TAH seminars model the free and thoughtful discussion of primary documents of our history. These seminars began over twenty years ago as “Saturday seminars” in the Ashbrook Center offered to local social studies teachers. After teachers began driving from outside the county and even out of state to attend, Ashbrook began building its Teaching American History program to meet the needs of social studies teachers around the nation.

The original Saturday Seminars still occur. Deb Wiley Horner has attended them for years. A colleague invited her to attend—at a time when Horner taught English language arts. Engaging with the words of earlier Americans “made me excited about teaching” and encouraged her to move into teaching history and government in the program where she taught: The Portage-Geauga County Juvenile Detention Center in Ravenna, Ohio.

All Students Benefit from Discussing Primary Documents

You might think only highly disciplined students are capable of discussing  primary documents written in 18^th century language. Can students with behavioral and emotional difficulties—who are impatient, distracted, or impulsive—parse the complex sentence structure, find the ideas, and sustain a discussion of them?

Deb Horner believes almost any student can. Those who struggle with behavior problems may need to talk about historical documents even more than others do.

Horner’s students at the detention center ranged in age from 12 to 18. They arrived unpredictably and stayed from a few weeks to three months. Most lacked good parental role models for dealing with the conflicts of adolescence. They were suspicious of authority figures, having often gotten into trouble by acting out natural feelings of anger and resentment. They felt they had been victimized by the overreactions and hidden agendas of the adults in their lives.

But primary documents gave them access to the inside story of history. The letters and speeches of earlier Americans reveal what those Americans actually thought and intended. Reading the documents, Horner’s students felt they were at last getting the straight story.

Some gained a new critical thinking tool. If asked to turn from a primary document to an historian’s summary, they asked, “Who wrote this? What was that person’s angle?”

Learning from the Founders’ Disagreements

At Teaching American History seminars, Horner listened for the human dynamic in history that related to her students’ lives. At a program at the Heinz Center in Pittsburgh led by TAH Visiting Professor Gordon Lloyd, an expert on the American Founding, Horner learned that “the Founders argued a lot.” She brought stories about the issues debated inside Independence Hall in 1787 back to her students at the detention center. “The Founders agreed on the principle of freedom,” she told her students, “but they did not agree on everything.” They fought verbally—without throwing punches.

Horner pushed the idea further, asking her students to consider the conclusion of the Declaration. “The signers said, ‘We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’ The signers were committing treason against Great Britain. I asked students to imagine what could have happened to them if the Revolution failed. Then I asked, ‘What does it mean to be willing to lay your life down for someone you’ve actually been arguing with?’’’ How important must have been the principle they shared?

Inspiring Curiosity about History

Horner’s fascination with history aroused her students’ curiosity. During study periods, they watched her reading. “They would see me pull a document from the stack on my desk and ask what’s in it. I’d say, ‘It’s for my weekend Ashbrook seminar.’ They’d ask, ‘Why do you keep going to these classes?’ and I answered, ‘So I can be a more informed teacher for you, and can bring you a different perspective than you’ve heard before.’”

One young man, working on a computer in Horner’s room during a study period, watched her preparing to teach a class on the Declaration of Independence. He located the online document at the Teaching American History website. After a while, Horner noticed he was writing down every word in the Declaration that he did not understand, then checking an online dictionary for the definitions. Horner used the student’s annotated vocabulary list the next day as she taught the document. Later, she urged the student to finish high school and go on to college.

Everyone Needs to Understand Our Founding Documents

Recently, Horner began a new job in a charter school program for northern Ohio called Education Alternatives. It is designed for students with a range of mental health problems. For a semester, she worked with students whose problems resembled those of students in the detention center. Then she was given a class of students with autism. She carried on her normal social studies schedule.

“In the fall, I taught all of my students the Declaration and Constitution – because that is how I start every school year.”  She spent a month helping students master the material, using the list of 56 vocabulary words that her former student at the detention center had written down and defined. A supervisor asked why she did not move on into later history. “If they can understand our founding documents, they have a good basis for learning everything else they need to know during the year,” Horner replied.

Horner’s plan seemed to work. After a month’s study of the Founding, “every one of my students (from 6^th to 12^th grades) could tell you what was going on with those documents.” Later, she was sure: “When a 12^th grade student with autism and cognitive impairment told me in January—out of the blue—that he had to be 35 to be President, I knew I had nailed it!”