My grandaddy and history...

My grandaddy was a great storyteller, and what kid does not love a great story. And, what was better was that his stories were true! My grandfather was born in the very late 1800s, and he lived in a house and on a farm that he had helped to build. The early 1900s seemed a world away to me, and I used to walk around the farm pretending that I lived in that far off world when he was a boy. I could picture him building stilts with his brothers; one set was as tall as the second story porch. Also, I could picture him working in the general store that they had in what was now the laundry room/porch. (He even still had the ledger from the store).

Then, I heard him tell stories of his uncle who built and flew a plane before the Wright brothers! It did not fly as far, but it was true!!!... and when I went to the Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, there it was hanging from the ceiling... the actual plane of my relative. Wow! That was an amazing story for a young girl, and it made school fun when we were studying flight.

He had other stories of relatives who were involved in various wars, back to the American Revolution. Again, it made history come alive to me in school. It was very influential in history becoming one of my favorite subjects; through his stories, I realized that history was full of real peoples' stories. I especially loved biographies as I grew up.

The teaching of history was just one area that rang true with me in regards to an education along the lines that Charlotte Mason talked about. She advocated giving children access to great biographies, well written, about people during the time period being studied. One well written biography may take a half or even a whole year to get through, but at the end the child was well acquainted with a "friend" who lived and responded to life during that era.

For example, my 10 year old has been reading Abigail Adams, witness to a revolution, written by Natalie Bober. It is a difficult book to read because of the vocabulary/ language used at the time that Mrs. Adams lived, and because the book directly quotes from her letters to her husband, John Adams. But, as he worked through the book slowly, he got used to the language, and he got a real taste of her personality, and what was going on in that tumultuous time during history... the revolution.

Biographies (and certain other overview of history books) are great because they are written by one person who is passionate about their subject, instead of a history textbook written by a board who are just trying to cover it all. I think it is better to know one person's life in depth, a story told by that person (autobiography) or one who is passionate about that person (biography) than to read what 12 people think I should hear in that particular grade. Getting the information from a first or second-hand source is usually so much better!

Thank you Homer Smith for introducing me to the world of history... I wish he was still alive so that I could hear more!