Lafayette’s Approach to History: Forming the Moral Imagination and Future Citizens

In this episode of the Lady K Podcast, Katy McKinney pulls back the curtain on how Lafayette Academy: A Classical School teaches history, and why it’s so much more than dates, battles, and tests.

From kindergarten stories about George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette to tales of pioneers, Almanzo Wilder, and Benjamin Franklin, we explore how history is intentionally used to build moral imagination, shape character, and form future citizens who can sustain our Republic.

Discover why we teach restraint through Washington’s refusal of kingship, patience and self-control through Farmer Boy, courage and justice through real historical dilemmas, and the dangers of resentment through Benedict Arnold. At Lafayette Academy, history isn’t just content, it’s formation.

If you want your children to love what is good, recognize evil, and develop the virtues needed to be thoughtful participants in a free society, this episode reveals the deeper purpose behind our approach.

Join Katy as she explains how we’re not just educating students, we’re forming citizens.

For more information about Lafayette Academy, A Classical School please visit https://lafayetteacademy.org/

For Referenced Resources from the LadyK Podcast Click Here for Download

Transcript

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Welcome back to the Lady K podcast. I'm Katie McKinney, the founder and head of school for Lafayette Academy, a classical school. And today we're going to talk a little bit more about history. We're going to take a deeper dive and talk about what we're actually learning in history. I thought it'd be helpful to pull the curtain back. A lot of a lot of parents, a lot of people, I would put myself in this category, think that when you teach history, you're talking about stories, dates, um, battles, maybe some tests along the way, right? But what you might not see, I do hope our parents see, but but they might not see is that there's a there's a very intentional design behind the history that we're teaching. And especially at Lafayette, nothing is accidental. What we're doing is we're building something over time. And we start as early as kindergarten. We actually teach history every single day in kindergarten. It's an American symbol history uh curriculum. And we're doing something that we expect will make sense today, but will also make sense 10 years, 20, 30 years from now, um, and give our children uh a real anchor in their understanding. My history education was not stellar. Um I had little, little flames of a little glimmer of great history um every now and then over my educational career, even through through college. And the way I look at it now, knowing what I do know, um, is that my history education was like the Roman ruins. If you've ever been to the Roman Forum right outside the Colosseum, you have some of the remnants, right, of buildings that are still there, but the entirety of the picture, it's not there. There's a sort of a the scattered remains and there's little connection seeing the whole picture uh to the whole picture. And so that's how I feel my education was. That was revealed to me when I was probably in my mid to late 30s, when all of a sudden I realized, wait a minute, why don't I know this? Um, and my husband, he was somewhat in the same boat as well. And I find that um unfortunately, you know, our grandparents had a fabulous historical education. But as we've gone through the decades, for those of us who grew up in the 80s or the 90s or beyond, um, we haven't really had a great history education. And so we are trying to reverse that at Lafayette Academy. To summarize it very simply, um, we are forming future citizens. And we're doing that um because we don't want our kids to just know things or know stuff. We want them to be young men and young women who understand this country, they understand human nature, um, that they're capable of being a participant in our republic and therefore helping to sustain it. And that requires something deeper than just knowledge, it requires character. You may have heard on this podcast the concept or the phrase moral imagination. And I know when I first heard this concept, I didn't know what that was. It's talked a lot about in classical education. So I wanted to just give you a quick synopsis of what that is. The moral imagination is the child's ability to recognize what is good. They recognize what is noble, they recognize what is worth learning. And so we do that by teaching through stories, especially kindergarten, first, and second grade, those early years, we teach a lot about heroes and big personalities. And and to an onlooker's perspective, it can seem very simple, very elementary. But as we get down to it, the children learn through that process what is good and what is worth becoming. And I will tell you that even as an adult, when I was homeschooling through those early discovery years of classical education, we had read a story about Lafayette. And it was by Gene Fritz. It's called Why Not Lafayette? And I was so inspired and taken with his example that of course we named a school after him. And so that's one of those things, sort of, I guess you could say my moral imagination had been piqued with reading that story because I loved his example. I loved his conviction, his confidence, his pursuit of excellence. And it was through Washington that he was inspired. And so these are, these are important people to know because they help us form who we are and choices we make. Another good example of that moral imagination is our children learning about George Washington. And of course, he was a man who we talk about telling the truth. I will say there's stories where he shows that he did not