The type of virtues taught in “woke” history courses have little to do with traditional, Christian virtues. So how do parents circumvent this progressive teaching of history? Here is a list of books that your kids should read.
“Our children need to learn more history and civics!” is a regular rallying cry for those who want to see America returned to its moral and common sense roots.
That a greater emphasis on history and civics is needed is evident from The Nation’s Report Card, which finds only 24 percent of American high school seniors proficient in civics, while only 12 percent of them are proficient in American history.
These earnest requests and dire statistics have been met by recent bipartisan efforts to beef up the curriculum in these areas in the form of “The Civics Secures Democracy Act,” a bill sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Chris Coons (D-DE) among others.
“The bill is part of an extraordinary push by academics, politicians, foundations, and research centers to re-emphasize civics in elementary and secondary education,” Mark Bauerlein writes in a piece for City Journal.
Only things might not be as rosy as they seem. “Organizers present the Roadmap as bipartisan and balanced, but if you scan the details, you’ll find it relentlessly focuses on group identity, access and exclusion, agency and dissent, and diversity,” Bauerlein explains. While such reforms may be well-meaning, the fact is that “progressives will outnumber conservatives 50 to 1” when the new curriculum is implemented.
In other words, while one may start out with the goal of teaching about George Washington, John Adams, and other figures in Western civilization, such efforts will soon be replaced by seeing everything from the supposedly repressed perspectives of minorities, women, or sexually divergent individuals.
Indeed, efforts at such politically-correct changes are evident even at the state level, an example of which is seen in the state of Minnesota, where updated social studies standards emphasize “identity politics” more than key historical events.
But are these popular, politically correct, or “woke” ways of teaching history true to history? What exactly is the goal of history education?
Ben Franklin offered some insights on this goal in his 1749 pamphlet “Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania.” History, Franklin wrote should “be made a constant Part of [students’] Reading” because it provides a platform for all kinds of subjects. Franklin lists geography, ancient customs, and government as some of these subjects. But he also believes that history is a good platform on which to present the all-important issues of religion and morality.
History shows “the Advantages of Temperance, Order, Frugality, Industry, Perseverance, &c. &c.,” writes Franklin. “Indeed the general natural Tendency of Reading good History, must be, to fix in the Minds of Youth deep Impressions of the Beauty and Usefulness of Virtue of all Kinds, Publick Spirit, Fortitude, &c.”
Clearly these aren’t the types of virtues taught in the present and future “woke” history courses. So how do parents circumvent this progressive teaching of history?
Some parents may choose to homeschool, selecting their own history curriculum. A recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau finds that the share of households engaged in homeschooling has increased to over 11 percent in the last year. But such a path isn’t an option for every family. Thus, be it in traditional institutional schooling or education at home, I encourage parents to instill a love of history in their children by reading fiction books. The G. A. Henty books are an excellent place to start, as are the following selections from Intellectual Takeout’s Great Books List.
Kindergarten to Third Grade
The Courage of Sarah Noble, Alice Dalgliesh
Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, Edgar and Ingri D’Aulaire
Black Ships Before Troy, Rosemary Sutcliff
Fourth to Sixth Grade
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare
Carry on Mr. Bowditch, Jean Lee Latham
Across Five Aprils, Irene Hunt
Amos Fortune, Elizabeth Yates
Caddie Woodlawn, Carol Ryrie Brink
Seventh to Eighth Grade
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom
Ninth to Twelfth Grade
Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Reading classical historic fiction like the above not only introduces children to a more traditional view of history, but it also makes the past come alive and seem less like an endless march of monotonous dates and names. The children who learn history as an intriguing story will come to love the past and mine it for the lessons it holds for us today. The child who approaches history in such a way will also all the more quickly recognize the dangerous paths we are heading down with our fixation on diversity and identity.
Republished with gracious permission from Intellectual Takeout (March 2021).
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Great lsit, but it would appear that I slept through the entirety of kindergarten through sixth grade. Does this mean that I shall be asked to return my ‘The Imaginative Conservative’ library card!?!
(PS: You’ll have to pry it from my cold, stiff hands!)
Do you have a Great Books Lists on this site? I am trying to acquire books for our library in our new home for us and our future children. Please provide a link! Thanks so much!
