Disturbing ideology in Guest Hollow Whirlwind World History curriculum

[MercyA]

A word of warning re: Guest Hollow's Whirlwind World History curriculum. We were initially happy with it. The program accurately covered history through the 19th century. After that it went off the rails and started using videos spouting nationalist ideology (while, of course, claiming not to be racist). 

My husband took notes from several recent lessons and I'm copying some below. 

Students are asked to watch a Prager U video called "Why You Should Be a Nationalist." Quotes from that video: 

- "Nationalism is NOT about racism."

- Nationalists in American are known as "The Deplorables" because nationalists think "Good borders make good neighbors."

- Nationalists "want to preserve the way of life they and their ancestors built up over centuries."

- The idea of nationalism "first appears in the Bible where Moses gives borders to Israel and tells the Jews 'You'll be punished if you trouble your neighbors.'"

- Nationalists are the opposite of Nazis who were imperialist.

- "For nearly 400 years the principle of national independence served as the foundation for a better freer world, but WW1 and WW2 changed everything.  Traumatized by these catastrophic conflicts, many now seek comfort in a simplistic narrative ceaselessly repeated that nationalism caused two world wars and the Holocaust.  This is one of the great untruths of our times.  Adolf Hitler was no nationalist."

- "Nationalism is making a comeback.  If you care about freedom, you should hope it succeeds."

Students are asked to watch a Ben Shapiro video called "Conservatism Vs. Classical Liberalism." Highlights:

Conservatism:

   - Started with a desire to help American, Irish, and Indian people (!)

   - Is based on the Bible's view of separating nations

   - Is the best and most "free" tradition and focuses on loving that tradition

Liberalism:

   - Started when self-proclaimed "smart" people decided how other people should live

   - Quote from commentator mocking liberals: "My brain is *so* smart.  I know the universal truth . I know the answers for all countries for all time..."

   - Commentator responding to his strawman argument about liberals thinking they are smart: "...this leads to imperialism.  This leads to all sorts of terrible wars.  And internally, it can also lead to oppression."

   - Liberals do not know what a border is

   - Liberals do not know "There are mutual loyalties that pull tribes together and pull nations together...So they just flood the country with people with a different national tradition...That's disturbing to me."

Students are asked to watch a Prager U video called "Is Fascism Right or Left?" and are told:

- "Fascism is a form of socialism."

- "Fascists are socialists with a national identity."

- Fascism was created by a liberal named Giovanni Gentile and "Historians, most of whom are on the political left, had to erase [Gentile] from history in order to avoid confronting fascism's actual beliefs. [Gentile's] philosophy could not be more relevant because it closely parallels that of the modern left. Leftists can't acknowledge their man Gentile because that would undermine their attempt to bind conservatism to fascism...but we should remember or the ghost of fascism will continue to haunt us."

And finally, this was actually most disturbing to me: In the student workbook, students are asked to create their own book cover for Mein Kampf. (According to an email sent to another poster by the author of the workbook, this exercise has been removed as of tonight, April 22.)

Inaccurate, biased, pro-nationalism, anti-immigrant. Not cool.

Edited April 23, 2023 by MercyA

[QueenCat]

That curriculum is beyond disturbing.

[Murphy101]

ick.

[Terabith]

That's so disturbing, because while we never used any of their history or social studies curriculum, I used some of their science stuff and really liked it, and I have recommended it to people before.  I had no idea of their beliefs!  

[freesia]

Oh, no! I was looking forward to using that next year. Ugh

[MercyA]

Should I cross post this on the education boards? If so, where should I put it? They call it a high school curriculum but say it can be modified for middle schoolers.

[Ann.without.an.e]

2 minutes ago, MercyA said:

Should I cross post this on the education boards? If so, where should I put it? They call it a high school curriculum but say it can be modified for middle schoolers.

I think this is good for parents to know and I would definitely cross post it, maybe in both the MS and HS forums. 

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, MercyA said:

Should I cross post this on the education boards? If so, where should I put it? They call it a high school curriculum but say it can be modified for middle schoolers.

I think so.  At least on high school.  Maybe also on the K-8?  That is so disturbing, and at least in years past, I thought they were a company with a good reputation.  

[Ting Tang]

Can you link to this part of the curriculum?  I was just looking at the "free textbook" (skimming it) but couldn't find anything along these lines, but I literally took only a few minutes.  I've never heard of this curriculum.

If there are any bad links that they included, perhaps using poor judgment and without review, you should let the publisher know.  They might be willing to remove it.  I had that experience with TGTB.

