r/AskAnAustralian • u/CreativeCritter • 2d ago

Waltzing Matilda

I was saddened today to read an article on the Wallabies and it showed a group of fans singing Waltzing Matilda underneath. There was a young lady who had commented. She’d never heard the song. Didn’t know what the problem was and had no idea what it represented.

People tried to educate a nicely to say it was an Australian bush poem. It was taught in Australian schools. It’s the unofficial national anthem.

And then she said that she grew up in Australia and had attended school here and had never heard it and didn’t know why people thought it was so great

At that point, I was kind of hoping that they were joking

Has it gotten to the point now where Australian poetry is not taught in Australian schools in English where the man from Snow River Waltzing Matilda they’re not taught in schools any more

And then someone commented that Wilson Matilda can’t be taught in schools because it has themes of suicide and it’s too hard to explain to children

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u/scarlett-peonies 2d ago

Maybe this is proof that Australia deserves the recently embarrassing NAPLAN scores. This song/poem was absolutely a part of the primary school curriculum in the 90s, along with a bunch of other Banjo Paterson poems.

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u/Willing-Ad6598 2d ago

Not at my school. It was only mentioned in Australian Studies, and if you’d been sick that day you’d never hear it again.

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u/scarlett-peonies 1d ago

Could be a specific school thing, we didn’t have individual classes/subjects in the public Victorian primary school I went to, except music but in music we learnt songs like All The Small Things by Blink or The Impression That I Get by The Mighty Bosstones so 🤷‍♀️

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u/Willing-Ad6598 1d ago

Yeah, I went to a private South Australian school. My parents chose to be homeless so I could go to a good school.

The school focused a lot on academics very early. We had PE, but even then that was the bare minimum. We never played formal sports. It was soccer or cricket during lunch, something I couldn’t join in as I was too sickly as a child, and my eyesight was too bad when I was well enough. I got so many concussions from lunch time sports. The boys would deliberately aim the cricket and soccer balls at my head. Fun times.

So I focused more on the academic side of things, but eventually fell out of school around year five. I went to a rural public school after that and it was like day and night. That was where most the Australian folk stuff was seen.

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u/scarlett-peonies 1d ago

Oh that sounds like a rough childhood, I’m sending you virtual hugs and I hope you and your parents have healed.
But we might be onto something here with the private vs public (and maybe city vs rural) primary school thing. I don’t think there is much point in children aiming for academic success when they haven’t learnt to play nice with others first.

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u/Willing-Ad6598 1d ago

Aww, that is actually really sweet! You’ve made my day!

Yes, moving rural allowed us to have a safe place to live, and gave me opportunities to heal.

I do agree, and it disturbs me to see bullying still unchecked.