Struggling to teach American history

I am afraid I am a bit ignorant about American history myself, but maybe you simply allow them to read source documents and time period literature. Maybe skip the spine. There is a spine called the Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, maybe that would be more honest. I havent read it, but it claims to tell the truth. I think if I were in your place I would go through the Ambleside history readings, without the spine. Source documents, speeches and letters will always be more truthful than pre-digested retellings. Maybe some reliable biographies or autobiographies. Literature and poetry written during the time period. Let your students see what people were thinking and feeling. Maybe use a simple encyclopedia for a spine, just short and sweet with dates and facts, then add writings that occurred during that event. Reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was really eye opening for us. I think the only way to know anything close to the truth is to go to the source. Good luck!

I realized I probably left you more confused than ever. I think it is important to relate these timeless truths about man first and foremost while you are learning. This can be done at the dinner table or during a book discussion.

I think it is ok to choose a biased book (they all are) to get an overall timeline in our head. Of course, we want to be cognizant of the overall narrative goal of a book when choosing it, if we plan on spending a lot of time in it.

I taught my older two (now graduated) at the same time through some investigation into a couple topics but for the bulk of just getting the general facts they did that on their own. Reading and listening to books of their choice. My DS liked Great Courses and more broad theme books. My daughter did a lot more biographies since she is people focused.  There was no way I could have kept up with younger kids also and read half of what they did. Since we did the hard stuff together with just a few topics, I just had to trust them to a certain extent to put it to use when consuming other materials.

My third child has dyslexia and prefers hands on so I’m having him read The Story of the World for a basic timeline and getting the big picture. We are doubling up with English and he is writing narrations, etc. We will also be doing some investigative work together and talking about all of the aforementioned things as discussions.

I guess my point is, I do the hard stuff with them and leave the vast majority of content up to them.

Just want to share a couple of resources and things that I did for my kids. 8, 11, and 17. First year of homeschool.

We started the first term with a history of the Indigenous people that inhabited the Americas before the explorers. We used “Native Roots” by Jack Weatherford. I can’t put into words how well the author puts together the past and present contributions of the native people to our current societies. I supplemented with children’s books for my youngest. My middle girl read living chapter books about natives, and my oldest read more complex chapter books about native people, including Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

I’m sorry to say that we had to eliminate a couple of the recommended family reads due to what I’ll call old thinking and terminology  I supplemented with podcasts and documentaries and we discussed them together  (I don’t worry too much about what my youngest can understand or not from advanced study  I believe he’ll pick up what he can and we’ll discuss the rest)

For the second semester, we started with a brief history of the African continent, just enough to look at African kingdoms, art and way of life, before they were kidnapped and enslaved  We used a book called “If you want to learn Early African History, Start Here” by Robin Walker  Again, I found supplemental books at the library for all of them  My oldest read “Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market”, a very rough, but useful and necessary book  We watched documentaries about the Middle Passage and sort of ended there

Then we started the Early Modern lesson plans, but I had to massage the plans since I knew what I wanted to incorporate, and what I wanted to take out  We will finish Early Modern around the end of this fall, but I don’t stick to time constraints with my kids  I value learning more than grades and time constraints

We’ve also used Crash Course videos,  documentaries, and we discuss current events  I don’t hide the ugly from my children – kidnapping, enslavement, assimilation and genocide are heavy. My opinion is that they can learn about these things at a level that is appropriate, but they should at least know about them.

I hope this is helpful. We each know what our kids need, and we each know what will prepare them for being the future leaders that make our country better. My encouragement to you is to pick at least one thing that you feel is a non-negotiable, and teach the heck out of it :). For example, I won’t bring any book into the house that justifies treating Indigenous or Black people as less an image bearers of Christ and I won’t use books that refer to them as people of the past. I won’t use books with words like “savages”. After that, my pool of book selections becomes pretty small 🙂

Praying for you to find the resources and path that fits your heart for your family.

I just wanted to add a little something here. I have not even looked through it yet, but Hillsdale College released their new 1776 curriculum for free to the public. They released versions for grades K-12. Maybe that could help? (Let me know if you can’t find the link and I’ll try to find it again for you.)

@ Brianna…..

Sure, I’ll back up my points. America was obviously founded with some Scriptural principles in mind.. that is evident in our founding documents. Many of the Founding Fathers claimed to be Christians, but where outside of Orthodox Christianity….many were deists and unitarians. Deists would hold to a Creator and a moral life, but not to the authority of Scripture or the virgin birth or salvation by grace through faith. So, they would have denied the most basic statements of Christian faith….like the Apostle’s Creed.

When you look at the life of someone like Thomas Jefferson, who rewrote the Bible and had children with his slave, it’s obvious that he was a person who did not follow Jesus. Same for Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. (And we aren’t talking of a sin that was repented of and abandoned, like David’s adultery. These are lives marked by vice and blasphemy.)

While John Q. Adams was the American version of  William Wilberforce, constantly trying to stop the slave trade in America, Congress passed a “gag rule” to prevent the House from considering any anti-slavery petitions. Would a Christian Congress have passed a rule like that?

The Fugitive Slave act would never have been passed if our laws were actually honoring the Word of God. It was a direct violation of Deut. 23:15,16.

So, I would agree that there were moral men in our nation’s foundation who had some form of fear of God and respect for His morals laws (which is vastly better than what we have today), but it wasn’t a holy nation like we sometimes try to portray. Some of the Founders seem to truly have followed Jesus, but many of their lives denied Him and His teachings with their actions and some of them denied Him blatantly with their words.

Hey there – thanks ladies and sorry for my delayed response. Sometimes it’s hard to separate from life to engage on a forum, nourishing though it is.

Actually, I fully understand where you are both coming from  ( @MissusLeata and @momto3blessings). I have been on this journey myself since completing high school; I was homeschooled with Abeka curriculum, and as I’m sure you know it’s very opinionated without leaving room for one to form one’s own opinions. This is precisely what many of us work against in our homeschools now.

I have read extensively and am familiar with the points you both bring up. I was wishing to further and deepen the conversation, because it’s an important one right now. Our basic foundation as a country is being attacked and eroded, and we need to have well-formed opinions that we can substantiate with evidence, and often the best way to sharpen those skills is in a gentle and friendly forum like this. Alas, unfortunately, outside of the homeschool world it’s very difficult to find truly thoughtful and well-read citizens.

So I would love to deepen the conversation, whether here or private messages. History is *so* important. Let’s talk!