[Murphy101]

1 minute ago, Ting Tang said:

Can you link to this part of the curriculum?  I was just looking at the "free textbook" (skimming it) but couldn't find anything along these lines, but I literally took only a few minutes.  I've never heard of this curriculum.

If there are any bad links that they included, perhaps using poor judgment and without review, you should let the publisher know.  They might be willing to remove it.  I had that experience with TGTB.

I would appreciate this as well. I’ve only used some of their science but I would like to have more details to remove any question of quote plucking out of context.

[MercyA]

13 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

I would appreciate this as well. I’ve only used some of their science but I would like to have more details to remove any question of quote plucking out of context.

 

16 minutes ago, Ting Tang said:

Can you link to this part of the curriculum?  I was just looking at the "free textbook" (skimming it) but couldn't find anything along these lines, but I literally took only a few minutes.  I've never heard of this curriculum.

Two of the videos, Why You Should Be a Nationalist and Conservatism Vs. Classical Liberalism, can be found here, embedded in their online Whirlwind World History textbook:

https://guesthollow.com/whirlwind-world-history-online-textbook/political-ideologies-and-movements/

The third video, Is Fascism Right or Left, can be found in their online textbook here:

https://guesthollow.com/fascism/

On page 343 of the student workbook, students are shown a picture of a book with a blank cover and asked to create their own book cover for Mein Kampf. The workbook is not available online.

Edited April 22, 2023 by MercyA

[Ting Tang]

Thanks very much!  I'll have to take a closer look.  That assignment seems very disturbing to me.  Gross. 

[pinball]

19 minutes ago, MercyA said:

On page 343 of the student workbook, students are shown a picture of a book with a blank cover and asked to create their own book cover for Mein Kampf. The workbook is not available online.

Does it give any other instructions or guidance for the teacher?

Could it be an assignment to show the student understands the content of Mein Kampf and that the actual title isn’t reflective of the true contents?

[MercyA]

9 minutes ago, pinball said:

Does it give any other instructions or guidance for the teacher?

Could it be an assignment to show the student understands the content of Mein Kampf and that the actual title isn’t reflective of the true contents?

I don't believe so.  The workbook says, "What was the name of Hitler's autobiography? Create the book cover with the title." 

It could be that someone was incredibly thoughtless in coming up with an activity for the workbook, but they should know better. I might be willing to give them more grace on this if it wasn't for all the other nationalist ideology in the curriculum. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by MercyA

[historically accurate]

Just now, MercyA said:

I don't believe so.  The workbook says, "What was the name of Hitler's autobiography? Create the book cover with the title." 

It could be that someone was incredibly thoughtless in coming up with an activity for the workbook, but they should know better. I would be willing to give them more grace on this if it wasn't for all the other nationalist ideology in the curriculum. 

Yikes! I don't know what to say to that, but Yikes!

Middle DD is finishing up the high school anatomy curriculum, which overall was a success. Sadly, I can't recommend them as a company with this news though.

[freesia]

2 minutes ago, MercyA said:

I don't believe so.  The workbook says, "What was the name of Hitler's autobiography? Create the book cover with the title." 

It could be that someone was incredibly thoughtless in coming up with an activity for the workbook, but they should know better. I would be willing to give them more grace on this if it wasn't for all the other nationalist ideology in the curriculum. 

It does seem like an odd assignment. I wonder at the point of it. I have to say that my kids did attend a VBS at a good church where one of the crafts on the day they studied Adam and Eve was making a stuffed snake. Another day, while learning about the Tower of Babel, they made a ziggurat. I rather thought the decider of crafts had missed the point badly. 
 

I’m not tying to excuse it, just commenting that activities can be weird. I breezed through the links and found it odd that those videos were at the end of sections with no comments or introductions. Have you considered commenting like they encourage at the end of the pages?

[pinball]

8 minutes ago, MercyA said:

I don't believe so.  The workbook says, "What was the name of Hitler's autobiography? Create the book cover with the title." 

It could be that someone was incredibly thoughtless in coming up with an activity for the workbook, but they should know better. I might be willing to give them more grace on this if it wasn't for all the other nationalist ideology in the curriculum. 

At the risk of someone coming in here and calling me pedantic (😂) is that the exact phrase? “Create the book cover with the title”? 
Because that almost sounds like the assignment is to copy the actual book cover. 
 

I think the whole exercise is ridiculous but I don’t know if it is nefarious. 

[Vintage81]

37 minutes ago, pinball said:

At the risk of someone coming in here and calling me pedantic (😂) is that the exact phrase? “Create the book cover with the title”? 
Because that almost sounds like the assignment is to copy the actual book cover. 
 

