The Picturesque Tale of Progress

MJ, while I won’t pretend to have a formula for how to do this, there are some tidbits I’ve learned along the way which help me toward this goal.  Wisdom and discernment are indispensible, I agree!  First of all, whenever I choose a book, article or any resource to use in our history studies I always do some initial sleuthing on the author (or series if that applies), not major time-consuming stuff but an honest attempt to pinpoint their particuar ideological base.  This usually means some internet research, reading reviews both favorable and unfavorable, seeing what other things they have written or endorsed, which colleges or universities they teach in (if they do) and who funds their research or writings as the case may be. Those are just some good basics to keep in mind whenever weighing works by any author on a given subject.  Specifically regarding history, it is incredibly important to keep one major rule in mind, as Erasmus stressed so long ago, “Ad Fontes!”  which means “to the sources!” (literally, “to the fountain!”).  Primary sources are a key factor, although these can be full of their own perspectives and biases too.  Anecdotal stories abound and are unfortunately dished out and swallowed whole by most school children, myths about Abraham Lincoln come to my mind as one of the most striking examples of this.  Anyway, the closer you can get to original sources (and NOT merey from one viewpoint) the better.  This becomes trickier when you are studying time periods in which mostly the wealthy and powerful were literate so the views expressed are quite lopsided.  At any rate, noticing how many primary sources are utilized by an author and the range of those sources on the spectrum of humanity will give you a good idea of the worldview of the author.  From there, you can do a little detective work regarding the veracity of a story and decide what you want your children to walk away with.  I hope this makes sense, it’s just the way I feel comfortable approaching history.  There are so many others here on SCM who I’m sure can chime in with their ideas, as I only hit on some starting points… then comes the hard work of analyzing and critical thinking!  I’ll probably think of other things, that always happens AFTER I hit the “send” button but I’ll leave it there for now! 

Rachel