S/O of revisionist history thread

[trlt]

How do you make sure the history curriculum you use is accurate? This may be a dumb question but my dd is only in first grade so I'm not quite there yet with history curriculum. I know that some of the history that my niece is taught in her ps is inaccurate and I know that when I was in ps there was a lot of history omitted (even in college) and glossed over. When the time comes for my dd to learn history I want to make sure I teach her what really happened (age appropriate, of course!). So how do I make sure the curriculum I pick is accurate?

[Julie in Austin]

I think you should start be recognizing that every history curriculum has a bias. There is no such thing as "accurate" history (although some are more factually accurate than others).

 

With that in mind, I'd eliminate ones that have a bias that you find unreasonable. Then, I would be sure to study history yourself--particularly viewpoints to which you may not have yet been exposed--in order to be able to discuss these issues with your kids.

 

(I always thought it would be awesome to have a high school group read _A Patriot's History_ and _A People's History_ and compare them.)

[Plink]

Great question, but I don't know if you will ever find a perfect source. Old texts don't have all the newest information, and new texts don't have all the answers either.

 

Our understanding of what happened in history is always evolving. New evidence is found all the time and it changes what we think about the world. Because there is just so much out there, all history writers also have to decide what they do and do not include ... There is a lot of picking-and-choosing going on.

 

That being said, history texts should be careful not to present information with an an intentional bias by focusing on one culture as the hero, eliminating references to a disliked religion, etc.

 

Original sources are great, but many were written with an obvious bias (for example, Vikings were not just brutal hethens, but most of our records are written by the Christians in the land that they invaded, so our records are, well, tainted). Many really qualify as historic fiction, and can't be taken as perfect either.

 

All that to say, I don't trust any source without comparing it to others. We read broadly, from many different viewpoints. No one book is ever going to be perfectly accurate (except for the Bible imho).

[Lily_Grace]

I think you should start be recognizing that every history curriculum has a bias. There is no such thing as "accurate" history (although some are more factually accurate than others).

 

With that in mind, I'd eliminate ones that have a bias that you find unreasonable. Then, I would be sure to study history yourself--particularly viewpoints to which you may not have yet been exposed--in order to be able to discuss these issues with your kids.

 

 

 

 

This. Absolutely this. And encourage your kids to not accept someone else's word as absolute truth. My son is a young teen now, and his history "curriculum" involves a lot of research on his part and discussion - comparing what is written to what the primary sources say, underlining leading or emotional words so he can see where the author's bias is, using a pond method of doing a timeline so he can see how events, even mundane ones, are related, and learning how to ask the unasked questions in his texts: Where did Jefferson get the idea to send out the L&C expedition? On what did Hitler base his conclusions about the Jewish race?

 

I want my kid to think about history and put together clues to form his own conclusions as much as possible. I've found that spoonfeeding makes for a passive learner, not an active one, and someone who is willing to accept ideas without challenging.

[Kathryn]

I think you should start be recognizing that every history curriculum has a bias. There is no such thing as "accurate" history (although some are more factually accurate than others).

 

With that in mind, I'd eliminate ones that have a bias that you find unreasonable. Then, I would be sure to study history yourself--particularly viewpoints to which you may not have yet been exposed--in order to be able to discuss these issues with your kids.

 

(I always thought it would be awesome to have a high school group read _A Patriot's History_ and _A People's History_ and compare them.)

 

This. Absolutely this. And encourage your kids to not accept someone else's word as absolute truth. My son is a young teen now, and his history "curriculum" involves a lot of research on his part and discussion - comparing what is written to what the primary sources say, underlining leading or emotional words so he can see where the author's bias is, using a pond method of doing a timeline so he can see how events, even mundane ones, are related, and learning how to ask the unasked questions in his texts: Where did Jefferson get the idea to send out the L&C expedition? On what did Hitler base his conclusions about the Jewish race?

 

I want my kid to think about history and put together clues to form his own conclusions as much as possible. I've found that spoonfeeding makes for a passive learner, not an active one, and someone who is willing to accept ideas without challenging.

 

:iagree: so much with both of these. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in history, so it's not something I personally worry about. But, I'd advise reading widely, not just trusting one publisher's account (unless, of course, it's Peace Hill Press :D), looking up primary sources, and really using those critical thinking skills to determine if what a text is telling you really makes sense in a wider context. And remember that people, and especially cultures, are never purely evil. Look for underlying reasons behind evil acts to try to ferret out WHy things happened the way they did--which is a big reason that we study history in the first place. If we just say Hitler was evil or communism is evil, there's really no lesson. We need to look at how Hitler was able to take and keep power, why people bought into communism and how it was/is able to survive, etc. Always distrust any text that tries to make issues very black and white with an us vs. them agenda.

[Carrie12345]

The more we read from the wider the variety of sources, the better we're able to see the big picture.

 

I try to think in present terms. Could one book ever present all aspects of every issue occurring today? No. So we'd need many books with conflicting perspectives to get a decent idea of what's going on.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

This is how I look at it- my kids can't even give me the same story about how their room got trashed. History is just an accumulation of various people's sides of the story. You pick a spine for a basic overview of what is commonly accepted as "history", and you add on lots of outside reading and field trips to round it out.

[Julie in Austin]

This is how I look at it- my kids can't even give me the same story about how their room got trashed. History is just an accumulation of various people's sides of the story. You pick a spine for a basic overview of what is commonly accepted as "history", and you add on lots of outside reading and field trips to round it out.

 

:lol:

[Julie in Austin]

One more thing--the series Critical Thinking in US History is AWESOME. I have used it in multiple small-coop settings as well as one-on-one with my kids. I'd recommend it for 6th-12th grade. It isn't a complete history curriculum, but it takes debatable issues in US history, gives you a bunch of snippets of primary sources as well as snippets of historians who disagree with each other in interpreting those sources. (You could dig all of this up yourself, but they have saved you a LOT of work.)

[Beth S]

I think SWB addresses this in the WTM as one of the reasons SHE wanted to be the one to teach her children history.

 

Her simple example was Christopher Columbus--who can be depicted as either a Christian missionary evangelizing the New World . . . or an evil disease-spreading pillager. (I'm exaggerating & can't recall the actual extreme descriptions.)

 

But the goal is for YOU to get to wind around through all the different events of history, learning along with your child. Reading many different perspectives, and enjoying the many lavishly illustrated children's books about famous historical figures (much more enjoyable than a history textbook). Many are found at the library. :001_smile:

 

It really is an amazing adventure--and it is highly likely that I've learned more than my kids did about the different historical points of view.