When I was at school, history was dates and battles, World War I, World War II, Gallipoli, the Depression. But even back then, 55 years ago, the Middle East was in turmoil, Southeast Asia was shifting under our feet, and Indigenous voices in Australia were demanding to be heard. None of that made it into the classroom.
We were taught facts. Not how to think about them.
No one ever asked: What can we learn from history? How do we hold different perspectives? What does it mean to disagree respectfully? Or to understand where someone else is coming from, even when we don’t agree?
And it matters, because if history doesn’t teach us how to listen, how to think, how to judge wisely, then we’re not learning history. We’re learning trivia.
Chris Wallace, a historian and professor, says the same thing in a recent ABC interview. She argues that decades of neoliberalism have narrowed the purpose of education into something transactional, training people to “get a job,” not become thoughtful citizens. History and literature have been among the first subjects to be cut. They’re seen as “nice to have,” not “must have.”
But what do we lose when we strip those subjects away?
We lose critical thinking. We lose wisdom. We lose the kind of broad understanding that helps societies steer through complexity without being manipulated by loud voices or narrow interests. As Wallace puts it, we end up with people in elite positions “who are highly trained—but not deeply educated.”
She’s not just talking about university. She’s talking about a mindset. And it’s showing up in the way we do democracy, especially at the local level.
We talk a lot about “community consultation” in local government. But let’s be honest, most of the time, it’s just a box-ticking exercise. Surveys, feedback forms, public meetings that go nowhere. We capture mass opinion, but we don’t help people work through the hard stuff: trade-offs, values, vision.
Jay Weatherill, the former SA Premier, says public opinion sits on a continuum—from magical thinking (“lower taxes and better services for all!”) to mature public judgement. And it’s the job of leadership to help us move along that line. Not by preaching. Not by pretending to have all the answers. But by creating space for proper dialogue.
That’s what good history teaches us too. That life is complex. That truth depends on where you’re standing. That understanding how we got here helps us work out where we go next.
It’s no wonder students are disengaging. As Wallace says, if you remove meaningful options, if there’s no space to explore Australia’s political history, social history, Indigenous history, then we’re not just dumbing down education. We’re forgetting our own story.
And when we forget our own story, we’re easy to manipulate. We stop asking questions. We confuse certainty with truth.
So here’s my hope.
That we teach history not just as a set of facts, but as a way of thinking.
That we expect more from civic engagement than noisy town halls.
That we stop asking people what they want and start asking why they want it, and what it will take.
That we invest not just in infrastructure, but in informed decision making, in the skills and tools communities need to think together.
Because democracy isn’t just about who wins the vote. It’s about whether we can still talk to each other after.
Additional reading option
Humanities faculties are being restructured not because they cost too much to run, but because they are perceived to return too little. Yet the skills they foster – interpretive reasoning, ethical judgement, historical understanding – remain essential to democratic life.
This post is dedicated to a very wise man, Peter Bailey Brown , who I wish I met earlier
Peter Brown is a man whose legacy continues to unfold in paddocks, policies, and in the lives of the people he’s helped along the way. From the paddocks of Cudal to the boardrooms of international development…
Peter has never lost sight of what matters: listening, learning, and finding practical, human ways forward.
#HistoryMatters #CriticalThinking #PublicJudgement #DeliberativeDemocracy #CivicLeadership #Neoliberalism #EducationReform #DemocracyInPractice #CommunityVoice #LearningFromHistory #TeachTheWholeStory