Ashley: We're here today with Maggie and Heather, two of the contributors to the new U.S.
Constitution course by The Good and the Beautiful. This course is incredible, and beautiful,
and so timely, and very needed, and we hope that from this video you all are able to gather
the information that you need to decide if this is a course you might want to teach in
your homeschool. So we actually surveyed quite a few customers of The Good and the
Beautiful and audiences to decide what were the questions that you guys really wanted answered.
The first one that everyone is really wanting to know is: What perspective was this course written
from and does it push a political agenda? Maggie: That's a great question to start
with. It's written from a perspective of a love of our country and of our Constitution.
The Constitution has brought liberty and freedom to millions within our own nation,
and then to others around the whole wide world. You get people,
immigrants, moving here from socialist countries or communist countries
and they have a deep love and appreciation for our Constitution and the freedoms that it provides,
and we want to ensure that our own children have that same love and appreciation and understanding
that the Constitution is the reason we enjoy these freedoms.
Ashley: So would you say that this course favors one political side or another? Or
do you think that this course was created for any person, anyone who loves America?
Heather: Well, we recognize that everyone has a bias, and everyone has their own perspective and
worldview, so what we wanted to do was to go back to the original sources. We used primary sources.
We used the letters of the founding fathers that they wrote to each other. We even used,
pulled out the, the notes that James Madison made of the secret Constitutional Convention.
We have those notes and so we wanted to hear the debate that was going on and we wanted
to know their intent. So it's really important to understand not just the Constitution as a document
but to understand the historical context around it, to understand the intentions of the founders.
Maggie: Exactly, like she was saying, and we want to teach our children to also look to
those primary source documents, not to look to the news media or to YouTube to find out
why the Constitution is important or maybe why it's not important because we're going
to hear both sides of it, but we want them to actually read the Constitution and understand it
and make the decision for themselves on whether it's important in our lives.
Ashley: How did you ensure that this course represented many different perspectives?
Heather: Well again, just as we want our children to seek the truth from primary sources,
that's what we went with. But we also had it reviewed by lots and lots of families that
piloted it from different religious backgrounds and political viewpoints. It was also reviewed
by history experts for accuracy. We wanted to make sure that this course would be accurate,
would be useful for many people regardless of religious background, political background.
We want people to understand the principles in the Constitution. We feel they're so
important for everyone to learn about to understand and to use in their own lives.
Maggie: In addition, we had a months-long editing process where we have
many editors of multiple Christian denominations and non-denominational reviewing and editing
both for accuracy and to make sure that there wasn't any lean toward one religion or another.
Ashley: Does this course teach on the founders,
and what is your individual take on the founders of our country?
Maggie: So we do cover the founders of the country. We feel like that's a really
critical part to understanding the context and the history behind our Constitution.
We actually have 12 engaging audio biographies about founders, but we don't just include the
famous ones: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison as wonderful
as contributions as they made, we also include others who you may not hear about as much:
Mercy Otis Warren, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, and others who contributed in their
own way to the founding of our country by having their own perspective, by rising up from their
own challenges in life to educating themselves and learning about the needs of the country
and dedicating their lives, sometimes at great sacrifice, to the country and its needs.
Heather: One of the neat things that we really want children to take away from the course
is the lives of the founders and how inspirational they can be.
Some of them came from nothing, from poverty, from slavery even,
and we want them to recognize that no matter what you come from if you work hard, you value
education, you stick to your principles, you can change the world, you know, you can do such great
things and we want, we believe that children can be inspired by those stories. So I would say that,
while we all recognize that the founders were not perfect, they had flaws just like all of us did,
but that we can still learn from them and the wonderful contributions they made to our country.
Ashley: Does this course teach
on the history of the constitution or just how it presently governs the country?
Maggie: It actually teaches both, because we felt like it really was critical to understand
the history behind the Constitution. We start with historical documents and philosophers
and all the way up to the Articles of Confederation. We studied the Declaration
of Independence and then, you know, like she said, the Constitutional Convention and the
debates there. And so the leading up to our Constitution, it wasn't just a document that
just appeared out of the blue. It's something that they worked toward for a long time
and so it's important to understand that context in the background.
