History? Bingo!

While browsing around the internet, I took a look at Bill Bennett’s web page. Aside from the gambling fiasco, I admire him tremendously because what he says about children is uplifting, helpful and heartening.

On his web page was a particularly good insight into what history should be for Kindergarteners through twelfth grade; I would add preschool. It was written by John Holdren, the Senior Vice President of Content and Curriculum for a program called K12, a home schooling program that parents can get through the Internet by going here . Bill Bennett is the chairman and co founder of K12.

I could never have written this better nor said as much in as little space. I wanted to share it because this is exactly what we do; what we present at the Garden School with history and all our subjects. Like Bennett's K-12, we go about teaching children things they can take with them for a lifetime - real things with value and substance and a heart that professes goodness. The premise that children should wait and wait and wait to learn about the world around them is bogus.

Read and enjoy:

History from the Start

John Holdren, K12 Senior Vice President of Content and Curriculum

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt
The Great Wall of China
Chariot races in the Roman Forum
Medieval knights in shining armor
The code of the Japanese samurai
Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
Washington crossing the Delaware

Each a fascinating topic with a compelling story behind it. But in schools, children rarely encounter these topics until middle or high school. Typically, the elementary grades pass over the study of History in favor of Social Studies—lessons that, more often than not, focus only on the family, the neighborhood, the community.

While there is value to learning about local focuses, the Social Studies approach sells children short. It fails to acknowledge a child's natural curiosity about the world beyond the self and its surroundings.

K12 believes there is another way. Don't pass up the opportunity to teach History from the start. History is a gateway that opens young minds and imaginations to far-off lands, distant times, and diverse peoples. The stories of the past should be an integral part of every child's curriculum. Knowledge of the past prepares us to understand the present and shape the future. By knowing the main lines of human endeavor, and by exploring how people have lived and how civilizations have developed, young people are better prepared to do everything from reading a newspaper to appreciating a painting and casting an informed vote.

For young children, K12 emphasizes the story in history. Stories help children understand and retain basic ideas about distant people and times, about how diverse peoples and civilizations have changed over time, and how some have stayed the same. These stories include great men and women as well as common folk. They are stories of high ideals, enduring achievements, tragic failures, and ongoing struggles.

What should we include in the story of the past that we tell to young children? K12 History proposes a detailed sequence of topics, based in part on recommendations from E. D. Hirsch, Jr.'s Core Knowledge Foundation, and from Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer's' The Well-Trained Mind.

While guiding children through an exploration of our rich human past, K12 History focuses on aspects that are key to understanding human civilization. Civilization, as distinct from prehistory, begins with the building of cities and the development of writing. Civilization around the world has taken many different forms over the past several thousand years.
To understand these variations, one needs to understand certain major themes, including the following:

How geography influences settlement
How human beings have ruled and organized themselves
What people have believed about the divine
What stories people tell in literature and myth
What has been accomplished in science and technology

There are many ways that K12 brings the past to life for our children—through picture books, historical fiction, primary sources, creative projects, and more.

Children are fascinated by stories. K12 uses the power of stories to help your children understand their world's past and its connection to their future.