking, something which goes double in regards to instilling youth with knowledge about our indigenous predecessors.
Which brings us to this truly bizarre story about a Year 4 class at St Justin’s Catholic Primary School in Oran Park, just outside Campbelltown in Sydney’s west, where an, shall we say ~experimental~, attempt to teach students about the Stolen Generation has backfired spectacularly with parents accusing the school of emotional abusing kids.
Now admittedly I have no formal training in providing education whatsoever, but one suggestion I do have is that using actual trauma as a mechanism to teach ten-year-olds about historic incidents of trauma is probably a really, really fucking bad idea.
At 9.30am on Tuesday, one of the school’s nuns entered the classroom in question and claimed to have a letter from the Prime Minister which stated the students parents were failing at looking after them and that they were to be be taken away.
The school’s teachers maintained the ruse throughout the entire day, despite initial disbelief from the kids, reportedly resulting in multiple kids crying, refusing to eat their lunches and plotting to escape the school, under the belief they would never see their families again.
The charade was dropped around 2.50pm, however parents were rightfully mega pissed off with how their children were treated. One parent tells the SMH:
“This is emotional abuse. He came home and he said, ‘Mum, I got really scared at school today’. This should never happen to another child.”
An official from the Catholic diocese, which oversees St. Justin’s, has mindbogglingly defended the approach, going on to say he was not aware of any other Catholic schools that used a similar lesson plan, which, fucking duh mate, this shit’s pretty horrific.
Again, teaching kids the full facets of Australia’s past is super vital, but I struggle to see how using this kind of deception and fear does anything but torture young children, kinda the exact thing we’re trying to avoid by learning about the horrific mistakes of our past.
Surely there’s at least fifty better ways to do it. Maybe start with a book?
Source: SMH.
Picture: St Justin’s Catholic Primary School.
