How a Textbook Gets Made
You open your history textbook at school. It says certain things happened a certain way. But how did those words get there? Who decided what goes in and what stays out?
The process is more political than you might think.
The Textbook Pipeline
Step 1: The Curriculum
In Australia, what gets taught is set by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). They create the national curriculum — a document that specifies what students should learn at each year level.
ACARA's decisions are influenced by government policy, academic input, community consultation, and political pressure. Every curriculum review sparks debate about what to include.
Step 2: The Publisher
Textbook publishers (Pearson, Oxford, Jacaranda, etc.) write books that align with ACARA's curriculum. They're commercial products — they need to sell to schools. This means they tend to avoid controversial content that might put off buyers.
Step 3: The Authors
Textbooks are written by teams, not individual historians. The authors must follow the publisher's guidelines and the curriculum requirements. They can't include everything they know — there's a page limit, a reading level, and editorial oversight.
Step 4: The Editing
Editors check for accuracy, readability, and sensitivity. Content that might be "too confronting" or "politically controversial" can be softened or removed. This is where nuance dies.
The Result
By the time a historical event reaches your desk, it has been:
- Filtered through a government curriculum framework
- Selected by commercial publishers
- Simplified by teams of writers
- Smoothed by editors
- Compressed into a few paragraphs or pages
The full, messy, complicated truth has been turned into a neat, sanitised narrative. It's not wrong, exactly — but it's rarely the whole story.
A Real Example
The 2014 Australian curriculum review, led by Kevin Donnelly and Ken Wiltshire, was criticised for suggesting that the curriculum gave "too much emphasis" to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives. Others argued it didn't give enough. The curriculum is always a political negotiation.
Tonight's Question
"If you were writing a history textbook for Australian kids, what one event or story would you make sure was included that isn't in yours right now?"
Textbook Audit
- Take a school history textbook (or find one at the library).
- Pick one chapter about an event you know something about.
- Read it carefully. Then ask: what's NOT mentioned?
- Do 15 minutes of online research about the same event.
- Write a "What the Textbook Missed" summary.
- Discuss: why do you think it was left out?
Go Further
- Research: Compare how the same event is covered in textbooks from different countries (many are available online).
- Read: ACARA's curriculum documents — they're public at australiancurriculum.edu.au.
- Book: Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen (1995) — the American version of this problem.
- Question: Should textbooks present multiple perspectives, or would that confuse students?
What We Simplified
- Textbook quality varies. Some publishers and authors do excellent, nuanced work within the constraints.
- Curriculum designers try to be balanced. ACARA consults widely and genuinely attempts to include diverse perspectives.
- Page limits are real. You can't include everything. Some simplification is necessary for age-appropriate education.
Sources
- ACARA. "The Australian Curriculum." ACARA
- Donnelly, K. & Wiltshire, K. (2014). "Review of the Australian Curriculum: Final Report." Australian Government.
- Loewen, J.W. (1995). Lies My Teacher Told Me. New Press.
- Clark, A. (2006). Teaching the Nation: Politics and Pedagogy in Australian History. Melbourne University Press.
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