I. WHY LEARN HISTORY?
1. History Tells Us Who We Are
The Old and New Testament Scriptures consist primarily not in laws and regulations, but in historical narratives and prophetic utterances largely devoted to interpreting the meaning of events within that narrative. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible records the story of the people of God and their relationship with Him. This story forms the basis for knowing God, and one of the most common exhortations of the prophets is to not forget their story, for their story gives them the ability to truly know who they are.
As God’s people today, our perspective on the world and our place in it, as well as our very identity and sense of self and community, are shaped by our understanding of the past, present, and future of the world. For this reason, it is imperative that we understand that the world we live in is the same world in which Moses and the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, David killed Goliath, the Son of God was made incarnate, and the Holy Spirit was poured out to guide the Church.
The Bible provides the story of God’s special relationship with His people from the time of Adam to the end of the first century, but there is much else that has happened in our world which, if we understand it, can provide us with the perspective we need.
2. History Empowers Us by Giving Us Perspective
“There is a flow to history and culture,” Francis Schaeffer described in How Should We Then Live? “This flow is rooted and has its wellspring in the thoughts of people. People are unique in the inner life of the mind—what they are in their thought-world determines how they act. This is true of their value systems and it is true of their creativity. It is true of their corporate actions, such as political decisions, and it is true of their personal lives. The results of their thought-world flow through their fingers or from their tongues into the external world.”
Civilizations rise and fall, the gospel manifests itself throughout the world, being accepted and rejected at various times and places, and new ideas shape worldviews and bring about long-lasting consequences. Some trends are recognizable and some are not, but knowing these trends helps us to understand how we got to where we are today, as well as the cultural challenges we face.
Ignorance of history puts us at the mercy of those who would manipulate us, profit off of us, and return us to failed or dangerous ideas. Knowing history enables us to recognize erroneous perspectives. As C. S. Lewis wrote,
A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.
In sum, we are where we are today because of the decisions and actions of those in the past, and without knowing that story we cannot know how we got to where we are today. Furthermore, as the people of God we find our identity in the story God is establishing in the world, and while the most important parts of that story are told in the Scriptures, it has continued over the past two thousand years and will continue into the future.
II. HISTORY FROM A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW
1. God is Sovereign Over History
Christians recognize God’s providence in history and confess that we cannot understand history apart from this recognition. Just as “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7), the knowledge of God’s providence is the basis for the most fundamental characteristic of human history. In studying the Scriptures, we can read the interpretations of the Spirit-inspired writers who understood the precise ways in which God worked to cause the rise and fall of nations. Today, we must be cautious when attempting to identify specific historical events or circumstances as indications of His pleasure or disfavor (cf. Luke 13:1-4), yet we can still affirm that God’s providence is always at work and that nothing happens without Him allowing it. We cannot understand the past, present, or future without knowing that He is sovereign over all.
2. History’s Central Theme is the Gospel
Apart from acknowledging God’s providence, we also recognize that history is ultimately the story of God’s love for the world; it is the unfolding of God’s mission as He is “reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). For this reason, the history of God’s people should take a prominent position in the study of history. Furthermore, just as the Old Testament Scriptures were written for the instruction of the Church (1 Corinthians 10:11), today we can learn from the successes and failures of our brothers and sisters from past eras of history.
The relationship between God’s people and their surrounding cultures is especially important for us today. We must continually adapt to quickly-changing culture around us and discern how best to love our neighbors as ourselves, being light to those around us. We have much to learn from our brothers and sisters from the past.
Ultimately history is not cyclical, as some cultures have taught, but linear, moving from creation to fall to redemption as God is “making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). The story of the world is a drama about a prince who rescues a maiden from a dragon; it is about Christ redeeming His Church from sin, death, and the devil. All else is secondary.
3. History’s Central Theme is Not a Simplistic Marxist or Postmodern Power Struggle
In contrast to this Christian view of history, secular theories tend to claim that history is driven primarily or entirely by nebulous social and economic “forces” that drive individuals and societies, in behaviorist fashion, to act in particular ways. Marxist theory, for instance, posits that history is little more than the story of the struggle between the rich and the poor; more recent spin-offs of Marxism have expanded this struggle to one between races, genders, sexual orientations, and other categories of identity politics. While this sort of conflict is certainly one aspect of history, it is misleading to make it the lens through which all history must be studied, as occurs frequently today in secular schools and universities. As Christians, we identify the religious beliefs and practices of individuals and societies, the worldviews that shape and are shaped by these religious commitments, and the products of culture that are produced as a result, as of foremost importance; contrary to what some would say, these are not meaningless facades that must be deconstructed to discover the “real” struggle for dominance that allegedly lies underneath them.
