Australian Curriculum

So I mentioned before that let's start with just the technology itself.

The vast majority of AI-backed learning tools are not connected to the Australian curriculum, for example.

And UNESCO, amongst others, has found that they very rarely, sadly, are built on strong evidence-based pedagogical design principles.

So they may be, you know, all that user testing was all fine and good, but it was all about the technology and not about the pedagogical structure of the tools.

And this information is readily available.

You can find it on the ACARA website, Australian Curriculum website.

assessment reporting authority.

It's home to the Australian curriculum and they do research and collect data on the running and management of schools.

So that's their information, 26 grand.

I'm just going to throw a hypothetical situation out there.

And at the end of the day, if we were to summarize Meryl Dory and her ilk, I guess at the heart of things, it is really conspiratorial thinking.

Now, in 2010, the winner was the Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority for its draft science curriculum, which is not a very interesting bent spoon, I don't think, that year, and I couldn't find anything reported about it, so make of that what you will.

But in 2011, what do we have here? The winner was the...

RMIT, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, university for having the fundamentalist chiropractic education program and for endorsing the practice by targeting children and infants on their on-campus pediatric chiropractic clinics.

Before we head off, because we're nearly at time, Duane, I'd like to understand how, from your perspective, how you believe this can be brought into the Australian curriculum and how an understanding of the sophistication of First Nations sciences and their applications can be brought in.

Well, this is something, fortunately, we've been doing for a number of years.

So we created a number of modules for different year levels across all subjects through the Australian National Curriculum, and now we're doing this through the Victorian and New South Wales Curriculum as well.

So I think one of the great things, the great hooks about this, and as we spoke about at the very beginning, trying to challenge the continuous negative view and perception of anything indigenous in the media, it's almost always seen as something negative.

There's always some kind of detriment.

And then we have our policy and advocacy pillar, which is actually kind of most of what we do in terms of changing laws and advocating for things and consulting and giving evidence at Senate inquiries and blah blah blah about this topic of teen on teen perpetrated violence or youth on youth perpetrated violence.

So we successfully mandated consent education in the Australian National Curriculum as a result of the Teachers' Consent Campaign.

We've criminalised stealthing, which is the non-consensual removal of a condom, into Australian states.

We were part of a group that advocated for age verification for pornography, and we can talk about it later, but we're also currently advocating for reforms to algorithms to prevent the radicalisation of young boys and men online.

I found this out while, like, working with the Australian Curriculum Reporting and Solving Authority, I don't know, CARA, I don't know what it sounds for, when, like, writing the curriculum.

I found out that...

Consent actually used to be in the Australian National Curriculum.

It used to be part of something that was taught in schools.

I read it and I just, I don't know what that means was like my first thing.

I was like, what do you mean by feminization of the Australian curriculum? Yes.

Well, I mean, and I don't know because the answer to that question, the question you asked me, Katie, is precisely that, is what do you mean by it? And I think there are some, I think women generally face more issues at school than men do in total.

But I do think there are some male-specific issues that young men face.

I mean, maths, I'm glad that like our maths is in a real state, Katie.

And as two maths teachers, this is a worry.

They're reforming the K-2 curriculum, I believe, Australian curriculum.

Hopefully it's considered, sorry, pardon me, I've got the coughs now.

So like that, I think in itself, is just such a, such a difference.

Someone was saying to me, I can't remember what day, but, "Oh, why don't we just have like an Australian curriculum? Everyone teaches the same stuff." I'm like, "Well, there is one."

We did.

Yeah.