On the denigration and disappearance of Mediæval history

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24485159-5001021,00.html?id

From Monday’s Sydney Daily Telegraph:

Under proposed Federal Government reforms to be released by the National Curriculum Board, primary-school teachers must devote 10 per cent of their time to history lessons.

Secondary students in years 7 to 10 will have to take an average of 100 history classes a year.

Students in years 11 and 12 will not be forced to study history, but will be encouraged to do so.

Now someone tell me: what is missing from the following list:

Students will learn Australian and world topics such as the early humans, the Roman Empire, the Industrial Revolution, the Eureka Stockade, the Gallipoli campaign, the Holocaust and the Whitlam dismissal.

The 1500 years or so from the Roman Empire to the Industrial Revolution has been skipped! Now it is true that pupils in pre-senior level classes are expected to continue to receive instruction on the Middle Ages, but according to the National History Curriculum initial advice paper (section 49),

History at the senior secondary level typically offers a range of choice of more specialised units that are studied in greater depth. There should be options to pursue more advanced studies in the histories taught in Years 7 to 10. It is proposed that there should be units in Years 11 and 12 in Ancient and Modern History, and Australian History. The Modern History unit should ensure coverage of the full period from 1750 to the present.
(http://www.ncb.org.au/verve/_resources/History_Initial_Advice_Paper.pdf)

So right when pupils are really beginning to think critically about history, the Age of Faith is removed from their consideration. And it is, of course, because the Middle Ages truly were the Age of Faith that the history intelligentsia wants to avoid them. This is already the case in New South Wales, where only Ancient and Modern History are on offer in years 11 and 12. Sadly, the Catholic schools no doubt will be only too happy to go along with this; Professor Romano Amerio described quite well in Iota Unum the denigration of the historical Church that has characterised the post-Conciliar years.

Meanwhile, one sees the Australian Human Rights Commission dismiss the era of Scholastic learning with the following piece of reductionism:

476 – 1453

Medieval Christian theology holds that infidels and barbarians are not entitled to humanistic considerations.
(http://www.humanrights.gov.au/info_for_students/essentials/timeline/index.html)

Whatever ‘humanistic considerations’ means; I could take this to be a classic case of the secularists viewing the religionists on the secularists’ own terms, never the religionists own terms, but that might be reading too deeply into it.

More evidence of the desire to forget the Middle Ages is seen in The Daily Telegraph’s own History pages; seldom does one see an ‘On This Day’ entry from between about the Fall of the Roman Empire and the so-called Enlightenment, unless it’s of some significance to present-day pre-occupations, such as the signing of the Magna Carta or whatever. I suppose there’s just not enough ‘diversity’ to ‘celebrate’ in the era of Christendom.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Margaret Mary, Virgin, 2008 A.D.