Next year, the Victorian Curriculum will roll out its second iteration under the creatively thought out and critically imagined name, ‘Victorian Curriculum 2.0’.
In the Humanities Learning Area, we are excavating the intricacies of this guiding document as slowly and laboriously as an archaeologist might King Tutankhamun's tomb, with as much glee as this same practitioner might feel when unearthing hidden treasure. There is no shock of an innervated, evil mummy within, that’s for sure - the analogy just doesn’t extend that far!
There is, however, a lot to think about.
Recently, a colleague and I were chatting about Year 7 Humanities in general, and the Geography discipline in particular. Our students have just completed the first semester focus on two globally dynamic elements of Geography - Place and Liveability, where learners of all ages consider those two exact components, and Water in the World, where these same learners expand their understanding of… well… water in the world.
This colleague mentioned that over the course of second term, when the water unit was whetting everyone’s educational appetite, she hadn’t had the chance to discuss the Victorian drought. Its prominence and impact, its devastating consequences, its long-term implications and short-term torment, let alone the Queensland and NSW floods and how these current conditions affect place, community and country.
This is no one’s fault. Curriculum talk is always about how crowded it is, about what to leave out and what to prioritise, but it struck me that if we are attempting to keep our courses as relevant as possible, we sometimes need to pivot. The Victorian Curriculum 2.0 gives us scope to do that, and while Geography hasn’t changed much at all in the new version for Years 7-10, we may look at developing the sub strand called Geographies of Human Wellbeing (GoHW) a little more.
While Water in the World and Place and Liveability are self-explanatory units, GoHW is a little more nebulous. It is also pitched at Years 9 and 10 Geography, but can definitely infiltrate Years 7 and 8 in terms of concept. GoHW could be used within the Water Unit to explore human wellbeing in geographical locations like drought-ridden Victoria and flood prone QLD and NSW. Because it is comparative in nature, GoHW could inform our study of other global spots that have a shortage of drinking water. It meshes well with the Place and Liveability strand too.
It can be dispiriting when limited class time and the inevitability of set assessments prevent us from covering current and relevant topics, and both my colleague and I lamented this when we were discussing Year 7 Geography. We want our students to learn about places so alive in Humanities, yet often we are bereft of time.
However, the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 has a larger focus on skills across all Humanities disciplines - History, Business and Economics, Civics and Citizenship, and Geography. Not only will this force us to rethink the way we assess, it will ensure we have created tasks that either use AI as a tool to assist student learning and output, or AI-proof these assessments. There is also more opportunity to provide options. Rather than limiting the study of Liveability to an urban suburb and Water to a particular waterway, students might choose within the topic and show their skills in different ways.
Whatever the case, the new curriculum will be with us before we know it. It’s time to build upon the Tutankhamun treasure we already have and continue to equip the archaeologists with ideas for future learning.