always tell the truth, but oftentimes he did. It it also helps we we share stories about how he led with restraint. And we know that for a fact because when they won the Revolutionary War, um, he was given complete power. Everyone was saying, you should be king. You we we don't know what is ahead of us, and we are nervous about this idea of democracy and a republic. So let's just go back to being a monarchy and you be the king, you've done such a good job. And he knew from examples in history, from Cincinnatus as his hero, that that was not the way. That was not where they were headed. And so he stepped down. And that obviously we know that to be true. Um, we study it, and that is part of the moral formation of our children. What is it teaching our children when you see someone who has literally been given the keys to the kingdom to have ultimate power? And he walks away from that. What is that teaching our children? It's teaching them that power is not the highest good. And that in life, there are times when temperance, which is one of our classical virtues, temperance and restraint and self-control matters. And it it matters deep down when you express that, it gives you the ultimate control for yourself, for the benefit of yourself. So these stories of Lafayette of George Washington, these are told at the youngest levels, um, but it is the beginning of that formation of the moral imagination. And that's key. When we ask our children, you know, who is the hero in this story? What is courage? What does sacrifice look like? We aren't just telling stories. We are we are helping our children form who it is they admire, what it is that they admire, and and ultimately, potentially, who they will emulate. And that's important. So that's in our kindergarten through second grade levels, taught through history, taught through, of course, literature as well. Now let's jump to third through fifth grade. This is a time where our students now have some good content knowledge from which to draw. They're now forming their own moral judgment. And, you know, if if bad choices are made, consequences occur. And that's important. Um, their history is now becoming, at this level, more connected. It's more driven by human choices. And and I want to give you an illustration. In third grade, the students um and they study a smattering of world history, but we always end every grade first through sixth grade. They always have a portion at the end of their year, usually between six to eight weeks of just American history. So everyone ends with American history. The the first portion, seven months of the school year, though, is focused on the ancient Greeks or Romans or um, you know, ancient Chinese culture or Mexican culture. So they get a smattering of the whole world. But okay, all that to say, in third grade, their American component um is focused on westward expansion and the pioneers. And to dovetail into that, they read a story called Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls-Wilder. They get to connect that beautifully, uh, not that beautiful nonfiction story with their history that they're studying. And they learn about this character. His name is Almanzo Wilder. And there's a moment where Almonzo is tasked with training or breaking wild cults into being tamed cults, right? That could be utilized uh in the town. And it is extremely difficult work. Everything in him would like to rush the process of training a horse. You could try to force it, you could try to dominate your way through it. But Almanzo shows us through his example, he does not. He does the opposite. He's extremely patient, he's very controlled, he's very consistent, he's very disciplined. It's effective, it has a great reward because he does end up training and beautifully um uh enhancing these cults so that they can be utilized and the highest and best use for for him and for his family. But it illustrates for our students the benefits of self-control and of patience and temperance. And and it's an example of leadership. It's on a small scale, but it is still the principles of leadership. And so the again, through history, they are learning more about uh this idea of character. So, so zoom out, and you now think about these pioneers and these um incredible men and women who are charting new pathways throughout the United States at that time, and they too are demonstrating incredible resilience and endurance and courage and the ability to sacrifice for uh, you know, sacrificing comfort for hopefully a positive reward at the end. It's exactly what Almanzo did with the Colts. The success and obviously sometimes the failures of these communities depended on character. There's another incredible story. I don't want to go too long on stories, but they're also good. Um, again, Almanzo, he ends up, the brief story is that during the long winter, another one of the books from from Laura Engels Wilder, there's a a winter, crazy intense winter, where they the town almost runs out of food. And Almanzo and another gentleman, and they were like 18, 19 years old, literally sacrificed their their lives, the potential of their lives to uh to losing, sorry, sacrifice the potential of losing their lives to go over about 20 miles away to go get grain or or wheat for um for the town. And the snow, just to give you a quick context, the snow is roughly 15 feet deep. The the coldness that year that they say it was roughly 30 degrees below zero, like all the time. These people did not have north face jackets, they did not have Ug boots, and they they sacrificed everything for themselves, but also more importantly for the town. And through that, that sacrificial act, um, we know this is obviously part of history. Our children are inspired and they see these characters doing really, really hard things and um coming out