I think the whole exercise is ridiculous but I don’t know if it is nefarious. 

Yes, that is the exact quote. FYI…This type of exercise is not exclusive to this particular book. Students are asked to do this other times in the workbook with other books. The workbook has lots of different activities, like maps, timeline figures, other drawings, etc, not just direct questions and this is one of them. 

[Ting Tang]

I think you should write the company since you have the workbook.  Tell them you find it inappropriate, and you've shared with others because you think others ought to be forewarned. Not all of us have so much time to preview every little detail when we choose our curriculums.  We put a lot of trust in these companies. It seems many like the company.  Maybe they can have a chance to fix it. It definitely missed the mark.  

[Murphy101]

1 hour ago, freesia said:

It does seem like an odd assignment. I wonder at the point of it. I have to say that my kids did attend a VBS at a good church where one of the crafts on the day they studied Adam and Eve was making a stuffed snake. Another day, while learning about the Tower of Babel, they made a ziggurat. I rather thought the decider of crafts had missed the point badly. 
 

🙄😬🤔🫣🥴 - all the emotions before settling on 🤦‍♀️

Just. SMH

Edited April 22, 2023 by Murphy101

[ScoutTN]

Definitely cross post to the K-8 and high school boards, please.

[Shoeless]

Oh yikes. We used their kitchen chemistry last year, and it was fun. DS has been working through their US History year 1, and while definitely more conservative leaning than I like, its been ok and led to a lot of discussion.

I bought the cultural geography but was having reservations about him doing it and continuing with G.H. at all. There were some books that didn't sit right with me.

I think I need a new plan for history next year 😕

Edited April 22, 2023 by Shoeless

[maize]

2 hours ago, freesia said:

I have to say that my kids did attend a VBS at a good church where one of the crafts on the day they studied Adam and Eve was making a stuffed snake. Another day, while learning about the Tower of Babel, they made a ziggurat. I rather thought the decider of crafts had missed the point badly. 
 

This made me laugh!

Imagine grandma asking a kid what they did at VBS this week, and kid enthusiastically declaring "we made a snake like in the Garden of Eden and built a tower like the Tower of  Babel!"

[Heartstrings]

I’m appalled, I’ve joyed some of their grade school stuff.  Definitely a no on the whole company now.   Geez.  

[freesia]

36 minutes ago, maize said:

This made me laugh!

Imagine grandma asking a kid what they did at VBS this week, and kid enthusiastically declaring "we made a snake like in the Garden of Eden and built a tower like the Tower of  Babel!"

That was pretty much what happened—but with me—not the Grandma. It’s my best friend’s church. I called her and told her that if I didn’t know her so well and my dh didn’t know the pastor of that church I would have pulled them out right away. I did laugh, but still shake my head at the whole thing. (And I made sure my kids had the stories straight!)

[Eos]

There is nothing to say but wtaf.  This is so disturbing.

[ScoutTN]

Has it always been this way, or is this new? 
 

We only used some of their elementary grade stuff a long time ago. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

Just a note that the business name is Guest HOLLOW. 

[MercyA]

1 hour ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

Just a note that the business name is Guest HOLLOW. 

Thanks, Jean. Fixed it. 

[MercyA]

3 hours ago, ScoutTN said:

Definitely cross post to the K-8 and high school boards, please.

Done.

[MercyA]

4 hours ago, Ting Tang said:

I think you should write the company since you have the workbook.  Tell them you find it inappropriate, and you've shared with others because you think others ought to be forewarned. Not all of us have so much time to preview every little detail when we choose our curriculums.  We put a lot of trust in these companies. It seems many like the company.  Maybe they can have a chance to fix it. It definitely missed the mark.  

I thought about that, but it's bigger than that particular workbook exercise. Taken by itself, that assignment may have just been thoughtless. 

But it's not like they accidentally chose the videos, KWIM? They aren't just in a list of resources (which would be bad enough, IMO); they're actually embedded in the online textbook. If their underlying philosophy is accurately portrayed by those videos, I think people should know. 

[MercyA]

17 hours ago, freesia said:

I’m not trying to excuse it, just commenting that activities can be weird. I breezed through the links and found it odd that those videos were at the end of sections with no comments or introductions. Have you considered commenting like they encourage at the end of the pages?

I agree about activities sometimes being weird and missing the mark. 

Taking a quick glance, all the videos seem to me to be included without commentary. My DH is the history teacher, so he would know more than me about that. There don't seem to be any videos with opposing viewpoints to the ones presented on those pages.

