History and Memory

Memory works in odd ways, especially as time distances us from events. About four-and-a-half decades separate me from my elementary school years. I can remember trivial particular details—in second grade, Kathy Jenkins owned a red-and-white-striped pencil that I inexplicably coveted—but I can recall little about the specifics of what I was taught.

I do recall, if vaguely, the Dick and Jane readers. Mainly I remember Spot—and mainly just his name. I remember, from Miss Sutton's third grade class, a model of the solar system, with a big yellow beach ball for the sun, and nine (yes, still nine back then) colorful cut-out planets dangling from a cord strung across the room, swaying like an uninspired Calder mobile.

I remember learning almost nothing in elementary school about history. There were the usual holiday lessons, such as the Thanksgiving account of the Pilgrims, with the inevitable cut-and-paste turkey made of brown and orange construction paper. But what else did I learn? It's a near blank.

That's probably because when I was a boy, history was not part of the elementary curriculum. Instead, we learned social studies. Though I can’t recall the particulars, I likely got the standard textbook fare: My Neighborhood; Our Friend the Fireman; Our Friend the Mailman; You and Your Family; How Milk Gets from the Farm to the Kitchen. My studies went little beyond the family and the community.

Any parent knows that children want to know about people and places far beyond the home, the school, or the neighborhood. Children delight in the big, the exotic, the unusual, the unexpected, the dramatic. They like stories with conflicts between good guys and bad guys. Children, in short, come to us primed for history.

One of the distinctive features of the K12 elementary curriculum is that we offer a course called History. Yes, real history—the story of heroes and villains, of commoners and kings, of great civilizations and amazing places, of extraordinary achievements and regrettable mistakes. It's a program that, in spirit and substance, is almost the opposite of the typical social studies program. It goes beyond the personal and the local to a broader awareness of other times, people, and places, such as—to mention only a few examples—the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, the marketplace in ancient Athens, castles in medieval Europe, the Sistine Chapel, and the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

When I travel and talk with K12 families, I often hear, "History is our favorite subject." I have had first graders and second graders tell me, with wide-eyed excitement, about how the Egyptians made mummies; about the king who built a blooming garden in the deserts of Babylon, all for the love of his homesick wife; or about battling gladiators in ancient Rome and the chariot races in the Colosseum.

There are few, if any, times I'd like to go back to grade school, but the wonderful stories in the K12 elementary History program make the prospect tempting. I would like to have had my young and malleable mind shaped by the power of those stories.

Among the many stories in the K12 History courses, a few will lodge in your children’s memories. And some day, when your children are grown and perhaps talking to their own children or grandchildren, they might experience a delightful glimmer of recollection and say, "Let me tell you about an amazing thing that happened long ago and far away…."