better for it. Obviously, books worth reading. And and again, it's showing our children it's these are things worthy to to emulate, um, being so full of courage. So our students begin to see people who have this beautiful discipline. We also juxtapose that with characters in history who don't have discipline, who who make poor decisions and act selfishly. And obviously there are consequences for that, and um sometimes life-changing consequences. And um, it's uh, I I will say this was kind of a neat thing too. Just I'm teaching writing to third graders and and to fourth graders, and we are reading a book on Benjamin Franklin. And there's a powerful moment where uh Benjamin Franklin, uh, we just was we were just reading this actually the other day, where he's about 10 years old and he's a great swimmer, and he's out uh swimming with his other boys, and there's this ship captain who comes over, he's watching them, and he comes over and he notices that Benjamin is a great swimmer and he says, you know, you're one of the finest swimmers I've ever seen. And would you come aboard and would you teach my men how to swim? And in fact, I would even, you know, you pay you to show, because back then, you know, I guess that was, you know, something special, but he had fancy strokes, and I could show, I could have you, you swim and show your strokes to the king and the queen, and you could get paid for this. And uh anyway, long story short, the the boys who were with Benjamin realized that this character, this ship captain, had nefarious intent, and they quickly ran and told Josiah, uh Franklin, Benjamin's father, that this was happening. And indeed, um Benjamin was basically getting lured through fat flattery uh onto the ship, and they would steal little children and they would never return. And unfortunately, this happened to um Benjamin's brother. His name is also Josiah, Josiah Jr., and the family never heard from him again. Anyway, I finished this story, and and you can see right away there well, and the end result is the father came back, he ended up punching the captain, knocking him out, rescuing Benjamin, and and Benjamin being you know overjoyed because he recognized that this was turning into a bad situation. Thanked his father profusely, and they went on their way. All that to say, I finished that story, and the kids were like, first off, who would do this? Who, why would they do this? And so we had a little bit of a conversation about that, and then sparks the justice in these kids. And one of them says, Mrs. McKinney, if that ever happened to my brother, I would hide in the bushes and I would attack that that not pirate, that captain, and I would rescue my brother and I would free him. And there was such conviction. Then another student said, You know what? If someone tried to do that to me and I was going to be a slave, I would rather die than be a slave. And he said it with that much conviction. He's third grade. Now, how in the world and why does a third grader, nine and ten years old, how do they even know that that is the right thing to do? It's because they have a very strong moral sense of imagination and they understand what is good, what is worthy, and what is um what is what is the right thing to do in those moments. That is why we teach history, because it's formulating man. All right, let's get to a deeper point. Before our children can understand government, we are all citizens in a republic, I assume here, um, this audience is. And so before a child can understand government, they have to understand the difference between good and evil. Especially um if you are living in a republic and the republic is made up of the people, the people have to know the difference between good and evil. And before they can stand for freedom, they have to understand what could threaten that freedom. The story I just shared with you about kidnapping um maybe is not so much about kidnapping as it is about the misuse of power or the misuse of persuasion. Um, in this case, there was flattery involved. And so the students started to understand that, oh, flattery could be misused. This story was about the potential of the loss of freedom and the need for moral courage by the boys, by the father. And the what what we saw in the response to these children was the act of courage, uh a love of freedom, a love of justice, and a rejection of evil at any cost. And the one who said, you know, I would rather die than be a slave, it's probably not a surprise that his dad is a military man. And that's what his dad has done. He has seen that example. So this is uh, this is it's just a beautiful thing to see. So going back to this idea, before a child can understand our government, before they can understand liberty, they first have to learn to love what is good. And they have to recognize when something is not good. So let's jump now to sixth and seventh grade. Sorry, sixth, seventh, and eighth. Um, this is a time for us in our history where we're talking about civic formation. And we do this with our middle schoolers, middle schoolers, and we make it explicit. In seventh and eighth grade, they study only American history, from the pilgrims to the Civil War, first year, second year, Civil War to present day. And uh, they're talking about the American founding, the constitution, um, and this idea of a republic that works only if the people can govern themselves. Quick example here, which would would come up in their history, is um maybe many many of you know Benedict Arnold. He was uh at the start of the American Revolution, he was uh a very courageous hero that everyone revered. He fought bravely at the Battle of Saratoga, and he played a key role in the American victory there. He was known for great leadership and boldness, and um, at that point he was willing to risk his life