About the Project — Tallarook Mechanics Institute

The Great History Project

Tallarook Primary School, c. 2015

This Great Tallarook History Project began with a grant of money and a letter of support from the Mitchell Shire before applying for, and receiving, a Local History Grant from the Public Record Office of Victoria. The Tallarook Mechanics Institute was the focal point of both these grant applications, and for good reason I realised later when a Grade 2 student described it as ‘The elder building of Tallarook’. The project was introduced into the Tallarook Primary School [TPS] in 2015 as the school has been a regular and frequent user of the Hall since 1891 and the idea of the students themselves contributing to this local history project appealed to everyone involved.

Local and community history is a rewarding enterprise for those at the heart of the story because it has the power to give people a role in their own history and heritage and to recognise its importance to their lives. On 15 September 2015 the students held a History Day in the Mechanics Institute Hall to show the history posters they had developed during the term. Depending on the grade level, these covered personal and family histories, present and past family life, the past in the present, community and remembrance, first contacts, and the Australian colonies. These are the main areas of content outlined in the AusVELS History Curriculum for Prep to Grade 6 students in Victoria. This framework meant the project inevitably grew from a history of the Mechanics Institute [the focus of the grants] to a history of Tallarook. However, the characteristics of mechanics institutes mean they are always at the centre of their community, and in Tallarook it is no different. So attention is drawn back to this building and its relationship with, and importance to, the local community.

Much of the students’ work illustrates or informs this website, and is posted in The Tallarook Magnifier - the blog of TPS Historians. The students will continue this work in the coming years with local and community history introduced into the curriculum whenever possible. This is just the beginning of the Great Tallarook History Project. Students may be inspired to investigate further any of the people, events, issues, buildings, or stories they find in the next couple of pages. They may come across new photographs, documents, objects or ephemera that inspire them to explore other leads in this history. Or they might interview long term residents and use the oral history material in innovative ways. Their contributions, whether in the form of posters, stories, poems, pictures, audio or video will be added to The Tallarook Magnifier as they are completed. They are discovering that the “story” in “history” is what it's about, and there are plenty more stories to come in this exploration of community history.