Thread by @KateMessner

There's been a push in certain circles for "patriotic curriculum" that discourages kids from looking at American history through a critical lens. Educators should be pushing back on that. Hard.

Many of us grew up learning an incredibly whitewashed version of American history from older social studies textbooks. Our kids deserve better than that.

A recent review of The Next President, my picture book with @MrAdamRex, suggested that we shouldn’t have mentioned the fact that most of America’s first presidents enslaved people. Why? Because it might make kids think they were less heroic.

This reviewer wasn’t looking for history. She was looking for mythology. She was looking for a founding myth. And of course, this reviewer was an adult. Kids, I’ve found, are better at sitting with discomfort. Better at considering that more than one thing can be true.

When kids write to me about that page in The Next President – or about my History Smashers series, which is aimed at unraveling the lies & myths we sometimes teach young kids about history – they’re more thoughtful. They have questions.

Kids are more curious about history - about what really happened – especially when historical documents show that something they’ve been told their whole lives might not be true – or isn’t the whole story.

It’s so important that we remember we’re not just teaching students in classrooms today. We’re teaching tomorrow’s leaders. In order to make things better, and more just, they need an honest picture of history.

I’m really grateful that our new HISTORY SMASHERS series is becoming part of that conversation in so many classrooms. If you teach & haven’t seen them yet, books 1 and 2 are out now. They smash some of the myths surrounding the 1st Thanksgiving & the fight for women’s suffrage.

History Smashers: Pearl Harbor will be out this winter and includes not only the story of the attack on Pearl Harbor but the racism against Japanese Americans that followed.

The series continues in 2021 with History Smashers: Titanic, History Smashers: American Revolution, and History Smashers: Plagues and Pandemics, which covers everything from the Plague of Athens and the Black Death to COVID-19.