Tale from Our Textbooks

Did you know that the stories we learnt about in our history textbooks have changed over the years? Stories about our kings and queens that you learnt in school can be significantly different from the stories your parents learnt when they were in the same grade. There are many reasons why these stories have changed over the years. One very revealing aspect is that there’s a lot more to what we learn in our history books than what’s on the surface. If you dig a little deeper, you will find that what is excluded or included, played down or highlighted, can be relevant to what society is experiencing at a given point in time. In this exhibit we explore stories of our kings and queens in our school textbook over the years. We can see how a single story is related in different ways at different periods of time. Can you make any connections between the years and what the stories focus on? Have a look through this exhibit and see what parallels you can draw.