There has been a lot of coverage in the press recently about a move for Australian English classes to teach more local literature. This was opposed by teaching unions.

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/we_must_differentiate_cultural_cringe_and_celebration

We must differentiate cultural cringe and celebration

THE oh-so-postmodern position of the English Teachers Association of NSW in opposing affirmative action for the study of Australian literature in high schools is disappointing to publishers who place their houses on the line in order to invest in publishing Australian writers, and to parents who might like to encourage their children to contemplate earning an income through a literary life in this country ("Teachers oppose our literature”, 17/9).

The problem with such an anti-parochial or anti-cultural-cringe approach is that other cultures do not necessarily follow suit. We also need to differentiate between cultural cringe and celebration. The Canadians, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, Japanese and French (to name a few) have been brilliant at supporting, cultivating and celebrating their own literary (and farming) economies through education, proud promotion, and, dare we say it, protection of local culture (and agriculture).

What is wrong with encouraging a healthy appetite for local stories, and local produce, in order to keep local production sustainable? Are those teachers not otherwise telling the aspiring authors amongst their students that if they want to be read by their fellow Australians, they must first of all make it on the global stage?

Stephanie Johnston

Director, Wakefield Press

Kent Town, SA



IT is regrettable that English teachers, of all people, should oppose strengthening the teaching of Australian literature in NSW schools. Australian literature deserves to be taught not least because it is recognised internationally for its excellence. The classic works of Australian literature are more complex than the ETA assumes, both representing and provoking a range of views and responses, while debates around the canon itself form a diverse social history.

The NSW Board of Studies’ List of Prescribed Texts for 2009-12 includes around one-third Australian content. On the face of it this seems reasonable, but the optional nature of the curriculum means that students encounter far less Australian material than these potentially available choices indicate. Australian literature has always had to fight for its place in the English curriculum in both schools and universities. Now and in the future it requires as much advocacy as at any other time in its history.

Robert Dixon

Professor of Australian Literature

University of Sydney

AT no point in the response to the NSW Board of Studies’ consultation did the ETA oppose increasing the study of Australian literature. Indeed, in its response, the ETA suggested five ways in which Australian literature could be strengthened in the syllabus for all students, rather than the handful that the board was targeting.

What the ETA disputes is how the Board of Studies proposes to increase the amount studied. The structures for the increase do not sit well with the learning design of the syllabus and isolate Australian print literature from other Australian literary texts such as drama and film. In fact, they also isolate Australian literature from the literature of other countries and other times. If we are truly to value the literature of our own people, we need to read it as integrated with the whole world of ideas, not a disconnected unit.

Eva Gold

Executive Officer, English Teachers

Association of NSW, Leichhardt, NSW

IN its apparent contempt for the study of Australian literature in schools, the English Teachers Association of NSW has sounded a new depth of cultural cringe. I can’t think of another place in the world where studying the literature of your own country can be portrayed as reprehensible because it “confers superiority” to that literature as opposed to others (as if the ETA knows anything at all about other countries’ literature in any case, any more than they do about their own).

Using that kind of cock-eyed criterion, Kevin Rudd must have erred gravely this last week in awarding the Prime Minister’s Prize for Literature to two Australian writers, and not have made it a global prize.

Not to speak of the fact that, shock, horror, he did not award such a literature prize to other “texts”, such as websites, advertisements, SMS messages, TV shows or whatever.

Sophie Masson

Invergowrie, NSW

THE “cultural cringe” was a term coined by A.A. Phillips in 1950 to describe a common, colonial assumption that white Australian culture was necessarily inferior to European cultures because it had a relatively short history. Ironically, this cringe now threatens to return in the new guise of its opposite: a modish promotion of the global. Teaching Australian literature should be limited, argues the ETA, because it will promote insularity, a lack of confidence about the place of Australian achievement in world literature.

I am open to suggestions, and I do not have a large experience base for Australian literature but can anyone suggest an Aussie book as good as

Catch 22
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest
Dune
Tomas Covenant
Ender's Game
The Fountainhead
A Christmas Carrol
Moby Dick
Don Quixote
Oliver Twist
The Illiad
Frankenstein
Les Miserables
Songs of Distant Earth
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Johnathan Livingstone Seagull

etc etc

I really enjoyed 'Tomorrow When the War Began'. I read the whole series, something like 7 books. I can't think of any other Australian authors I have enjoyed. Being such a small country, I guess we can't expect a lot of great literature. There's only so many books you can force kids to read.

I had to read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' in school. That was a great book.

EDIT -  that guy from Brisbane is also really good, but I don't think his books would be suitable for schools.

yes, to kill a mockingbird is a great favourite, read it many times. one of the first books I reread after leaving school. I also have great respect for Colleen McCullock. her rome books are incredibly well researhed. I like george martin's fantasy stuff as well.

tim winton is well respected but I have no idea what his stuff is about.

You don't get optional English subjects in high school.

You think there should be additional optional classes?

freediver wrote on Sep 30^th, 2008 at 6:52pm:


Literature should not be compulsory.

What about English in general? Should it be optional, or should the compulsory bits focus only on grammar and punctuation?