OPINION
Just what is a ‘too woke’ English text book?
The Institute of Public Affairs, the right-wing conservative think tank that describes itself as strengthening the foundations of economic and political freedom, has released a report declaring that the books and resources listed for the curriculum for the high school English courses in Victoria are “too woke”.
They complain that of the 36 different texts listed in the curriculum too many of them are grounded in “woke”, “social justice ideology”, “critical race theory”, “decolonisation theory” and “gender critical theory”. In fact they’re not happy with more than half the books on the list.
They bemoan that there’s not enough of the “Western canon”, the classics, the books that your grandfather read when he was a boy.
The release of the report comes with the claim “Wokeness has been mandated for VCE English classes”, as they warn that young minds will be “exposed to at least two out of five woke texts.”
The report has become fodder for every second program on Sky ‘After Dark’, Sky News’ string of night-time opinion shows where a succession of conservative pundits share their thoughts with the likes of Rita Panahi, Andrew Bolt, Chris Kenny, Paul Murray and Sharri Markson.
Yet, while they all line up to complain about this onslaught of terrible “woke” books, there is hardly any mention of what the actually texts causing the grievances are.
The slang phrase “woke” first appeared in African American Vernacular English meaning to be alert to racial prejudice and discrimination, since the 2010’s it began move into mainstream usage, but now had been taken over by conservative commentators to cover just about anything or anyone they don’t agree with.
Just to give a quick measure of how much Sky News hosts and guests love to label things woke, Sunday’s edition of Outsiders saw the phrase dropped 23 times.
What are these radical texts warping the minds of Australia’s youth?
A monologue delivered in Virginia Gay in her acclaimed production of Cyrano which was part of Black Swan State Theatre’s 2023 program is on the hit list, as is Meyne Wyatt’s acclaimed monologue from City of Gold.
Mark Gillespie’s essay on the Mardi Gras March of 1978 where police beat protesters is also declared unsafe for Victorian youth. Tim Winton’s About the Boys which explores toxic masculinity is also deemed unsuitable, as is Emmeline Pankhurst’s 1913 speech Freedom or Death – which has been declared one of the greatest speeches of the 20th Century.
A extract from Matthew López’s celebrated play The Inheritance is targeted. The West and Broadway hit examines love between gay men in New York city in the early years of the AIDS crisis. An Open Letter to Doubting Thomas, a piece written by Chelsea Roffey, the first female umpire to ever officiate an AFL Grand Final also doesn’t make the grade for the IPA.
Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka described Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, as “the first novel in English which spoke from the interior of the African character, rather than portraying the African as an exotic, as the white man would see him.” but the gatekeepers at the IPA say it’s a radical work promoting “decolonisation”.
Nigerian novelist and refugee Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s talk The danger of a single story makes the list, as does the thoughts of a child of refugees, Amy Duong’s The red plastic chair is a Vietnamese cultural institution, and my anchor.
Indigenous writer Maya Hodge’s work is also questioned over suitability, as is Yumna Kassab’s short story The Conquest of Land and Dream, and so is Split a short piece by Cass Lynch, a Koreng Wudjari Noongar woman. Stephen Johnson’s 202 film High Ground which tells the story of massacres of Indigenous Australians is questioned.
Poetical work False Claims of Colonial Thieves by Charmaine Papertalk-Green and John Kinsella which weaves together the voices of an Aboriginal woman and a white man is declared ‘too woke’ for it’s take on environmental challenges.
An extract from Maxine Beneba Clarke’s award winning memoir The Hate Race, also makes the list, as does the autobiography of South African comedian and former The Daily Show host, Trevor Noah.
Matt Ottley’s multi-modal work Requiem for a Beast is described as being being a triple threat of promotion decolonialism, race theory and being filled with queer and gender ideology – oh my.
While the report has no problem with Miles Franklin’s 1901 book My Brilliant Career, it doesn’t meet their criteria for being a classic of Western Literature, but they do welcome the inclusion of Shakespeare, Chekov, Austin, Sophocles and Wordsworth in the curriculum,
There’s also no objection to works by Robbie Arnott, Jenny Erpenbeck, Shirley Jackson, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Yōko Ogawa, Alice Munro, Tessa Hadley, Vicki Laveau-Harvie, Penni Russon or Kurt Vonnegut, and surprisingly Jane Harrison’s play Rainbow’s End is deemed okay.
Reflecting over the works that trouble the Institute of Public Affairs and the anti-woke brigade in conservative media, I can’t help but notice that, with a few exceptions, the ones which they’d like to see removed are largely written by people who are LGBTIQA+, Black, Indigenous or have a refugee experience.
They complain that because the curriculum is split into two lists, with teachers required to select works from both, it’s completely impossible to avoid the ‘woke’ books. You can’t just fill classes with Shakespeare and Jane Austin.
That’s a good thing. It’s a great thing. We should embrace views and thoughts different to our own. We should encourage people to see the other side of the argument, other people’s experiences. That’s how I came to be watching Bolt, Markson, Kenny, and their colleagues in the first place.
Each year I volunteer some of my time to help judge an award for young people. Young Australians in their teenage years who go through a tough process of interviews and public speaking. They are asked about their thoughts on the world, and they share their concerns, and hopes for the future.
The participants come from all different backgrounds, public schools, private schools, well off suburbs, and addresses at the other end of the scale. Hearing from these young Australians is inspiring.
Without fail though, there’s always that one kid who has lived a sheltered life. It’s not their fault, we born where we are born, we only know what we are exposed to.
One year I noticed a young man had put down tennis as one of his interests, I asked him how he got into the sport. He told me they had a court at their house and an instructor who comes weekly, and by embracing tennis he didn’t have to go to as many piano lessons. He went on to speak about how poverty and homelessness could be solved by people just trying harder. I had a strong suspicion he’s never spoken to anyone who has experienced such things.
How embracing it is to think that there are books in the school curriculum that will allow young Australians to be exposed to a broad range of ideas and experiences. Maybe a few older Australians should read them too, or even a few Sky News pundits.
All together, it sounds like a great reading list: you can access the full list of texts Victorian students are reading here.
Graeme Watson
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