for that. So that's great if the story ended there. But something started to change, and he began to be resentful, he began to become bitter. The uh Congress was not appreciating him as much. At that time, he was also facing some financial challenges, and he was not getting the credit he thought he deserved. And so there was a sense of um resentment that was beginning to master him. He was not either wasn't aware or he didn't decide to arrest that. And so in the end, he decided to betray his country. And he in the end handed over West Point to the British. For him, it was a moment of uh, well, it was a decision. It was a choice. And and as we talk about it, you know, it was unfortunately at that point, it was part of his character. And that's why he followed through on it. Um, and so eventually, you know, he did flee. He tried to escape, but in the end, he he lost everything that mattered. He ended up, the Americans obviously did not trust him, the British did not trust him, and uh that was that was unfortunate. So, in that example, you know, we're sharing with students that while you can be talented and you could be skilled and you could be very intelligent, um, you can still be dangerous if you don't have the right character. That can be a big problem. And that is actually, frankly, one of the reasons why I wanted to marry um as closely as possible an excellent education with excellent character. You know, lots of schools out there are are potentially, they have good academics, great academics even. But if you're not forming and nurturing excellent character, you you're not doing anyone a service. Um, we have plenty of people in history. Benedict Arnold's good example. Hitler, Stalin, who were, I would say, fairly intelligent, creative, innovative people, but they didn't have the character to align with that excellence and therefore ended up taking, you know, a wrong turn. And we know them, obviously. We study them in history and we use them as examples. The example, the on the other side in our middle school, contrast that with a gentleman named Henry Knox. Some of you might know him. He was not flashy, he was not seeking glory, but he was tapped on the shoulder, or, or maybe I believe he mostly raised his hand. They needed cannons from Fort Ticonderoga to be carried um hundreds of miles and no less in the winter, um, back to Massachusetts, back to Boston, so that they could stand down the British. And that story in and of itself is phenomenal. But it's uh it's interesting because you juxtaposed these two men, same time in history, similar backgrounds, um, but different characters. And because of those different characters, different outcomes. So Benedict Arnold did not wake up one day and decide that he was going to betray his country. It was just the slow uh disintegration of his character. And I think important for us to to share with our students that his pride and his um his desire to be recognized is what was really his downfall. But the Benjamin Franklin story, um, obviously it was he had he had the character, he was a little confused or a little uh persuaded by flattery, but in the end, he was he was righted and he obviously was saved. In the end, our citizens, we want them to be able to restrain themselves. That is a requirement in a republic. We want them to prioritize the common good, and we want them to be clear about the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, um, good and evil. Otherwise, our entire structure for our country ends up collapsing. So, this is why at Lafayette we care so much about character. Character is not separate from your citizenship. If anything, it's the absolute center of it. And that's that's important. Aristotle tells us that man is a political animal. And to our, to our sense today, we might think, oh, that that sounds a little odd. What he meant was that we are made to live in a community. And when we live in a community, it depends on the virtue of the people of that community. Obviously, we we depend on each other to tell the truth. We depend on one another to keep our commitments, to act with courage when things are not right, when they're not principled, when they're not for the good. We we depend on each other to restrain ourselves for good. And that doesn't come from nowhere. It's formed through examples in history. And those principles that we see lived out in history by those who do the right thing, those are the best practices because they've gotten the best results. And so we want to teach our children that information. We want them to know it. We teach it slowly, we teach it intentionally. And uh it's an important, a huge important piece. I would say between reading and writing, history is right up there with making sure that we. Take the time with intentionality, with consistency to make sure that we're holding the line and showing that this is an important piece. It's something we're building, and it takes years to build that out. So when your child is studying history, especially at Lafayette, yes, they are learning dates, they are learning events, they are learning battles and information. But I would say more importantly, they're learning what is important to admire. They're learning how to judge and how to discern and know what is good and know what is evil. And that they are responsible in the end as they grow. They are responsible. This, this historic or this uh American experiment, it is a blueprint, but it it pulls on millennia of history to show us that this design works and it works well. So we're just not educating students, we are forming citizens. Um, in the end, that is that is worthy. And um, this country, this idea, it's worth preserving. So thank you for joining us. And uh, if you found this helpful, feel free to share. See you on the next episode of the Lady K podcast.