Dear Hero Families,
Our mission statement begins, “Heritage Academy is dedicated to youth, their growth and development. The purpose of education is to build strong character. Strong character is reflected in strong families, strong communities and a strong nation.”
Citizenship class at Heritage could be one of our most important classes. It’s part of our classical academic philosophy of building good citizens. This character-development class helps our young heroes appreciate the ideals and values of the great men and women in our nation’s founding.
This year we have been studying Thomas Jefferson’s life and teachings. Jefferson put the political world on its head when he wrote the most important words in political history.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
With our instruction going online we wanted to continue to provide our citizenship curriculum, but with a family twist. Instead of a discussion in a classroom led by the teacher, we are challenging our young heroes to listen to a recorded presentation of these lessons and share it with the family. This could be a conversation around dinner or lunch or another convenient time. It doesn’t have to be hours, 10-20 minutes is perfect. What’s important is that our heroes now have a chance to learn and share the powerful lessons of Jefferson’s life with the family.
So how will this work? Next week, you will receive additional information on where the new citizenship classes will be posted. This will come from one of our citizenship content creators, Mrs. Cara Palmer. Mrs. Palmer is a Heritage graduate, former History teacher and current parent of an 8th grade Hero. Mrs. Palmer has worked on the materials closely with Mrs. Emily Truitt a Latin teacher at our Gateway Campus. The course materials and research come from “The Real Thomas Jefferson” by Andrew Allison. You do not need to have the book to do the assignment.
While the class and assignments will not be graded, we know our Heroes are up to the challenge. They know how citizenship class works and now it’s their turn to step up and lead. We are looking forward to hearing about your family citizenship discussions.
We invite you to watch this video called “Why Citizenship” to kick off our new online Citizenship class.
Sincerely,
Jared Taylor
Board Chairman
