The Only K12 History Curriculum I Use and Why

This is a repost from a FB post from the founder of our history curriculum at the Living Water School. Everything Susan Wise Bauer says here explains why we use the Story of the World Curriculum. Many history curricula, especially Christian curriculum often diminish the value of people. Although Story of the World is not explicitly Christian, it captures the loving heart of God for ALL people. I want my kids and anyone’s kids to have a different type of Christian education than I had, where every Bible lesson or history lesson or English lesson favored Europe. All children deserve to see their ancestors’ vital role in human history without feeling inferior, demonized or erased. Please read this powerful post by Susan Wise Bauer below.

Guest Post By Susan Wise Bauer:

“I’ve been holding back on posting the following because I prefer to post positive recommendations rather than criticisms of specific programs.

But I think that, over the course of the next year, we’re going to hear “God’s will for our country” and “God’s purposes in history” brandished quite a bit for political purposes, so I want to point out a particular kind of history that I think we should continue to be wary of.

I call this “providential history,” and in my workshops on historiography, I define it as a form of progressive history. Bear with me for a moment: progressive history sees the story of humans as travelling forward along a road that goes in one direction, from less developed (“primitive”) towards a particular goal. Marxist history is progressive (class conflict is escalating towards rights for the masses). Whiggish history is progressive (we are moving towards a greater and greater perfection). Providential history says that we are moving along God’s timeline, from the beginning of his work with humanity, towards the inevitable end of the ages brought about by divine fiat.

More than that, though, providential history, particular for kids, takes on the job of explaining WHAT God is doing in the past, and exactly HOW he is doing it, and this is where problems arise.

So. In the fall, I got a number of marketing emails and offers for a history course called “The Pilgrim Story.” The Pilgrim Story is based on the Principle Approach (“As American Christians, the Principle Approach enables us to discern the biblical principles of government upon which our nation was founded, thereby, empowering us to restore what has been systematically dismantled over generations”) and promises to help us understand “the character of the Pilgrims and their perilous journey to the New World” by viewing “history through the lens of Scripture.”

If you’re a Christian (I actually am), this might sound appealing. But there’s a problem with providential history. In attempting to plumb the depths of the divine purpose (I would think that all Christians should be wary of such an undertaking), it seems, inevitably, to wrap itself up in entirely un-Christian conclusions.

Here’s the example from “The Pilgrim Story” that I would offer you.

The authors are determined to show that everything that happened to the Pilgrims on their way to the New World was controlled and directed by God. In one of the central lessons, the student is told about six different things that happened on the sea voyage. Each one, the course tells us, proves that God was entirely in control. The principle being taught: God “loves you and will take care of you. Never forgetting that God is in control.”

So here’s how God was in control (reproducing the lesson in full although not all of it is relevant):

**

God was taking care of the pilgrims, because he loved them and had a special plan for them.

God’s Providence on the Trip

a. sweet wine smell (God protected them from this)�
b. main beam cracked (God knew that they would need a screw)�c. John Howland was saved (this was a miracle)�
d. no Pilgrims died (Only a servant boy and a sailor died, none of the pilgrims. The fact that none of the Pilgrims died and all of them made it to the new world alive is also…a wonderful sign of God’s providence)
�e. Oceanus was born
�f. profane sailor died (God protected them from the mean young sailor who was unkind to them, and then the other sailors showed them more respect).

Nothing happened by accident or coincidence.

**

Let’s just look at (d) and (f) for a moment.

(d) No Pilgrims died. Only a servant boy died. This “a wonderful sign of God’s providence.”

ONLY a servant boy died.
ONLY a servant boy died.
ONLY a servant boy died.

The conclusion is inevitable: The servant boy was worth less than the Pilgrims. The servant boy wasn’t under God’s providential care. The servant boy didn’t matter.

Is that the gospel?

(f) profane sailor died. After that things were better for the pilgrims.

The inevitable conclusion: God killed him. The profane sailor wasn’t worthy of salvation. The profane sailor didn’t matter.

Is that the gospel?

Dear followers, parents and students: These are not the lessons we should be absorbing from history. Please, please keep your eyes open for “history” that teaches your students a hierarchy of worth, a false view of God, a false view of the past.”