But then it also teaches the context of this living, breathing document that does
evolve over time with the needs of our country and its people. For example, for the emancipation or
reconstruction amendments that follow the wake of the Civil War, we talk about many contributors to
those amendments that ended slavery like Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison, and many others.
Heather: We don't at all want to get into political discussions, that wasn't our point
in this course, but we do have to bring it into the modern age and we follow, as we follow the
amendments we do that. So we talk about issues like the presidential cabinet, executive branch
agencies. We want our children to know that the constitution is not just a historical document,
but that it helps us to know how to govern our country today and so we, they need to understand
how not just that it was this amazing document that gave us the principles our country was
founded on, but how do we then bring those into today and continue furthering those principles.
Maggie: Yeah. It's important to understand how does the Constitution apply to our lives now?
For example, when I was in high school, I took a law class and my teacher was
amazing. I thought the world of him, and he taught us one day why it was important to,
why we should get rid of the electoral college and how one person should equal one vote and
he had me totally convinced by the end of the class time. And I went home and I kind
of offhandedly told my parents we should get rid of the electoral college, it's ridiculous,
it's old-fashioned. And my dad listened to my little rant and then he very wisely said,
"So it sounds like you have thought about this a lot more than the founding fathers did".
And that was a great answer because it gave me time to reflect and realize maybe I haven't
studied out all of the issues the same way the founding fathers did, because, you know, they
had a lot of debates. They had a lot of reasons to have the electoral college. They wanted large
states and small states to be able to have a say. They wanted big cities and they wanted rural areas
to both have a say. And so there are reasons, and it's important for children to understand that.
Ashley: Does this Constitution course cover
the Constitution entirely or just bits and pieces of it?
Heather: We cover the whole thing we start, you know, like we said, with the Articles
of Confederation. We go through, the children read the entire Constitution.
We were really, um, we really wanted to make sure that they read the entire thing.
So we go through the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and all 27 amendments.
Maggie: Yeah. And we made sure that every lesson was a manageable amount of information because,
you know, it is older language. It's challenging language. But we broke it down into
bite-sized pieces. We make it understandable and relatable and we bring in historical
context and how it applies to their lives now. Each student has a journal and they
have the whole entire Constitution printed in it along with other activities, but there are
wide margins with specific questions, guided questions, where they can take notes and answer
questions and they're going to be able to keep that as a resource for, you know, for the future
when they want to look back and remember what they studied about the Constitution. So, like she said,
we do have them read the whole entire Constitution and we had that discussion early on in the
development of this course. You know, can children really understand the whole Constitution? Should
they read the whole thing? And we just felt like it was really important, but we don't want to just
pick little bits and pieces out of it and what, oh whoa, this is more important than this. There
aren't more important parts of the constitution than others. It's all important for them to
understand and so we did end up using the whole entire thing and the pilot families, it was really
encouraging to see that they were understanding it and their parents were understanding it. We
got so many comments from the pilot parents saying "wow, I had no idea and I am learning so much from
this course". So it's really a beautiful thing to see these families learning it together.
Heather: One of the activities our pilot families really loved was the First Amendment activity and
first, they learn about each of the rights that are protected in the First Amendment
and then the parent or teacher
asks them "If you had to get rid of one of these rights, which one would you give up?"
Maggie: And so they have a debate, a very lively discussion, Heather: Yeah. Maggie: about which
one is the least important out of those rights in the First Amendment.
Heather: And then once they decide that, they talk about what life would be like without that right,
and then the parent or teacher says, "Okay, now which right would you give up?"
And they continue down until they're left with they can only choose one right
out of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of,
freedom of assembly, and all of those to decide which one is the most important. And what,
besides lively debate, what the children learn just through discussion is that each one of
those rights supports the other. We need all of them in order to protect each one of them.
Maggie: And sometimes we don't even really understand how blessed we are to have these
freedoms until we start thinking about what would it be like to not have even just one
of those rights in our life. And that's just one right from one amendment. We're going into
depth about every amendment and the whole entire Constitution, every article of the Constitution.
Ashley: So some may say that the Constitution is just far too complex for
children to understand. Would you agree with that?
Maggie: We understand the concern, and that is something that we talked about a lot in
the development is to make sure that we could gear it to a level that students grades four
through eight would be able to understand it. But we realize through, you know, creating it
and through piloting it that these kids, they don't need it dumbed down or watered down.