4. Moral Judgments are Possible
As Christians, we believe there is an objective basis for making judgments about the wisdom and morality of the actions men and women have taken throughout history. We reject the secular relativism that renders us incapable of labeling certain actions and ideas to be right or wrong and wise or foolish. At the same time, becoming a responsible student of history means investigating the historical context and personal motivation of those who have gone before us, remembering that even if we are not helpless products of our culture, we are nonetheless influenced by it; prior to making facile moral judgments we should be sure we understand the rationale behind why people have done what they have done.
III. HISTORY IN A CLASSICAL CURRICULUM
The study of history in a classical school is similar in many ways to its counterpart in other types of schools, but in some ways it retains important distinctions.
1. The “Great Conversation” Matters to Us Today
Because human nature does not change, we have no reason to believe, even with the spectacular advances in science and technology we have experienced in recent centuries, that we are inherently more intelligent or virtuous than those of the past simply because we happen to reside in the twenty-first century. The theologians, philosophers, and novelists of medieval Europe, ancient Greece, and Old Testament Israel have much to teach us. Opening students’ eyes to this fact is one way of helping them to discard their chronological snobbery and to engage for themselves in the “Great Conversation” that has lasted for thousands of years and will never cease to be relevant.
2. The Cultivation of the Soul through Truth, Goodness, and Beauty is as Important as (or Better Than) “Critical Thinking”
Great works of art, literature, music, philosophy, and theology prompt two types of reflection. One is to place them within their historical context, seeking to understand how they simultaneously reflected and shaped their respective cultures. A second type of reflection is to seek to understand and appreciate these works on their own terms in a quest to know what is true, good, and beautiful. Historical study today too frequently consists of merely criticizing and deconstructing sources in the name of “critical thinking.” But solely teaching students to see “through” these works (by focusing entirely on their historical significance, or by merely searching for a hidden agenda) may very well blind students to the greatness of the works themselves. What are we teaching students to love and appreciate? How can we train them to find and hold up truth, goodness, and beauty wherever they may find it?
3. The Study of History Should Initiate Cultural Transmission—The Transmission of the Soul of Society from One Generation to Another.
As a classical school located in North America, we affirm that the study of Western Civilization should hold a prominent place in our curriculum because of its relevance to us as Americans, because of its far-reaching and (mostly) positive impact on the history of the world, and because of its special relationship to the Gospel. There is special value and significance in coming to a deep understanding of, for instance, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the dramas of William Shakespeare, the causes of the American Revolution, and cultural advances brought about by inventions such as the printing press and the steam engine.
Furthermore, the influence of Christianity over Western Civilization has been vast; and while it should never lead us to conflate the West with the Kingdom of God, it can justifiably lead us to conclude that much of the good that has happened within and due to the influence of Western Civilization has been shaped by the influence of the Gospel (William Wilberforce and the end of the slave trade, for instance).
There is, at the same time, much to criticize about Western Civilization. Just as fallen human beings exhibit both sinfulness and righteousness, so we should expect any culture to do the same. The facile tendencies to present Western Civilization as all-good or all-bad are unhelpful and misleading.
With these qualifications in mind, we affirm that there is much in the history of Western Civilization that is worth preserving and passing down from one generation to the next. The rationalism of the Greeks, the ethical monotheism of the Jews and Christians, the tradition of rights and liberties of the British, and the self-reliance of the Americans are among the values uniquely developed in Western Civilization that produced (and will, if we preserve them, continue to produce) human flourishing. A classical approach to history tells this story and seeks to inculcate our culture’s virtues from generation to generation.
4. The Trivium Provides a Paradigm of Classical Pedagogy
In Dorothy Sayers’ adaptation of the Trivium in “The Lost Tools of Learning,” the study of history consists of learning history’s basic facts (grammar stage), learning to make informed judgments about historical questions (logic stage), and developing the skill of writing and speaking articulately and persuasively about those same questions (rhetoric stage). Nearly every history class at every age level will include some component of these, but we believe it is imperative that as students progress through the Upper School, they receive an increasing emphasis on the logic and rhetoric of history.
What kinds of informed judgments should students be making at the logic and rhetoric stages? These may include:
- Discovering the historical context of primary sources
- Discerning assumptions and biases in primary and secondary sources
- Investigating reliable sources to discern evidence for a historical claim
- Interpreting works of culture (art, music, film, etc.) by placing them within the culture and values of their respective time periods
- Assessing character qualities of prominent historical figures
- Identifying truth, goodness, and beauty
Above all, we want to cultivate in students an attitude and disposition toward the study of history that appreciates its value. We should be teaching students the facts and skills of history, but it is also important to get students excited about it. Field trips, dramatic documentaries, role-playing, and engaging projects hold much more than mere entertainment value (though as the popularity of the History Channel has demonstrated, there is certainly plenty of that to offer as well). Rather, these are ways of helping students to overcome the assumption that history is little more than boring lectures and dreary textbooks about dates and dead people.
History must be brought to life for students to learn to love it; making our classes rigorous and “classical” is not incompatible with creative and fun activities. Studying history at the rhetoric stage should provide myriad opportunities to engage in historical inquiry, debate, and conversation in a variety of ways.
