On the teaching of history: How would you introduce Someone Special to strangers?

I hope everyone who sees this post has at least one Special Someone in their lives -- a parent or grandparent, perhaps, or a spouse or a child.

As you think carefully about this Special Someone, you will have to admit that he or she is not perfect -- only God is perfect, you may think, if you ever think about those things. If your Special Someone has been on this planet for any length of time, he or she may have a Past. He or she may have once said things, or done things, that you find objectionable. You may recall your disappointment, and maybe even your anger, when you first discovered that your Special Someone may have harbored attitudes or even engaged in actions some time ago that you find unacceptable today. Perhaps your Special Someone has repudiated his or her life mistakes; perhaps your Special Someone has not entirely owned up to some of the questionable, or even downright bad, things in his or her past.

But that Special Someone, for all his or her faults, is still precious to you. Why? Because the many good qualities of your Special Someone, in your view, overcome and overshadow his or her past and present missteps and failings.

Now... how would you introduce your Special Someone to strangers? How would you teach people about your Special Someone? Would you start by dwelling on all his or her faults, all his or her failings, and all the times he or she had failed to live up to your expectations? Would you focus on every bad thing he or she did, and every bad thing he or she said? Before saying one nice thing about your Special Someone, would you first insist on explaining every occasion on which your Special Someone had said one thing and done another?

Well, that might be the approach you'd take -- if you wanted those strangers to despise and maybe even hate your Special Someone. So -- obviously -- you would instead introduce your Special Someone by stressing the good qualities of that person, the things that made that person special to you in the first place. You would not hide or ignore the past failings of your Special Someone -- were you to try such a tactic, once your audience got to know your Special Someone, at least some of them would figure out your Special Someone's imperfections and your credibility would be damaged -- but you would not lead with these flaws and, when you did introduce them, you might do so in a way that would help strangers to understand how your Special Someone overcame, or is working to overcome, these past errors of omission or commission and how your Special Person grew from his or her mistakes.

So it should be with the teaching of American history to children.

The United States of America is a flawed nation, of course -- but all nations, like all human things, are flawed. However, unlike nearly every other nation in the entire world, America is a country not founded on shared blood but on a radical, world-altering principle, namely, that all persons are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that, among these, are rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America has not always lived up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Hey, a great many of America's Founders could not accept the real-world implications of this radical notion, the principal author of the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, most prominent among these.

There will be time, after children are exposed to the historic events surrounding the development of this principle, and its adoption by the Second Continential Congress, after they have imbibed deeply of this world-shattering concept, to reveal the many times that our nation failed to live up to the promise of the Declaration of Independence, starting with the Founders' own failures. Learning about our past mistakes will not keep us from making new ones, but it may, and should, help us not to repeat old ones.

And American history is not a story of just one Special Someone. The nation's history is the cumulative story of its leaders, and all its citizens, some heroes, some villians, some persons embodying both hero and villian at the same time. Read any of Robert Caro's books on Lyndon Johnson, for example. And the best part is that the story keeps changing, keeps getting richer and more interesting. At an April 29, 1962 White House dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners, President John F. Kennedy said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." Of all the Founders, I can't think of any who has fallen farther or faster in public esteem in my lifetime than Thomas Jefferson. No serious politician would dare lavish such praise on Jefferson today. Bottom line: there is no 'one' American history.

A great story almost always has a flawed hero. And there are a great many flawed heroes from which to choose when telling the tale---the many tales---of America's history. But the heroes' flaws and failings should help the student to see the their triumphs and successes as that much more spectacular.

I do not advocate a Parson Weems or Disney Princess approach to teaching American history. There is good and bad in all humans and in all human things. In our eagerness to confess our faults, however, let us not lose sight of our accomplishments. As my mother used to say, tell the truth and shame the Devil. But tell the stories -- teach the stories -- in a way that helps our children and grandchildren learn to appreciate our special country, what it has been and what it can be.