The Turkish Ministry of Education has decided that the “Human Rights, Citizenship and Democracy” subject, which is a mandatory subject for 4^th graders, will be taught through a new method.

As reports the Turkish Milliyet, the method has been introduced by German-Turkish writer Yucel Feyzioglu. By his proposal, the ministry has published a textbook that is a compilation of Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian national fairy tales. The essence of the new method is to teach children the subject through fairy tales.

As reports ermenihaber.am, the author said the following about the significance of the book: “Our children are growing up with the fairy tales of Anderson, the Brothers Grim and Charles Perot. I thought of compiling Turkish and Kurdish fairy tales and the fairy tales of Mesopotamia. Our children need to grow up by learning about the culture of their country and their neighbors because brothers can fight, but they can’t become enemies.”

The book, which is composed of the sections entitled “To Be a Human Being”, “Law, Freedom and Responsibility”, “Mutual Consent”, “Rules”, “Coexistence” and “Justice and Equality”, included 30 Dagh, Turkmen, Kazakh, Turkish, Kurdish, Chuvash, Uzbek, Macedonian, Kyrgyz, Azerbaijani, Uyghur, Tatar, Assyrian and Armenian fairy tales.

It is mentioned that each section ends with additional information about the fairy tales included in the given section, including the nation to which the fairy tales belong, where the heroes live, the geography of the given country, etc.

The following is mentioned about the Armenians in the book: “The history of the Armenians traces back to the periods before Christ. Since the times of the Seljuks, the Ottoman Empire and the Akkoyunlus, we have always lived with the Armenians, starting from the year 1,000. There are some Armenian compatriots in our country. The Armenians are a nation that have made great contributions to our culture, including in the spheres of architecture, music, theater, cinema and other fields.”

The book mentions the Palyan family of architects who built the Chiragan, Dolmabahce palaces, the military school of Kulel and many mosques for sultans.