SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, many parents have been more involved in their children’s education. Some say they don’t like what they’re seeing and are turning to other sources of education, such as homeschooling.
One homeschool program is American Education Defenders, a nonprofit that aims to boost self-esteem by using a more creative and appealing approach to teaching U.S. history.
Paul Lloyd Hemphill is an author, public speaker, and veteran. He started American Education Defenders in 2020 “as a direct response to the negative classroom influences on the self-esteem of our nation’s children.”
“What I do is that I tell stories,” Hemphill told NTD Television. “Inside the word ‘history’ is the word ‘story.’ And stories are made up of people who make good and bad decisions. So the way we want to help our kids grow up and become better individuals and better citizens is to show them how people made bad decisions and good decisions from our country’s past.”
Users of the program subscribe to “America’s 52 Stories” and watch a full-length video every Wednesday for 52 weeks. It helps students relate to the subject matter better so they feel connected, Hemphill said.
Example lessons include keeping a sense of humor, balancing enthusiasm with responsibility, focusing on results—not excuses—treating failure as a valuable teacher, emphasizing quality, and speaking up to get respect.
Although he’s based in Massachusetts, Hemphill said 73 percent of his subscribers are from California.
“Californians are just getting plummeted by all the negative stuff that’s coming out of schools. And the parents need something to offset that. And that’s what my program does,” he said.
Hemphill believes that his program can help students more than critical race theory—an ideology that divides society into oppressors and oppressed based on race.
“I’ve had people say to me, Paul, your program is the only program out there that counters critical race theory,” Hemphill said. “Everything coming from critical race theory makes you want to hate yourself, hate your country, whereas everything from your program makes the student want to really like themselves, appreciate themselves, and appreciate the country in which all these freedoms and opportunities are available.”
The company is inspired by a best-selling book he wrote in 2018, called Inspiration for Teens. It consists of 200 life lessons from 88 true stories with moral values from U.S. history.
The stories are available on video and audio for homeschooling and personal growth.
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