Agora

Agora is professional reading journal for History teachers. Each issue provides perspectives on a particular theme, from curriculum-focused content to pedagogical practice, along with teaching strategies, classroom activities and educational resources addressing the broader History curriculum.

Reflection

Editorial

Indigenous Accounts of Cook’s Discovery of Australia • Indigenous knowledge holders across Australia provide accounts of Cook’s encounters that contrast with the journals of those who sailed on board the Endeavour.

Encountering Indigenous Histories: Contact, Engagement, and Two Ways of Looking • Often we only have one side of the story, but additional sources of evidence allow us to infer the perspectives of Australia’s First Nations peoples when they encountered early explorers like Matthew Flinders and William Dampier.

‘What If I Get It Wrong?’: Teaching First Nations Perspectives as Non-Indigenous History Educators • Some evidence-based recommendations can help overcome ‘epistemic inertia’ when it comes to learning about, interrogating and integrating First Nations content.

Teaching Frontier Conflict: Perspectives of a Non-Indigenous Educator • Frontier conflict is a significant part of Australian history, with profound impacts on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. How should you teach such a sensitive topic?

The Storm over Indigenous Placenames on Wikipedia • Wikipedia’s representation of Australian places tends to delegitimise Australia’s First Nations history through a very particular application of its rules by its editors.

Four Questions We Tried to Answer When Creating our Deep Time Unit • A Ngarigo Elder and a History teacher discuss the collaboration that took place when they developed an engaging and authentic unit on Australia’s deep time history.

Teaching Deep Time Australia: The Importance of Place • The study of deep time history in Year 7 is an opportunity to make learning more meaningful through place-based learning.

Navigating Deep Time: A Dual Perspective on Teaching Australia’s Ancient Past • Two teachers discuss the approaches they have adopted when developing a Deep Time unit.

A Collaborative Yarn on Australian Indigenous History • While history is complex, understanding our positionality and its relationship to the discipline is even more so. This yarn looks at three different personal and disciplinary perspectives on Australian Indigenous history.

How to Decentre ‘Whiteness’ in Historical Education • A Wiradyuri historian and a non-Indigenous teacher bring different lived experiences and professional perspectives to urgent questions about truth-telling and Western ways of teaching History.

How the University of Melbourne Marginalised Indigenous Australia • While prominent academics at the University of Melbourne were proponents of the worst excesses of race science, steps have been taken to support Indigenous students and communities.

Demythologising the Frontier Wars • Eight principles for teaching Australia’s Frontier Wars are re-evaluated in the aftermath of the Voice referendum and the emergence of artificial intelligence.

Building Ethical and Practical Capacity in Teaching First Peoples History • What reduces variability in the quality of History teaching is not a list of links to online resources but a protocol that binds ethics, practice and First Nations guidance.

Moving Beyond Deficit Discourse when Teaching First Nations History • Ditch deficit narratives with ready-to-use strategies that centre First Nations voices, spotlight resilience, and teach Australian history with accuracy, respect and rigour.

The Great Australian Silencing of the Lambs • A simple advertisement for lamb perpetuates colonial mythologies, but critical engagement can...