Investigative humourist Ben Pobjie has used his special journalistic skills to unearth the explosive draft of Matthew Guy’s planned “Australian values” curriculum. Available soon in all good high schools.
Draft Curriculum, Australian Values Edition
© Matthew Guy, 2018
Module 1: Mateship Studies
Studying the theory and practice of mateship. How to make mates and how to be a mate. The history of mateship, special study of great mates throughout history, including Ned Kelly, Weary Dunlop and Denise Drysdale. Students tested on practical application: must demonstrate their ability to have and keep mates, as well as avoidance of dobbing. Beer included as an elective.
Module 2: Larrikinism
An extension of previous physical education modules. Students put through course of obstacles to test fitness for practical larrikinism. Requirements: at least 50% cheekiness score, demonstrated proficiency in nose-thumbing, ability to reconcile anti-authoritarian attitude with strict obedience to authority.
Module 3: Casual Racism
Study of multiculturalism and the ways in which it has gone too far. Comparative studies of the various ethnic groups making up Australian society with emphasis on what nicknames they need to lighten up about. Designed to instil within students an appreciation of different cultures’ inferiority to our own. Includes excursions to local mosques, temples and Immigration Museum to see who can take a joke and who can’t.
Module 4: Indigenous Studies
One-day course on the women’s 400m at the Sydney Olympics.
Module 5: Religious Education
This module focuses on comparative religion, examining the foundations and tenets of all the world’s major faiths. Includes AFL, NRL, the Bathurst 1000, My Kitchen Rules, home brewing and discount flights to Bali.
Module 6: World History
Includes: Australia’s victory at Gallipoli; Australia’s victory over the Nazis; Australia’s victory in Vietnam; Australia’s victory at the 1983 America’s Cup; Australia’s victory in Iraq; Russell Crowe’s Oscar acceptance speech.
Module 7: Science
“Climate Change: Myth or Hoax” deals with the complex debate around the field of climate science, covering all the available evidence and why there’s no time to read it today. Also includes segments on physics, with emphasis on its subservience to Australian law.
Hey, you forgot “Etiquette of Eating Lobster”. Mafia Matt loves that kind of thing!
You forgot to include footnotes referring to the relevant sections of the IPA handbook.
First Class; particularly in regard to the content of Module 7! There doesn’t seem to be any recommended reading – probably on account of the current reading standard that a classroom teacher might encounter. One could include, for the high-achievers, the assault by post modernism on science with due examination of the hypotheses that all opinions (that may not necessarily correspond to fact) are equally valid.
A minor omission seems to be womens’ studies but that aspect could be treated by the advanced core undertaking module 7.
A good try but it might be worth consulting with Dog on the Moon
Theses fake news stories are just not that funny.
Agreed
At the risk of appearing unduly pedantic the story does not qualify as “fake news” but as entertainment. The intention of fake news is to mislead or distort or to misrepresent.
Humour, of which the quality varies greatly, undertakes only to entertain. I, for one, regard the proposed “draft curriculum” as so amusing that it just might be implemented somewhere.