Thirteen Things You Should Know about the “Thirteen Things Every Student Should Know” Program
The National Society, Sons of the American Revolution, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. Its mission is to honor Revolutionary War patriot ancestors by promoting patriotism, serving communities, supporting education, and inspiring future generations about the country’s founding principles.
The “Thirteen Things Every Student Should Know” program is one way that mission becomes classroom work. It is not a complete biography, a test, or an official verdict on a founder. It is a short, grade-leveled starting point—thirteen carefully chosen facts plus an opening line and a closing “most important thing to remember”—meant to get students talking and then send them into deeper study. That design matches the SAR’s educational purpose in several ways.
Thirteen Things…honors not only battles, but people. The American Revolution was won with both the sword and the pen. It honors not only battles, but people. Remembering writers, organizers, and controversial thinkers is part of remembering patriot service.
Thirteen Things… is built for discussion. There are thirteen points that are few enough to read in one sitting and many enough to argue about. Which fact matters most? What is missing? Was Thomas Paine a patriot, a propagandist, both, or something else? Those questions are the point. The program is meant to open a conversation, not close it.
Thirteen Things… invites further study. Elementary School students can ask questions, draw images and create posters, act out scenes, and ask their librarians for books about the topics. Middle School students can discuss the topics, find books to read, or debate the topics with their fellow students. High schoolers can use the topics for essays, orations, documentary videos, or story ideas. Students are expected to check sources, compare accounts, and go beyond the handout to founding documents, letters, and serious biographies.
Thirteen Things…is nonpartisan. The SAR does not exist to promote a political party or a current campaign. The program presents founding-era people and principles—self-government, rights, consent of the governed, the costs of independence—so students can examine them. You don't have to agree with every opinion a founder later held. Honest study is.
Thirteen Things…scales by age. The same person can introduce the same content to elementary, middle, and high school students with different vocabulary and depth. That lets chapters, teachers, and families use one program across grades while still treating older students as capable of complexity, including disagreement among historians.
Thirteen Things…serves the community. Chapters can take these lists into schools, libraries, scout meetings, and Constitution Week or patriotic events. The service is the offering of free, usable educational material that points students toward the founding era and toward individuals who made a difference—famous or neglected, celebrated or contested.
In short, “Thirteen Things Every Student Should Know” is a civic education tool. It honors our founding ancestors by teaching the next generation that the Revolution had authors as well as soldiers, that founding principles can be stated clearly, and that those principles are worth studying further rather than merely memorizing.
Thirteen Things… downloadable documents are free and are meant for non-commercial, educational use.
To support our mission, when distributing Thirteen Things… documents, please include the SAR logo.
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