During the past few years, scholarship has minimized what most know to be true—that individuals can make a difference, markets can solve problems, ideas matter, and the founders had good ideas to contribute the beginning of the U.S. In the process, many good things in North Carolina’s history—the creation of personal wealth, the benefits of private property, and the positive influence of religious and free market ideas, to name some examples—have been misunderstood. As a result, a vast resource of good ideas and exemplary personalities are forgotten, and possible solutions to current societal problems are overlooked.
To compensate for such cultural losses, the John Locke Foundation started the North Carolina History Project. The latest NCHP effort is to create lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school students. It will be an evolving and ever-growing website. More lessons will be added. They will temporarily be housed here. For more on NCHP and its online encyclopedia, please see here.
Thank you for visiting reviewing the lesson plans. We hope you consider them useful. If you have any questions, please email [email protected].
About the Managing Director:
Troy Kickler, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow and Managing Director of NCHP. He holds an M.S. in Social Education from North Carolina A&T State University and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Tennessee.
In 2019, he co-edited North Carolina’s Revolutionary Founders (UNC Press). His recent publications also include “Andrew Jackson: A Study in Leadership Style” in Joseph Fornieri, Kenneth Deutsch, and Sean D. Sutton, eds., American Statesmanship: Principles and Practice of Leadership (Notre Dame Press) and “Caught in the Crossfire: African American Children and the Ideological Battle for Education in Reconstruction Tennessee” in James Marten, ed., Children and Youth During the Civil War Era (New York University Press). He has published widely in various newspapers, websites, and academic journals. He has either won or been nominated for several awards.
From 2005 to 2016, he was the Founding Director of the North Carolina History Project, housed at the John Locke Foundation. In this capacity he wrote or edited approximately 1,000 entries, led several dozen constitutional workshops, and directed a lecture and symposia series and a living history events series. He later joined the North Carolina Office of Archives and History and served as Colonial Records Editor.
He has served on statewide conservation and civic boards and on education advisory boards. He taught high school for 3.5 years and has taught at Barton College and North Carolina State University. He currently teaches graduate courses for Liberty University.