I like a lot of where you are going.Ernie wrote:Recently we spent about two or three weeks studying WWII and the Holocaust. One student expressed surprise that we have been studying history for four years and this is the first time we talked about the World Wars. Even then we didn't spend time talking about the war strategies, etc. We focused on those who got hauled to prison camps and how some tried to help the prisoners.
You've got to cut content somewhere if you are going to spend time introducing students to Conrad Grebel, Menno Simons, Christopher Dock, Skippack School, and Martyrs Mirror.
In many ways, the different approaches to teaching history and content are pictured in the OT vs. the NT.
I am currently reading a secular history called "These Truths", by Jill LePore. She puts much less emphasis on wars and much more emphasis on the way different groups of people lived at various times. She also brings religious movements and the development of computers and changes in the workplace into the story. I think this is a much better telling of history.
I read two Civil War books by Ed Ayers that also focused on the lives of everyday people. In his books, they are people who lived in two towns - Staunton, Virginia and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, 100 miles apart in the Shenandoah Valley. These books go into the detail of real people's lives throughout the war. Ayers calls this "microhistory".
I think you could mine a lot of useful material out of these books.