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Can we have a history discussion?
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Hello!
I’ve been looking at how different curriculums present history, and I’d like to pose a question for discussion:
Is it more preferable to study history of all cultures chronologically OR to study one culture/country’s history in depth, then work through another culture/country’s history? Or possibly some combination of both? I’m just curious as to different perspectives on this topic. I don’t know which I think would be better. I seem to remember CM said to spend some time in an era and really get to know it. (my paraphrase from memory – don’t quote me!)
Thoughts?
You hit on one of my favorite things to teach, and my response is…
We have done it both ways! I am really enjoying teaching Mod 5 this year, with a parallel study of American History and World History. For me, it helps to put so many things in context (like how our Revolution influenced the French and their Revolution, or how the French & Indian War spurred the French to help us in the fight against Britain).
To me, the main thing is that we study a particular era, and that, as students get older, they are building on their previous knowledge of that time. For example, this is the first time that my 6th and 7th graders have studied Napolean, because when we did this era before, it was primarily focused on American History.
I think as long as the information is given at their grade level (or supplemented to be age appropriate) the entire world studied in a particular era is not overwhelming for the child. Wish I had done this years ago!
For ancient history I prefer to do one culture at a time. Here is a post I did on that:
http://lettersfromnebby.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/how-we-study-ancient-history
The first time we did American history we did just that but this year we plan to look at Europe alongside it. When we did Middle ages I really liked Heritage History’s approach of looking just at Britain though we also spent some time in Europe more generally.
Nebby
We like the global approach. Genevieve Foster’s books are an excellent way to approach this type of study if you haven’t done so and need a good place to begin.
We aim for chronological and allow children to pursue studies outside our time period on their own. We have done the global approach and the focused on one culture approach. This year we’re doing focused and honing in on the beginnings of American history from native americans to colonies to revolution to pioneers. We’re largely ignoring what was happening in the rest of the world except as it interacts with America. Were we living in England or Australia or China I expect we would focus on our culture/nation and explore others as they interacted with ours.
We teach history chronologically. For ancients we had a main focus on one culture but also branched out to what was happening in the rest of the world as well. During our Ancient Rome study year we also started teaching Canadian Studies alongside world history. So for the first year we focused on the Native Americans all throughout Canada starting on one coast and working our way across the country studying each native culture along with the geographical area that they lived in. So it was also a canadian geography study as well. We also teach other “Canadian Studies” topics along with our history as well. I try to keep both world history and Canadian history mostly centred in the same era so that we can more easily make connections between how the events in the rest of the world were effecting the events in Canada. Obviously, until the Ren. and Ref. time period there is not as much history to be taught for Canadian Studies so we fill in the rest of the year with more Canadian geography, culture, etc.
The first year history covered Native Americans for C.S. as we were studying Ancient Rome and It’s effect on the rest of the world at the time. The next year C.S. history was a focus on Vikings and their early exploration of Canada, interaction with the natives as well as Viking culture as we were studying the Middle Ages for World History with the main geographical area being covered was Europe. This year we are studying the Ren. and Ref. for World History and our Canadian Studies have now really jumped up a notch as we have more actual Canadian history to cover in that same time period now.
Hope that makes sense!
-Miranda
Thanks for sharing how you teach/ learn history in your homeschool. I first posted this question because my daughter and I were reading some of A Child’s History of the World, which i’ve seen on many homeschool book lists. She seemed less interested in the book than I would have expected until I began thinking about how she had been learning about history previously– through biographies, I’d planned to continue this conversation a little more, but I find myself very tired and unable to think clearly, much less type correctly. 🙂
Don’t forget to use your Book of Centuries to help keep it straight and make connections, whichever way you go! 😉 That has really helped me as I have been reading across the different historical periods.
Thanks, Sheraz. We keep a fold out family timeline that we add to weekly. It is a great visual.
I just read this post from the SCM Blog. Sonya has explained history in a CM education so clearly.
http://simplycharlottemason.com/2012/06/06/teaching-history-subject-by-subject-part-3/
I’m certainly no expert as this is my first year, but we did sonlight this year so I could figure out CM and how to plan etc. this year we are doing a brief overview of world history. That is ancients thru present day!! yikes!! LOL I thought it was ancients only, but realized my mistake on box day. My kids are young yet 7&8 so I decided to timeline like crazy and do the world and we are doing world geography as well, which kids are loving. They showed an interest in the states and caps so we are doing those too on our own as a game. I have decided to do mod 5 next year with tweaking since we will have done world history this year, I am substituting Texas history for the world history portion. Year after that I will do mod 6 and still coordinate with Texas History. Then I will start the ancients mod and kids will be hitting junior high and I will use Foster’s world view books as they go thru the other modules so that they get more in depth at an older age. So I’m doing it completely different too. LOL
No help to you, but we will see. My kids like history right now, but their favorite isn’t the CHOW, but STOW audios that I added in. No matter how it is done, I know kids will have a much better grasp on history than I have ever had. I remember columbus, civil war, depression from school and that is it. So I am learning along with the kids and I think that is why they think it is cool because they hear me say all they time, “Wow, I never knew that!”
My husband almost fell out of his chair while watching American Pickers one night when my 7 year old says, “oh cool Mom, look at that egyptian sarcophagus. They will have to find a special buyer for that piece for sure!” Mean while, I was rolling on the floor laughing at my husband’s expression. I love home schooling!!
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