I don't really want to get into a potential debate on the Guest Hollow webpages themselves or take the time to write something only to have it deleted. I probably should contact the company, though. [ETA: Owner of the company has been tagged in this thread. Thanks!]

Edited April 23, 2023 by MercyA

[Heartstrings]

4 minutes ago, MercyA said:

I thought about that, but it's bigger than that particular workbook exercise. Taken by itself, that assignment may have just been thoughtless. 

But it's not like they accidentally chose the videos, KWIM? They aren't just in a list of resources (which would be bad enough, IMO); they're actually embedded in the online textbook. If their underlying philosophy is accurately portrayed by those videos, I think people should know. 

I’m glad to know.  I often don’t pay as close attention to my high schoolers day to day work and could have missed something like this. I absolutely don’t want that sort of thing in our curriculum.  

[MercyA]

2 hours ago, ScoutTN said:

Has it always been this way, or is this new? 

I think this is one of their newer items. I haven't personally used any others.

[MercyA]

2 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I’m glad to know.  I often don’t pay as close attention to my high schoolers day to day work and could have missed something like this. I absolutely don’t want that sort of thing in our curriculum.  

Frankly we might have missed the content of the videos, too, if our DD hadn't discussed them with us. We don't preview every little thing when we trust a curriculum overall.

Edited April 23, 2023 by MercyA

[Shoeless]

2 hours ago, ScoutTN said:

Has it always been this way, or is this new? 
 

We only used some of their elementary grade stuff a long time ago. 

The Whirlwind World History is a fairly new product in their lineup. 

 

@MercyA thank you for bringing this to our attention. I'd been on the fence about using their geography and/or government, but this settles it for me. 

What a shame 😠

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

54 minutes ago, MercyA said:

Frankly we might have missed the content of the videos, too, if our DD hadn't discussed them with us. We don't preview every little thing when we trust a curriculum overall.

I’m sure they’re betting on this very thing. 

[Farrar]

Thanks for posting this, Mercy. I'm glad to realize the extent to which the program leans heavily into white nationalist ideology. I've always recommended the things of hers that I've suggested like the kitchen chemistry, with a bit of a note of caution. But that's... really not okay on any level.

I think it's worth pointing out that it's not a big company. It's one person who does all this and her husband who helps out with the business end stuff. She's a poster here. Many of us remember when she first started posting about writing curricula.

I'm a little surprised no one has tagged her yet, so I'll bite the bullet. @jenn&charles, any response?

[YaelAldrich]

Wow!  That is really messed up that they are using two Orthodox/Traditional Jew's videos (I heartily disagree with their ideologies! ) in conjunction with dressing drawing a cover for Mein Kampf?!?

[pinball]

I wrote the company.

in the reply, Jenn (person who answered my email) included a screenshot of the Mein Kampf workbook page and wrote:

“It is absolutely not meant in any way to glorify that book. It's just a tool with which to help a student remember the answer to the question. I used that answer format for a variety of book title questions. It wasn't a book cover making activity (like making a real book cover) - it's just a fill in the blank kind of thing, only on a graphic of a book cover in the workbook (as you can see from the screenshot above).

Here's another similar example from the workbook (except in this example I encourage the students to illustrate it if they want to):”

<<another workbook page screen shot is included>>

Then she continued:

 

“I've never had any complaints about the Mein Kampf answer, but it concerns me that anyone would perhaps think something badly about it. 

I will remove that question immediately. It will no longer exist in a few minutes. We always take feedback seriously.

Thank you for asking me about it, and please let me know if you have any other questions. I hope you or someone else can let others know my answer about this workbook question. It seems as if there was perhaps no context in the post you are referring to. (??) I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea!! 🙂 “

———

——-

I copied her answer bc she said she hoped I could let others know.

i know this does not address all the issues but I only asked about the MK workbook page

 

[pinball]

I’m also writing Ben Shapiro but I don’t think I’ll hear back bc in addition to asking him about the video,  I also asked if he is married to a doctor, if Matt Walsh will buy me a new roof, and if he could tell Jordan Peterson to stop speaking Canadian when he is doing American podcasts.

[Heartstrings]

35 minutes ago, pinball said:

I wrote the company.

in the reply, Jenn (person who answered my email) included a screenshot of the Mein Kampf workbook page and wrote:

“It is absolutely not meant in any way to glorify that book. It's just a tool with which to help a student remember the answer to the question. I used that answer format for a variety of book title questions. It wasn't a book cover making activity (like making a real book cover) - it's just a fill in the blank kind of thing, only on a graphic of a book cover in the workbook (as you can see from the screenshot above).

