American HIS-story

At Heritage Classical Academy, through wonderful read-aloud books about American heroes and events, we teach American history first. We do not focus on what divides us but what unites us. Our American story is taught through a Christ-centered worldview that acknowledges the complexity of the fallen nature of man and the image bearing of God, the striving of man and the Sovereignty of God, the triumphs and failings of man and the faithful redemption of God. We teach our students most importantly, all of history is HIS-story.

In kindergarten, our curriculum spanned from early exploration to the 1860. In first grade, we will pick up with the Civil War to the present. Students will study times of adventure, expansion, immigration, and invention through events like the Transcontinental Railroad, the gifting of the Statue of Liberty, and people like Buffalo Bill Cody, George Washington Carver, the Wright brothers, Amelia Earhart, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, the “sky boys,” Edwin Binney, and Neil Armstrong. Students will see creativity, courage, perseverance, and sacrifice in difficult times through Abraham Lincoln, Booker T. Washington, Clara Barton, Wilson Bentley, Helen Keller, Tony Sarq, the Tuskegee Airmen, the Navajo codebreakers, the Berlin Airlift, Jackie Robinson, Sammy Lee, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the fireboat, John J. Harvey.

President Donald J. Trump formed the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission to “enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.” The Commission, chaired by Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College and consisting of leaders like, Carol Swain, Matthew Spalding, Michael Farris, and Victor Davis Hanson, published the 1776 Report in January 2021.

In the report, the Commission summarized the principles of the American founding, explaining how the principles have shaped our country and to show how the principles have stood in resistance to the failings of imperfect man in carrying out these principles.The Commission calls for a national renewal project through the true education of citizens through the family and schools, detailing how to enact a genuine civics education. The 1776 Report concludes with a call to commit to “teach future generations of Americans an accurate history of our country so that we all learn and cherish our founding principles once again.”

To read the report, visit https://info.hillsdale.edu/1776-commission.