Another Sonlight vs. SCM question

I am a former SL user.  I am a former AO user.  I used each for several years.  Now I’m using SCM.  I do know what you mean about presenting both/several angles of a given issue.  I understand your not wanting to lose that.  I didn’t either.  I found myself being pulled back to SL at first (and second and third! ha =) not only because I was afraid that I would miss something, but because I was very stuck in my ways and had so much invested into it.  Then I had another child.  And another.  And yet another.  And I realized that SL was driving me crazy.  I couldn’t wrap my head around the scheduling and making it really be the type of education I really envisioned for my family.  I wanted more.  I wanted CM philosophies.  I wanted my children to love learning.  I wanted a balanced, wel laid out educational plan for my children.  Was that too much to ask?  Well, if a mama is driven crazy trying to fit everything in, the children are going to suffer somewhere, somehow.  So I went to AO because I thought they would each have their individual needs met, my oldest being almost entirely independent, and my youngers having the attention they needed.  How was this any different than SL you may ask?  Well, the reading was more spread out.  With SL I would have had to eventually have had 3 cores going, maybe 4.  Yeah, right.  Not a chance.  With Ambleside I felt not so confused about scheduling and not so overwhelmed.  BUT, after 3 years and adding another school aged child, it wasn’t right for our family anymore.  I was like a human ping pong ball.  YET, I wasn’t looking for anything else because I thought I’d looked at everything there was already.  But then I stumbled across SCM and I realized right away this was perfect.  I LOVE that the Bible is a main source of our history.  It’s as it should be.  I always felt that with SL and AO Bible was just kind of shoved into a corner.  With SCM it’s an integrall part of our study.  Once I was weaned off the SL notes using AO, I didn’t miss them at all, so it doesn’t bother me that SCM doesn’t have those kind of notes.  We discuss topics as a family, and no, I don’t pretend that we cover everything that is in a SL guide as far as points of view.  We probably don’t.  But I do know we just had a great discussion the other day about Cheops, about whether or not the people were in misery building his pyramid like the Greek Herodotus claimed, or whether they worked happily because their God-King told them to and they loved him.  This was talked about in one of our SCM books.  So even though we don’t have notes, we are offered through the literature we read, at times, various ways of looking at things.  Then we discuss it even more as a family.  We’ve found this to be enough.  As my children get older I can have them research a topic for themselves if I feel we need to dig deeper.  The style of learning that we are doing now very much outweighs for us any notes or guide that we could have access to.  But this may not be the case for you.  Maybe the guides are, in fact, more important to you.  It’s your call as the “MIC.”  (Mama in Charge )  You do what you feel is best for you kids.  Pray about it.  Talk to dh.  Maybe try it with SCM and no SL guide for a time to see if you like it or not.  I know I went back to SL several times before I finally broke away.  Now it almost seems funny that I had such a hard time.  But at the time it was very difficult so I know what you’re saying. 

As for me, I’m extremely happy with SCM and the CM philosophy and we’re growing into it more all the time.  For me it’s been so worth it. 

Best wishes finding what’s best for you and yours.

I’m surprised no one more experienced has chimed in on this one.  I wish I could tell you more about the balanced viewpoint thing.  I am finding with module 1 that our history feels complete.  I don’t feel like we’re missing any alternate view points.  It could be that we deal with that more when we get to modern American history.  I know AO uses a book in their American history program that my ds11 read that had the Revolutionary war viewed from the English perspective instead of always through American eyes.  I’m sure I’ll use that book again when we get back to American history.  I’m sure I will continue to add books that look interesting from AO and SL when we think it looks too good to be missed.  But I don’t feel like the module is incomplete without these books added in either.  Actually, I bought some Ancient Egypt resources that I thought I’d use as extras because I thought SCM looked too light in comparison to what I’ve used in the past.  I could have saved my money though, because I’m continually surprised at how much information is covered about Ancient Egypt in the books recommended by SCM.  Yes, the quantity is less than we’ve done in the past with some other programs, but the information I feel is very complete, and interesting, and most of all, my kids LOVE schooling this way.  My ds11 liked SL, he liked AO, but he LOVES SCM.  It really is different using the Bible as a main text than having it on the side.  It really does come to life when studying Genesis and hearing about Ancient Egypt and what kind of culture these men and women were encountering at that time in Egypt.  Our Bible study and discussion has never been this fulfulling.  Even if I find that something is unbalanced in years to come, I think it will be easy enough to add the books I want to make it balance out. 

This probably doesn’t help you much, but there it is for what it’s worth.  Since I’ve only done one term with SCM I can’t really share exactly what books I’d add.  Eventually we should all share these things to help others as they come to certain modules.

I haven’t read all of the posts, but I would encourage you to add in SL literature whenever you feel it is appropriate.  The SCM Modules are great guides…but I don’t think you lose the integrity of the program by adding in some other titles here and there.  It doesn’t have to be all or nothing…pick the titles you want and schedule them!  Do you have Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education?  That might be of some benefit to you as well…

HTH! 🙂