Here's another similar example from the workbook (except in this example I encourage the students to illustrate it if they want to):”

<<another workbook page screen shot is included>>

Then she continued:

 

“I've never had any complaints about the Mein Kampf answer, but it concerns me that anyone would perhaps think something badly about it. 

I will remove that question immediately. It will no longer exist in a few minutes. We always take feedback seriously.

Thank you for asking me about it, and please let me know if you have any other questions. I hope you or someone else can let others know my answer about this workbook question. It seems as if there was perhaps no context in the post you are referring to. (??) I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea!! 🙂 “

———

——-

I copied her answer bc she said she hoped I could let others know.

i know this does not address all the issues but I only asked about the MK workbook page

 

Honestly the quotes and videos are more concerning to me.  She can take them all out right this second, I don’t trust her or her curriculum anymore.   When someone shows you they are you believe them the first time.  This is obviously who she is and what she is pushing with her curriculum.  

Edited April 23, 2023 by Heartstrings

[Anne Elliot]

That’s unfortunate. I know a lot of secular homeschoolers use Guest Hollow curriculum because it is easily adapted for our purposes. I was just looking at their Junior Geography yesterday. Those videos and quotes are really disappointing.

[scbusf]

The curriculum is only about a year old, so people are probably just now getting to that point. We are using it, and my son said something about the Prager U videos and he said he was just skipping it. I didn’t investigate further, but I should have. 
 

they do respond quickly on their FB groups, so maybe someone is willing to post there?

[Farrar]

I want to say that this is complete speculation, but in the most general sense... I think a lot of people who lean a certain way politically are genuinely ignorant of how to turn a critical eye on things like Prager U and pseudointellectual nonsense being spouted by people like Ben Shapiro. I think when you start with only a very basic understanding of these concepts and an ideological community/lens that leans into "America is unquestionably awesome" and "the government is unquestionably bad" with a dose of "socialism is the greatest evil in the world" then you're an easy mark for "nationalism has nothing to do with race" and "liberals are trying to control what you do" and "immigration is always bad now" and some of the other lines of thinking in the those videos. 

And this, folks, is why we need critical thinking in education and need to be wary of watching just any old video that purports to tell us what something is online.

[Harriet Vane]

4 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I want to say that this is complete speculation, but in the most general sense... I think a lot of people who lean a certain way politically are genuinely ignorant of how to turn a critical eye on things like Prager U and pseudointellectual nonsense being spouted by people like Ben Shapiro. I think when you start with only a very basic understanding of these concepts and an ideological community/lens that leans into "America is unquestionably awesome" and "the government is unquestionably bad" with a dose of "socialism is the greatest evil in the world" then you're an easy mark for "nationalism has nothing to do with race" and "liberals are trying to control what you do" and "immigration is always bad now" and some of the other lines of thinking in the those videos. 

And this, folks, is why we need critical thinking in education and need to be wary of watching just any old video that purports to tell us what something is online.

This.

Every word.

Thank you.

[EKS]

I know nothing about this resource, but I will say that the the word "nationalism" has more than one meaning.  It actually bugs me that the word now seems to mean exclusively "white nationalism" because the larger meaning of the word is now totally lost.

[QueenCat]

1 hour ago, Farrar said:

I want to say that this is complete speculation, but in the most general sense... I think a lot of people who lean a certain way politically are genuinely ignorant of how to turn a critical eye on things like Prager U and pseudointellectual nonsense being spouted by people like Ben Shapiro. I think when you start with only a very basic understanding of these concepts and an ideological community/lens that leans into "America is unquestionably awesome" and "the government is unquestionably bad" with a dose of "socialism is the greatest evil in the world" then you're an easy mark for "nationalism has nothing to do with race" and "liberals are trying to control what you do" and "immigration is always bad now" and some of the other lines of thinking in the those videos. 

And this, folks, is why we need critical thinking in education and need to be wary of watching just any old video that purports to tell us what something is online.

Spot on!

[Jean in Newcastle]

2 hours ago, EKS said:

I know nothing about this resource, but I will say that the the word "nationalism" has more than one meaning.  It actually bugs me that the word now seems to mean exclusively "white nationalism" because the larger meaning of the word is now totally lost.

I agree but also want to point out that Christian Nationalism is also a different very specific thing. 

[Kristini2]

Ugh! I came so close to using this curriculum this year. I even purchased it last spring, but when I started a quick look through, something made me think it might not be a good fit, and since it was so new that I couldn't find a single review, we went in a different direction. So glad we did!!