A Focus on American History

As much as I've been trying to go with child-driven learning these days, I've come to realize that sometimes I've got to inspire and encourage more than I realize I do.  Again, I have to thank my wonderful aunt for reminding me of this.  She knows I'm one for all of these great ideas and ideals, but sometimes my dreams and reality do not always intertwine.  My wonderful aunt has been an incredible inspiration, and has truly helped me realize that sometimes child driven learning means helping your children remember how to explore, have interest, and otherwise be engaged by the world around them.  I may need to hold my daughter's hand on developing a few interests before she'll take wing and want to fly herself.

One of the things I've wanted to work on for some time now was American history.  As much as I know world history is important and everything, we do live in America, and there are some wonderful accomplishments made in this country that are often overlooked or glazed over in modern American schools.  Would you believe I know several people who think "the shot heard around the world" was during World War II?  Some have never heard of the Boston Tea Party or the Battle of Lexington and Concord.  Even more have no idea who John Adams and Thomas Paine are.  Several of them are under the belief that all Samuel Adams ever did was make beer.  Slavery is considered a dirty word and many of my friends don't know anything about it other than it happened.  It seems the fact that slavery was a large part of what made the South so successful and made such an impact on the economy in this country isn't worth mentioning.  No one seems to remember the cotton gin, nor who Eli Whitney even was.  Even if they do, they often don't know what kind of impact that one invention made on the country as a whole.  Many people think of Ben Franklin as simply a kooky inventor and don't realize the influence he made on politics both in this country and during his time in France.  Furthermore, no one seems to know about the origin and impact of the railroad on the colonization of the rest of the country.  It seems many people find these details unimportant.  However, many of these people can tell you about Greek and Roman mythology, the history of Ancient Egypt, and often times a good deal of medieval history.  While I do think it's wonderful and important to know the history of the world, it seems like the history of the very country we live in is glazed over as though it were unimportant.  Yes, this country may be young in the grand scale of nations, but there are so many inspirational men and women throughout American history (just look at Rosa Parks!) that we could learn from.  Isn't the history of the nation in which we live important?  Shouldn't our children be expected to know at least as much as anyone passing the citizenship exam would have to know?  After all, if it's so necessary for an immigrant to know, we should all know that information as well.  I'll admit, if I had to take the citizenship test, I just might fail!  That's not something I'm proud of.

So when I got the Liberty's Kids book in the mail from my aunt, I had to admit, I was thrilled!  The book we received was Freedom at Any Price.  I cracked open the cover upon receiving it (the only book of the batch I didn't let my kids run off with before I could take a decent look) and saw some names that made my heart overflow with joy, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, William Dawes, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock.  The dates of the story run from March of 1775 to April 19, 1775, which means this book will lead up until the midnight ride and the Battle of Lexington and Concord.  I have to be honest, I couldn't wait to dig into it, and I was very tempted to pre-read it so I'd know what to expect when my daughter and I read it together.  I'll also be honest, I couldn't make her wait until I had the time to read through it myself.  We've started reading it already.

I had forgotten how much an education without history is lacking in depth.  Yes, we've gone through classic children's stories, but we haven't really touched upon much history.  We tried to go through the American Girls books with Meet Josephina, but my daughter very quickly lost interest.  I guess she wasn't much interested in a Mexican-American girl from a time well before our own.  However, she's eating up this Liberty's Kids book.  I'll have to see if I can track down more!  Still, I didn't even stop to realize that she had no concept in her head of things like slavery.  We went to the Liberty's Kids website and watched a bunch of their Now and Then pieces, which she thought were rather interesting.  We sang Yankee Doodle, all three of us, though my older son wasn't sure he was terribly interested in singing.  I'm starting to realize why I like history so much again!  I've even learned a little information from all of this!  (Did you know tooth paste in the 1700s was made of crushed bricks?)

I have to say, I think I've finally found a way to inspire my daughter to have a love of history, just like her mom.  I feel really confident that we're not starting with the farthest removed point, and we're at least starting with a time when the people in that era and this one had enough in common that she can start to connect some of what they've done to our own life.  She can really understand it without giving me that look that tells me she thinks I'm completely out of my mind!  I think we've finally done it!  We're starting this whole thing off, and better still, she gets to learn a little bit about why this country is what it is today, and exactly how far we've come as a nation!