If you teach it in a way that's engaging and relatable and memorable, then they can
understand it to a point where they want to also uphold the Constitution. They can get
that fire burning in their hearts, and that was our ultimate goal. So, we do that through
lots of different activities, kinesthetic activities. There is a rhyming scavenger hunt.
Heather: They loved that one.
Maggie: Yeah. And there's a, for the elastic clause, we have a fun little
rubber band shooting, you know, elastic activity so that they can remember that,
you know, just tie it in. We have 3D paper models of the White House, the Supreme Court,
and the Capitol building, and those are really fun for the kids.
Ashley: I saw those the other night, they were really cool.
Maggie: Okay, and they actually can use those in the, this activity. They
have them and they have some cards that show a bill, and it shows how the bill
becomes a law and it passes from, you know, from one legislative, from the legislative branch,
the executive branch, judicial, and it passes back and forth depending on how people vote.
Heather: And we actually used real legislation from the past and showed how things moved so
they were able to move the bills through and saw that "oh, the president rejected it". Okay,
now where does it go? It goes back to the legislature. And so the children
are able to work through those and see how a bill becomes a law in real life.
Maggie: So while it may seem daunting, it sounds daunting to read the entire Constitution,
when you break it down into smaller chunks and then you do these engaging activities,
you listen to audio biographies, you, we also have a fictional mystery story,
it's a fantastic adventure and it's also very educational, and then, you know, kinesthetic,
auditory, we have all types of learning, it makes it come to life and it makes it relatable.
It makes it engaging. And, most importantly, I believe it makes it memorable so that they can
pull that into their lives and use it to uphold the Constitution themselves.
Heather: Yeah so we included lots of fun games and tried to hit activities that would work for all
learners, but at the same time we understand the seriousness of the material and so we feel like we
hit the nail on the head with making it fun and enjoyable, including a lot of variety, but also
imparting to the children that this is serious and this is something that we need to fully understand
so that we can further those principles. Our country may not have been perfect,
the founders knew that, but they saw it as a beginning,
not an end, and they were hopeful and prayerful that it would continue. And
it's up to each generation to further those principles so we have to learn them ourselves,
teach them to our children because freedom and liberty and justice for all is for everyone.
Ashley: So a lot of people are wondering if this course was created
in response to what we've seen in the country the last few years or was this something that The Good
and the Beautiful had planned on doing for a long amount of time and then it just came into fruition
at what some might say just the right time? So could you guys tell me a little bit about that.
Maggie: Yeah, absolutely. It is a course that we've been planning to create for
quite some time and it's been in development for probably close to three years now and, um,
we do feel though that it is a blessing that it came about, you know, God's timing is just
incredible, and we do feel like He has guided us. We know for sure He has guided us and
helped us to be able to create something that our nation needs now more than ever before.
Heather: I think it's important because there's such a hole in the homeschool curriculum market
for a government, Constitution course aimed at these ages. I think people, going back to our
question about is it too difficult, I think many people think it is and many curriculum providers
think that it is and we just think that it's not that in the, for the reasons that we said
earlier. And not only is it not too difficult but it's so vital and so we, there was a gap there
and so this is unique. It's unique for, to be able to teach these amazing but important concepts to
this age group in a way that they can really fully understand. So I think it's timely, um, but it's
certainly needed and some, and a lot of the feedback that we've gotten has said exactly that.
Ashley: From just looking at it myself, it just made me so excited to be able to present the
information to my kids in a way that I knew that they could understand, because I think a lot of
times with homeschooling, in general, the doubt of teaching a subject comes from your own insecurity
about do you understand it correctly, and then, like you said, you a teacher had convinced you
completely of something and so that may be the way that we receive the information, so being able to
have this course, just from looking at the first lesson, it just made me so excited to be able to
learn alongside my children what may have been missing or misunderstood.
Maggie: We're so excited for you and for your family to use it. It's just open-and-go.
You just open up in the coursebook to lesson one and you're ready to go, and
we hope that you and your family both learn so much from it.
Ashley: I'm so excited for it, really I am.
Heather: We're so excited too. When I did it with my
kids they absolutely loved it and I think that so many families are going to be blessed by it.