The friends school I went to bundled history together. We didn't learn about just the hardship of the Pilgrims but also the diseases they spread to the Native Americans. We didn't just learn about WWII, we learned about Japanese Internment, segregation of the military, ect.

I'm not sure what kids are taught these days, but knowing all ugly stuff about our history didn't make me any less patriotic. Perhaps even more so, because history shouldn't be one long success story.

In the Friends tradition, they kind of built us up to believe that we could take on tough challenges and overcome injustice, that we should be active citizens. This is all based on their belief that we all possess the inner light.

In practical terms, it means "there is an evangelical and saving Light and grace in all, the universality of the love and mercy of God towards mankind," according to Robert Barclay.

Essentially that means that loving God means loving your neighbor, possessed of the inner light.

So, any societal injustice was an injustice toward God's beloved. And that reflected in the way they taught history -- that was my experience, anyway: All bundled up together. It also makes them pacifists, although that is a subject of some debate in the community.

But anyway, that experience has led me to the belief that we don't need to sanitize our history for kids or teach them the happy version first, then peel back the onion later. History -- warts and all -- all at one go.

Fin.