Textbooks are written as grand narrative, include widely accepted facts/dates, have to teach students to pay attention to people's motivations, relationships between events, and if events are causative or coincidental because these are hidden from students (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2014, p. 237)
This is a very scary thought. We need to really teach students to look at historical information critically and to pay attention or they will think history is simply accepting facts and dates. Instead, it is much mor e intricate and involved motivations and relationships and the student to determine their stance on the topic.