What are the G A Henty books?
The G. A. Henty books are an impressive collection (over 40?) of historic novels. They were written mostly for boys but my daughters have enjoyed them as well. There is always a young man put in the story to interest your young man’s imagination. Thus The Young Carthaginian, etc. My only caveat to this excellent set of historic fiction is that Mr. Henty was thoroughly Protestant. So his novels at the time of the great revolt are not always accurate, having an understandable pro-Protestant bias.
When our children were growing up, we were homeschooling. We (I) read out loud at every meal-kid books at lunch and classics (etc) at dinner. Everything from the Narnia Chronicles to The Count of Monte Christo. When young friends joined us for meals,I always offered to read something self-contained. They ALWAYS said “No, No,
just read what you are reading- then they would go and read it on their own. All 4 of them became voracious readers; Our daughter was reading at 4years old (the boys were slower 🙂 but caught up. Wonderful years…..
Why do conservative Christians so often recommend and assign fiction that is focused on American white on black racism and stories based on WWII propaganda? In my humble opinion, these are the two primary narratives used by anti-Christian ideologues as weapons against conservatives / Christendom. This propaganda generates unjustified white guilt / self-hate among our children, is used to inspire hate, theft and random violent attacks against innocent white victims, and encourages Christians to slavishly serve the interests not of God, but of the people who literally define themselves as those who reject Jesus Christ, all of which are leading to cultural suicide among Christian majority nations. Do we want communities of believers to die out and be replaced by non-believers? Or do we want Christian communities to flourish, grow, and spread their message to the world so more people can be saved?
Furthermore if you study history from all perspectives, including those who lost wars, those who did not write the history books, or produce the Hollywood films, or narrate the war footage you were forced to watch in public school… you will discover that these stories that claim to be based on true events are overwhelmingly based on common falsehoods, manipulation, and anti-German pro-war propaganda, i.e., false witness against your neighbors. As they say, the first casualty of war is the truth. How else can you convince Christians to justify the carpet bombing of civilian German cities?
Where are the books about the Christian Europeans who ended slavery throughout the world, the non-Christians who continue to practice slavery today, the Christian Germans who stood up against hedonism in Berlin before WWII and those that gave their lives to fight the rise of Stalinist Communism in Europe during WWII? Where are the books about the Christian nations that through God’s grace, developed the technological and medical innovations that doubled the human life-span? Where are the books that make young Christians aware of the political and existential threats they currently face, or teach why they need to resist temptations of the flesh that are constantly being pressed upon them by Hollywood, advertising, etc.? Where are the books that portray the truth that I witness every week in my Church… the goodness, love and caring among white Christian families and communities in modern day America? Are there books that can inspire my daughter to be a good healthy Christian wife and mother, and inspire my son to be a good healthy Christian husband and father? “Little House on the Prairie” is a good one. Are there others?
At some point I’ll probably encourage my children to read “Flight for Freedom: The Wetzel Family’s Daring Escape from East Germany”, “The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn”, “Hellstorm: The Death Of Nazi Germany, 1944-1947” by Thomas Goodrich, and others… so they can develop a healthy aversion to Communism and a broader view of military history. But I don’t think they’re old enough for the latter two.
Here are some additional selections my kids and I have enjoyed…
Growing up Duggar
Old Yeller
The Perfect Storm
The Golden Fleece
Close to the Wind by Pete Goss
The Call of the Wild
Anne of Green Gables
Call It Courage
Lassie
Rush Revere (series)
Where the Red Fern Grows
Undaunted Courage (although you might want to skip the tragic ending)
The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History by Michael Hart
Adventures of Robinhood
The New Tom Swift Jr Adventures by Victor Appleton II
Survivors: Extraordinary Tales from the Wild and Beyond by David Long, Kerry Hyndman (Illustrator)
“The Tuttle Twins” Series by Connor Boyack
Do you have any biography recommendations? My 7th grader (13yr male) has to pick one to read.
I enjoyed reading this and agree with the books, but add “The Giver” to I believe the eighth or ninth grade, it’s great!! Also I would love to see some toddler books listed as my mind is getting old. I want my granddaughter introduced to appropriate books. Of course I’ve bought good ones, just curious. Thank you