5. Stories teach better than recitation of facts
Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author David McCullough once told an interviewer regarding his approach to presenting history, “My love is to tell a story…history isn’t just what happened, but what happened to whom…” Children love stories. One reason the fable of George Washington and the cherry tree lasted for so many years was that parents used it to teach the necessity of telling the truth regardless of the consequences. In those days, portraits of George Washington still appeared in classrooms, post offices, and government offices across the country, his stern visage gazing down upon young and impressionable children.
Stories about Washington and his steadily growing reputation as America’s foremost soldier and leader during his lifetime abound, and explain how he became the man known as the Father of his Country. In his youth a buckskin-clad Washington explored the Ohio Country in the dead of winter, enduring foul weather and hostile Indians. Similar stories apply to other Americans whose personalities have faded from the historical record. They include Jefferson’s love of music, architecture, and ice cream. Abraham Lincoln worked on steamers on the internal rivers in America, before he became a lawyer. Stories about who people were explaining how they reacted when things happened to them, making them icons of American history. They are easily found and related to young children as part of teaching them history.