Lesson 5: Stories and the Teaching of History
-stories are a part of our lives
-every culture has stories that it passes on down generation
-stories have heart of a culture and to a people
-stories that convey some sort of conviction, principle, and virtue
-stories/narratives teach hard dates and facts in history
-it makes the events real to young people
-stories bring in meaning to a student
Ex. virtue and application of right and wrong
-historical perspective = it actually happened in a time and place, it is much more powerful and easily understood
-relate on a personal human level
-stories are used in the discussion and teaching of history
Where do we learn of the importance of stories in History?
-from the Greeks and the study of Greek history
-of Herodotus, Thucydides, Greek philosophy, Aristotle
-Aristotle teaching them about the development of habit, the development of good habit of civil government
-they drew from the Greeks
-they drew from the Romans
-the Greeks invented democracy
-the Romans invented republicanism
-these models that these founders drew their sense of what was right in their conviction, but also what model, what type of government they might shape
-draw on biblical principles and biblical models
Ex. this is constant throughout George Washington’s life where he constantly refers back to the power of a divine being, of God
Characters Washington drew upon:
-he was at his heart, his core, a farmer
-he loved Mt. Vernon
-as president he was constantly concerned with Mt. Vernon (the crops)
-his hands in earth was integral part of his republicanism
-his ancient model for this was a man named Cincinnatus
1-Cincinnatus
-was a farmer and a senator in ancient republic of Rome
-Cincinnatus was called forward to help Rome escape from danger/threats from outside
-both men came forward to save the nation and then surrendered power and returned to the farm (Cincinnati Ohio named after him)
2-Cato
-who rather than give in to the tyranny of Julius, Caesar, Cato preferred to die
-Cato was well known among all of the Founders
3-Cicero
-the great orator, defended Republican Rome against the tyranny of Caesar and tyranny of Augustus, and he died for it
-these men were models for Washington’s character and how he stood up for the republican convictions of early America
Carl Richard
-a modern historian, wrote a book Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts
-book about the gifts of stories passed on from the ancients to our Founders
“He is struck by the ancient historians’ remarkable gift as storytellers, by the profound impact of their stories on the Founding Fathers and by most modern Americans’ lack of familiarity with many of these influential stories. Too many of these stories have been forgotten. Too many of these stories have been left behind. It is for us now, in the K through 12 sphere, to recapture these stories, the ancient Greek, the ancient Roman, the ancient biblical stories, which informed our Founders and should inform our education and our principles, our convictions.”
How do we teach true history?
-ingri d’Aulaire has created two biographies: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
-teach the chronology: dates students need to memorize, dates are the building blocks for understanding chronology, series of events in which these stories take place,
-John Haaren: two volumes “The Famous Men of Greece” and “Stories of Roman Heroes”
-study the father of history, Herodotus, or Thucydides to understand in the Peloponnesian Wars what happened to the Greeks in a great civil war which almost destroyed Athenian democracy
-to read the Roman authors, Julius Caesar and his Gaelic Wars, his conquest of Gau
-the historian Livy, reading Cicero, from his laws
-Plutarch in First Century in Rome brought together biographies of famous Greeks and Romans
-stories of victories as well as defeats, virtues as well as evil done by these men in these biographies that serve as great lessons down through history
Who will be teaching?
-first and foremost it must be the parents
-parents must have an understanding, a conviction that all of these ancient stories are important for their young people, their children to learn virtue, faith, and conviction
“The Well-Trained Mind,” History of the Medieval World, History of the Renaissance World,
-E.D. Hirsch, Core Knowledge Curriculum taught in his book “Cultural Literacy”
-wrote “What Your Third Grader Needs to Know” (art, music, and ancient past)
-history can be used as an organizing structure for school
-literature is best taught when it is tied to its historical context
Ex. Greek history = stories of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
Ex. Roman history = Aeneid
Ex. Medieval history = Dante
-historical stories can help with writing-grammar, syntax, and structure of sentences
-historical stories can teach both Greek and Roman mythology
-historical stories can teach theology, reading the Old and New Testament, the Hebrew and Christian scriptures
-historical stories can teach philosophy: Aristotle and Plato, Thomas Aquinas, from ancient to medieval to Renaissance
-bring back around to the Founders
-historical stories can teach an understanding of civics, of government, political study
****by studying the ancients, their thoughts, then we can understand why Adams, Madison, Jefferson, made the choices they made in creating this mixed Constitution that we have
-the Constitution: which is a foundation of our American political culture
-the ancients into the 1700’s teaches us what we ought to uphold in our republic and our constitutional government
Education isn’t just about creating citizens
Education is about making us more human
Stories of history help us to understand how humans in the past were shaped and formed and how they became more human in understanding virtue and understanding principles and convictions of that which is right and true and beautiful
-we want to raise these young people, thinking of these K-12 students as future adults
What do we want them to be and look like as adults?
-intelligent, virtuous people
-great employees and employers
-to be great workers
-to be great citizens governing themselves and therefore governing the government-not being subject to the government but being the government themselves
We live in a modern world in which there is the arrogance of the modern, as if anything that came before us was not useful
-stories of history recaptures the wisdom that went before us
C.S. Lewis “The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.”
-the ancients serve as a reminder of all the truths and wisdom that they pass on down to us
Ex. these convictions were at the heart of Frederick Douglass’s insistence that he was a human person
Winston Churchill story-stood alone with his country-national socialism-Nazis
In 1937, he wrote, “How astonishing it is that present day civilization should be exposed to dangers from which it was believed the laborers of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries had permanently rid the world. Many communities have been plunged back into a state of insecurity hitherto only associated with barbarism.”
“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never. In nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense.”
Where did he learn these virtues?
What informed his heart, his soul, his mind, his convictions?
-Churchill was not a great student-he won an award for memorizing 1,200 lines of Lord Babington Macaulay’s great poetic work, “The Lays of Ancient Rome.”
Quote touching on the life of Publius Horatius Cocles, who stood alone to defend Rome at the Sublician bridge, alone while his comrades tore down the bridge behind him so he could save the city.
“Then out spoke brave Horatius, the captain of the gate, to every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better than facing fearful odds for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?”
-these are the kinds of ideas that informed Churchill who led the West against Nazi Germany, the National Socialists
Informed & Inspired by:
-Churchill inspired Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher
Reagan, “Once before his had been a voice crying out in the wilderness against the suicidal dogmas of appeasement…..”
“Once before he had sounded an alarm against those deluded souls who thought they could go on feeding the crocodile with bits and p pieces of other countries and somehow avoid [the] jaws themselves.” Reagan
-Reagan refers back to Churchill in Reagan’s own sense of determination to hold out against Communist Russia
-Mrs. Thatcher also often talked about Churchill as her model as she stood up against the same
-Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, said that Margaret Thatcher was trying to wear the trousers of Winston Churchill
-the ancients informed Washington, Washington informs us
-the ancients informed Churchill, who also informed and encouraged Reagan and Thatcher and that generation
-from the past we receive these great stories of history
***for us, it is to receive them and to model them and create our stories today, that we may then, with all of these stories of history, pass them on to our children and to our children’s children, so these young people learning the stories of history might have the conviction and the principles of our forebearers