The moral purpose of English

The house which my wife and I own is on the land of the Boon Wurrung people on what is now known as the Mornington Peninsula in the south east of Australia. We have owned the house for 15 years; they have owned the land for 40,000.

And already we enter a region of problems: "Ownership" is such a problematic term. When the first permanent settlement of Europeans was established in Boon Wurrung and neighbouring Wurundjeri territory in 1835, my white predecessors thought it just and proper to purchase the land they wanted to own. In exchange for scissors, blankets and an assortment of knives and mirrors, John Batman "bought" the land from Wurundjeri elders and laid the foundations for the city of Melbourne. Less than 50 years later, Jimmy Dunbar, the last full-blooded Boon Wurrung person, was dead.

Jimmy Dunbar

What killed the Boon Wurrung people was not primarily a failure of good intentions. This history certainly has its share of scurrilous individuals and acts of evil, but most of the white settlers did not wish their Boon Wurrung neighbours dead. Some of the settlers wrote with enlightenment sentiments about the Boon Wurrung as noble and aristocratic and relations between the two peoples were primarily peaceful. Germs played a major role in the deaths as diseases like smallpox, to which the whites had levels of immunity, ripped through the Boon Wurrung peoples, who did not.

The most devastating failure, however, was a failure of communication.

As James Cook had so presciently written in his journal whilst exploring the east coast of Australia in 1770,  the way the aboriginal people of northern Australia engaged with the world was profoundly different to the way Europeans did.

From what I have said of the Natives of New Holland they may appear to some to be the most wretched People upon Earth; but in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans, being wholy unacquainted not only with the Superfluous, but with the necessary Conveniences so much sought after in Europe; they are happy in not knowing the use of them. They live in a

James Cook

Tranquility which is not disturbed by the Inequality of Condition. The earth and Sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for Life. They covet not Magnificient Houses, Household-stuff, etc.; they live in a Warm and fine Climate, and enjoy every wholesome Air, so that they have very little need of Cloathing; and this they seem to be fully sencible of, formany to whom we gave Cloth, etc., left it carelessly upon the Sea beach and in the Woods, as a thing they had no manner of use for; in short, they seem'd to set no Value upon anything we gave them, nor would they ever part with anything of their own for any one Article we could offer them. This, in my opinion, Argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessarys of Life, and that they have no Superfluities.

(James Cook: Journal Thursday 23rd August 1770)

When Europeans arrived in Australia, they couldn't see any fences and so they assumed that the land was not owned. The settlers on the Mornington Peninsula saw the "Black's Camps" but, as the Boon Wurrung didn't live in them permanently, they didn't understand the complex relationship between land and culture that characterises "ownership" for the Boon Wurrung. When the Europeans brought their sheep to eat the grasses that sustained the native animals and the daisy yam which was the staple of the Boon Wurrung, they didn't understand how their actions were appropriating not just Boon Wurrung food, but also the land which defined them. Ownership is about much more than fences, it's a complex set of understandings about how we can interact with the spaces and objects in our lives: the grammar of belonging is intricately woven from interactions and conventions.

The land was being re-written from the songlines of the Boon Wurrung to the languages of the Europeans. White settlers at the time noted that there were fewer and fewer babies  and it appears likely that, with no land to sustain their future identities, Boon Wurrung mothers took their babies into the bush and smothered them.

Ultimately, the loss of so many Boon Wurrung lives and so much culture, is partly a failure of communication. A failure of the Europeans to understand the Boon Wurrung and a failure of the Boon Wurrung to understand the Europeans; a failure of the Europeans to communicate their culture and values to the Boon Wurrung and a failure of the Boon Wurrung to communicate their culture and values to the Europeans.

As a white Australian male, the Australian Bureau of Statistics tells me that my life expectancy is about 80 years. Aboriginal Australian males can expect to live for about 14 years less. Clearly we are still struggling to communicate and understand.


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These reflections were inspired by some work we have been doing at UWCSEA to make better use of data as we assess the impact of our teaching. It may seem a bit of a stretch to be relating good teaching practice to the history of race relations in Australia; what prompted the connection in my mind was a question from a colleague about "moral purpose"- he invited us to frame our research around a common understanding of the moral purpose of our teaching of English.

For me, the moral purpose of teaching communication is clear and compelling: if we are to live in a world which is peaceful and just, we need highly developed skills for communication. We need to know how to read and write the contexts of our interactions in ways that a complex, empathetic and insightful. The hard work of living well together is built on a foundation of good communication and building this foundation is our moral purpose.