{"content":[{"text":"The study of Thomas Jefferson is an integral part of an American history education. But \n the lens used to examine his life and the lessons drawn from it have changed over time. The \n Jeffersonian ideal of individual freedom, for example, was used to justify greed in the nineteenth \n century and consumerism in the twentieth-century.1 Today high school history teachers can use \n Jefferson to promote critical thinking skills, illustrate strong character traits, and keep this \n American hero relevant for our students. Teaching Jefferson’s struggle with debt is not a magic \n pill for all that ails high school history teachers nor does it resolve the puzzling paradoxes of \n Thomas Jefferson, but the topic offers a rare opportunity to address several student needs at \n once. \n Social studies teachers, like all teachers, suffer from ever increasing time constraints and \n would greatly benefit from the use of biography to deliver their lessons with and added bonus of \n character education. Studying historical figures in American history like Thomas Jefferson \n would not only provide students with great examples of character, but make a more intimate and \n meaningful study of history. Students often live in a world of absolutes, sending each historical \n figure they study to heaven or hell as they are introduced. They have become unable to critically \n analyze famous historical figures, especially founding fathers, because our society has deified \n them and erased their complexities with well intentioned, patriotic and nostalgic motives, or \n dismissed them entirely based on one character flaw or historical action. As a result, children \n recognize Jefferson’s image on the nickel or Mount Rushmore but they find this “Apostle of \n Freedom” inaccessible; he has become an American hero with whom they can not relate. \n Teaching an abridged biography of Jefferson with an emphasis on his fight against debt would \n give students, as one historian points out, “a Jefferson who loses battles as often as he wins them, \n a Jefferson who struggles and fails.”2 It is crucial for students who are forming their own \n dispositions to have exposure to the mistakes of our American heroes; it instills empathy, an \n essential ingredient for those digesting lessons on both personal character and American history. \n Lessons on Jefferson and debt are also more palatable because concepts of wealth management \n are the same today as they were during Jefferson’s life, thereby avoiding problems with \n presentism in their study of history. Advanced placement students are capable of understanding \n the larger economic forces at play during Jefferson’s life and lower level students will more \n easily digest the complex debt issues of the eighteenth century by applying personal experiences \n which may include financial struggle. If superintendants and curriculum directors need further","bbox":{"left":0.117647,"top":0.088894,"width":0.763172,"height":0.804227}},{"text":"2","bbox":{"left":0.872549,"top":0.935182,"width":0.009804000000000035,"height":0.020212000000000008}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}