In any discussion of our reasons for choosing home education, whether I'm speaking with others or pondering to myself, the subject of teaching history chronologically is sure to arise. One of the things that most attracted me to home education and that has kept me at it for four-and-a-half years is the freedom to study history chronologically. We began with the Ancients in First Grade - nomads, Greeks, Romans, Incas, Aztecs... and are now, in Fourth Grade (Second for John), on the brink of World War II.
I've loved almost every minute of it. History was never my favorite subject in school. Looking back, my education in social studies seems like a hodgepodge of information. Geography one year, American history another year, with Economics and Civics each given a semester... It's a mess. No wonder History bored me. I did well in my classes, but learned very little. (Being married to a bit of a history buff, this is all quite embarrassing to admit).
When I came across the idea of teaching History chronologically, I fell in love. It made perfect sense. Why wouldn't you tell the story of the world chronologically? Stories are typically told in that fashion. Why should History be treated differently?
And so we began with Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times and have progressed through each of the four volumes, gaining for myself and hopefully for my children a clearer understanding of History than I was taught. I have to say, I love The Story of the World. It has introduced my children to a wealth of information and presented countless opportunities for discussion of real-life issues. We have broached some tough subjects over the years - false gods, slavery, social injustice... and now I'm about to introduce my sweet, little children to wretched, old Adolf Hitler.
This is when I start to hate History again.
Okay, "hate" might be a bit strong, but I definitely approach Hitler with trepidation. How do I look into my children's big, bright eyes and tell them the horrors of committed against millions of innocent people? How do I explain the Holocaust - why Nazis did what they did and why good people let them get away with it? I find myself searching for more grace to teach this brief span of History than I have needed to teach the previous thousands of years combined - jaguar-headed gods, human sacrifices and all.
In realizing my need of grace, I realize something else. It's not just Hitler who horrifies me, from whom I wish to shield my children. Throughout History, civilizations have puffed themselves up, crushed others, and committed atrocities without remorse, and it hasn't stopped. We've come a long way from virgin sacrifices on South American pyramids, yet arrogance and violence remain. Slavery still exists. The mass killing of innocent human beings continues. Hitler may be prince among the evil leaders, but he is certainly not alone, nor did terror die with him, as the past sixty-six years have proven.
There is a saying, "Those who do not know History are doomed to repeat it." Three-and-a-half years into our chronological study of History, I wonder if even those who do know History are doomed to repeat it. I mean, we're still at all our old evil games, just in thinly disguised forms. I'll admit it: When it occurs to me that the knowledge of History might not prevent its repetition, I kind of want to keep History's darkest moments a secret from my babies. Why subject them to History's horrors when they will have their own horrors to face? Each day has enough trouble of its own. Why add to their worries?
I found my answer in Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place. Early in the ten Boom family's involvement in the Dutch underground resistance against the Nazis, a Jewish mother with her two week old baby come to their home seeking a hiding place. Corrie asks a pastor if he would take the mother and infant into his home. His answer is clear. "No. Definitely not. We could lose our lives for that Jewish child."
Casper ten Boom, Corrie's eighty-year-old father, responds by taking the child in his arms. "You say we could lose our lives for this child," he says. "I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family." (p. 99)
In another place, Corrie's sister Betsie tells her, "There are no 'ifs' in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety - O Corrie, let us pray that we may always know it!" (p. 67)
The example of the ten Booms and others throughout history - Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, for example - and the reality that just as no place is safer than any other, so no time is safer than any other compel me to teach History thoroughly and honestly. I do not teach my children History to expose them to the cruelty of Hitler and others, but to uphold the honor of those who stood for what was right, who honored God and their fellow human beings even in the face of great suffering, who trusted in God's sovereign providence to provide all they need in life and death.
I do not know what horrors of History will be repeated or how they will be tweaked to avoid immediate detection, nor do I know what new cruelties man might conceive. But I pray that whatever comes, my children will recall their History lessons and find the courage to follow the example of those men and women who shine in History, those of whom it can be said:
32 Remember... when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering.33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated.34 You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. (Hebrews 10:32-34)
If we are doomed to repeat History, whether we know it our not, God grant that we remember the faithful, true, and good, and He who upheld them in their hour of suffering. God grant that we imitate them in our own hours of suffering, and let us pray with Corrie and Betsie ten Boom that we may always know and find our safety in the center of His will.
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