A glimpse inside Hillsdale College's network of classical schools across the country.
Instead of helping us to deepen ourselves and take a mature and complex view of the past, history is increasingly employed as a simple bludgeon, which picks its targets mechanically—often based on little more than a popular cliché—and strikes.
Recognizing the critical moment in which we live, and in response to what Prof. Wilfred S. McClay calls "the weaponization of history," Hillsdale College's K-12 Education department has published a comprehensive K-12 American history and government curriculum for students, parents, and teachers.
America’s founders rightly reminded us that the ultimate determinant of our success as a nation would be our ability to sustain a virtuous and well-educated citizenry. The dangerous state of American history education today is about to prove the founders right yet again. Restoring the true teaching of American history would give our young people and our nation a fighting chance to turn the tide, preserving their American inheritance for another generation.
A look at last week’s panel on the teaching of American history at the National Archives, featuring Wilfred S. McClay and Jordan Adams from Hillsdale College’s Barney Charter School Initiative.
If you are a parent, these notes might help you evaluate your child's history class. If you are a teacher in a classical school, they might help you plan your lessons or give you ways to describe the teaching of history to others. If you are a teacher of social studies or a teacher in a non-classical school, this might help you think about two different ways of approaching the same subject.
Fix your eyes on the greatness of Athens as you have it before you day by day, fall in love with her, and when you feel her great, remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action... So they gave their… Continue reading Pericles on Athens
