Policy, Practice and Pedagogy

In February 2008, the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd rose to his feet in the national parliament and issued an apology to the Stolen Generations of Indigenous children and their families. These were children who had been removed from their parents and communities and had been sent to missions and/or placed in white foster care. The nation cried as Prime Minister Rudd spoke of the laws and policies of previous governments since settlement that had caused acute grief and loss for Indigenous Australians. He asked that the apology be received ‘in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation’ and that ‘For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.’ This was a magnificent event in white and black Australian history and gives substance to Friere’s view that ‘to be human means to make and remake one’s self through making history and culture, to struggle against the limiting conditions that prevent such creative action and to dream into existence a world where every person has this opportunity and responsibility’ (Glass, 2001, p. 16). History grinds on and peace loving people everywhere will respond to and create history and culture as best they can when the time is right.

Reforms based on the greater inclusion of Indigenous perspective and methodology into the education system through the changing of the canon will work towards the changing of the dominant nationalism as children are exposed to balanced versions and perspectives of their history (Larissa Behrendt, 2003, p. 138).