The Hillsdale
1776 Curriculum

In history and civics classes, American students should have one aim above all: to understand what they have received, i.e., their inheritance as Americans. To understand clearly, students and teacher alike must adopt a stance of humility. And this humility is fostered by the recognition on the part of the student that the world in which we live, with all its benefits and also its faults, is not of our own creation. This is the beginning of American history and civic education.

From this starting point, the field of discovery in history and civics is, if not endless, then impossible to explore completely in any number of lifetimes. Principles must therefore be discerned and applied to determine where to begin, on what to focus, and in which order. The need to choose and choose carefully is all the more pressing within the limits of thirteen years of formal education.

Instead, The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum determines what students should learn in history and civics based on the answers to a single question: What ideas, words, and deeds have most significantly formed the world into which students were born? Studying the answers to this question provides students the fullest understanding of the world in which they will live their lives.

What does a guest see upon entering a history and civics classroom? The guest first notices walls alive with the past, with facsimiles, maps, portraits and paintings from American history. He sees the students with a pencil and paper and perhaps the text of a document or historical account upon their desks. And he sees their gaze moving from their desktops to a projected image or map, and finally and most consistently, to the teacher herself.

In a word, our guest sees harmony. It will look different based on grade level and school, on teacher and students. But sound history and civics classrooms will embrace an ordering and arranging of parts, just as the members of a symphony orchestra or athletic team move in complement to one another toward a common end, led by a director or captain or coach.

And what does our guest hear? He hears the teacher speaking, telling a story and asking questions about it.

The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum asks simply, in light of the vastness of reality and the limits of human existence, “What do American students in particular need and, most importantly, deserve to encounter and consider in their K–12 civic education?” The answer is first knowledge and understanding of American history and of the American republic as governed by the Constitution and morally grounded in the Declaration of Independence. The teachers who contributed to this curriculum are mindful of and experienced in the great and important changes in student development between grade levels, yet are also deferential to the circumstances and autonomy of local communities. This curriculum thus organizes the teaching of American history and civics into grade-level bands to provide the greatest accuracy in usefulness as well as breadth for adjustment by states, districts, schools, teachers, and parents.

There are four grade level bands: Kindergarten through 2nd grade, 3rd through 5th grade, middle school, and high school. A school may use the units for any of the grades within a grade band. The curriculum has attempted to address the differences in student ability, but ultimately schools and teachers, given the students they have in their charge, must determine the appropriate adjustments for their situations.

It may well be the case that great teachers have a natural gift for teaching others. But The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum subscribes to the belief that any American who loves to learn, loves students, possesses a determined work ethic, and is open to improvement can become a high-quality teacher. In both cases and whatever the experience and abilities, every teacher deserves guidance that is clear, simple, and helpful, and such order and ease on the part of the teacher’s materials will translate into clear lessons for students.

The form of this curriculum, therefore, follows these principles of its intended function. It strives to demystify teaching from the cumbersome lingo, administrative complexities, and “bells-and-whistles” busyness associated with many curricula.

We hope and trust that teachers will find this layout clear and refreshing.

The best and most sincere teachers understand teaching to be a vocation. Love for content and students draws them to such a hard, demanding, and high-stakes career. Often this calling was first awakened when the teacher was herself a student. She experienced the wonder that one or more of her own teachers had cultivated and allowed to flourish through their instruction. The sense of great responsibility for the formation of a child called to them. It is not uncommon for a teacher to say that the reason she teaches is because of a teacher or professor she had as a student. How disappointing and tragic, then, that many teachers nowadays rarely get to focus on the art of teaching.

Although The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum outlines content that students should probably encounter, vets resources, and offers some considerations for teachers, it defers entirely to the knowledge, creative ingenuity, and love each teacher possesses to actually plan out and present lessons.

The curriculum is designed with independence for teachers in mind.

It is common in education policy to release a new program, curriculum, initiative, etc., followed with directives on what needs to be done to make them succeed. Here we, too, outline what is necessary, but our recommendation is very different. It is not more money, more government action and control, or more hoops to jump through. Instead, what is needed for civic education to succeed in America is freedom and prudence.

In education, the United States must restore the freedom to make decisions to those who are most directly affected by them. Decision authority on what curriculum is used, how to teach, how to assess, and what schools to attend should be reclaimed from Washington, DC, the Department of Education, state bureaucracies, and teaching colleges and departments. The power to make such choices should be repossessed by state legislators, local school districts, and school boards, all of whom are accountable to voters, and to the administration and teachers of each school, who are accountable to parents when they elect to enroll their students at the school.

For any of the above to happen, prudence must rule in the hearts and minds of those who have the power to make them realities. This prudence requires a clear-sightedness for the principles of America and of civic education, and a humility to seek out what these principles are. It requires courage and discretion in order to shift control over education away from powerful and centralized interests and back to local schools, individual teachers, and the voting citizens of a community. It requires a care for the well-being of students, a respect for their inherent dignity and rational yet impressionable hearts and minds, which deserve nothing but the often beautiful but sometimes ugly truth of American history.

The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum is a reflection of Hillsdale College’s K–12 Program Guide, which serves as the basis of instruction in Hillsdale-affiliated schools. The K–12 Program Guide itself reflects parts of the education of which college students partake on Hillsdale’s campus. The specific materials in this curriculum, however, are the creation of the very best K–12 teachers, both past and present. In particular, we wish to thank faculty members at St. Johns Classical Academy, Seven Oaks Classical School, Founders Classical Academy of Lewisville, and Golden View Classical Academy for their contributions to this curriculum. We also wish to thank Good Comma Editing for their services on this project.