History begins as each human being's own personal history. Each
carries a personal memory of his own past. The beginning of it is
shrouded in each case, for each must learn of it by believing the
word of his parents. The end of it is likewise shrouded, although
each knows that the end is certain. This memory of personal events
and affairs... is an elemental human fact.
Linked with it is a second capacity, that of thinking reflectively
upon the meaning of these events in order to interpret their
significance. This capacity for philosophy and hence for a
philosophy of history is likewise a mark of the human. History,
philosophy and the philosophy of history begin with the fact of
human persons, qualitatively distinct as forms of life on this
planet.
The Lord of History, by Msgr. Eugene Kevane

I"ve been in a fascinating discussion of bias in history on another
email list and I thought I'd share some of what I wrote there for
your consideration here. I'm not an expert, just an amateur - in the
true meaning of amateur as one who loves the subject.

Someone on the other list made a comment that all history books are
biased and I contradicted that claim with this post.

Merriam-Webster defines bias this way:
3 a : BENT, TENDENCY b : an inclination of temperament or outlook;
especially : a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment :
PREJUDICE c : an instance of such prejudice d (1) : deviation of the
expected value of a statistical estimate from the quantity it
estimates (2) : systematic error introduced into sampling or testing
by selecting or encouraging one outcome or answer over others

Bias is a negative term, connoting a certain blindness to facts. I
prefer to use the term "worldview." Certainly everyone has a
worldview and it definitely colors the way we see things. A
worldview can become a bias, but not necessarily. There is also the
need to recognize the existence of objective truth. Not all
worldviews believe that there is such a thing. The Catholic
worldview believes and preaches in truth, not only as an abstract
idea, but also as a concrete fact. As Fr. Corapi says (I'm
paraphrasing) Truth is not just an idea, He's a Person!

In an earlier post someone made the comment that straight history is
facts, but any written history is filtered through the writer's
bias. I was discussing this whole thing with my history-major son
last night and he made an interesting comment. He said that a good
example of unbiased history would be a timeline, even they however
can show some worldview by what they chose to include or exclude,
but any history book has a worldview and you need to be aware of the
author's views when reading.

Now I love history and I love living books. But I refuse to
sacrifice truth for the sake of entertainment. A living book can be
both true and enjoyable, or false and enjoyable. In my mind a
biased book is one that contains factual errors due to the authors
conscious or unconscious prejudices stemming from their worldview.
They conveniently ignore facts that don't fit with their agenda. I
believe that bias comes ultimately from a fear of truth. Fear causes
us to try to change facts to fit our personal needs. A Catholic
does not have to fear the truth because we understand that man has
been warped by original sin and that although Catholics are human
the Church is divine. Catholics do evil things, many times in the
name of the Church, because all men fall short of perfection. But
the Church stands on a different plane, she contains no error, she
is the Body of Christ and Christ is Truth Incarnate. So a good
Catholic history text doesn't whitewash the human error in history,
he faces it, admits it and asks forgiveness for it. A bad Catholic
text falls into the trap of trying to make excuses for sin or
minimizing the errors. That's not serving the cause of truth.

Quoting Hilaire Belloc:
"The Catholic brings to history (when I say "history" in these pages
I mean the history of Christendom) self-knowledge. As a man in a
confessional accuses himself of what he knows to be true and what
other people cannot judge, so a Catholic, talking of the united
European civilization, when he blames it, blames it for motives and
for acts which are his own. He himself could have done these things
in person. He is not relatively right in his blame, he is
absolutely right. As a man can testify to his own motive, so can
the Catholic testify to unjust, irrelevant, or ignorant conceptions
of the European story; for he knows why and how it proceeded.
Others, not Catholic, look upon the story of Europe externally as
strangers. They have to deal with something which presents itself
to them partially and disconnectedly, by its phenomena alone; he
[the Catholic] sees it all from its center in its essence, and
together."

An unbiased book is written by an author who recognizes that they
have a particular worldview and is willing to see beyond their own
horizons and get into the skin of someone from a different place,
time and philosophy and really tries to see through their eyes.
That's good history.

I want to bring history alive to my children, but it must be true
history, history based on facts rather than bias and prejudice. We
read history written by a variety of worldviews and we compare them
to our own, this broadens our horizons and makes us more empathetic
and discerning. Teaching children to distrust all authors
because "everyone is biased" I'm afraid does the children a
disservice, undermines their willingness to trust and to believe in
the existence of objective truth.

This is not written as a judgement on others, just a description of
my personal educational philosophy.

OK, I've given you my opinions, which are based *not* on expertise,
but on lots of reading of and discussing with historians, Catholic
and secular. I look forward to hearing what others have to say on
this!

History is unique, in that all things come to us through history.
By relating other subject areas to the study of history we begin to
understand that all knowledge is related, that nothing comes to us
in a vacuum. I have found that my children's interest in other
subjects has been enhanced by their study of history.

American philosopher William James put it: "You can give humanistic
value to almost anything by teaching it historically.
Geology, economics, mechanics, are humanities when
taught with reference to the successive achievements of the
geniuses to which these sciences owe their being. Not taught
thus, literature remains grammar, art a catalogue, history a
list of dates, and natural science a sheet of formulas and
weights and measures."

Integrating several subject areas in your home has many benefits for
student and teacher alike. For students it helps them build an
understanding of the relationship and unity of all knowledge.
Modern schools compartmentalize subjects to the point where many
people today never consider the connection between mathematics and
music, or science and history. And of course, religion is not just
compartmentalized it's altogether banned in public schools! The
majority of people I meet today, outside of home education circles
don't think that religion has anything to do with their life other
than on Sundays.
That's the worst effect of compartmentalization in education. All
subjects need to be examined through the lens of Faith, not
separated from it, but permeated by it.
It has been said that true education is the building of
relationships, making connections between seemingly unrelated facts
and subject matter. How can this happen in a school where all the
facts are tied up in neat boxes with little or no overlapping
allowed? How can we call that education?"

One last point I want to make is that there are two general
categories of school subjects:
Skills Subjects (e.g. reading, mathematics, grammar, spelling,
handwriting, composition, art and music skills): These involve
incremental, progressive acquisition of particular skills. These
are best learned through practice and drill. Their historical
development can be studied to give insight into their importance and
to increase interest in learning, but the actual skill needs to be
taught systematically

Content Areas(e.g. history, geography, literature, science, fine
arts appreciation): This is a body of knowledge that is not
particularly ordered to a particular age-related progression. They
don't have to be studied in a particular order, although I highly
recommend a chronological approach. These are best suited to
formally including in your history studies. Many of the skills are
needed in order to study content areas and put them to use.

These two areas are not mutually exclusive, they complement and
strengthen each other. And one thing I've learned through 14 years
of home educating is to take the long view of things. You won't
pack everything into every school year. Do not dismay! Every
school year (or semester!) is an opportunity for new beginnings.
It's the cumulative effect, the year after year building up of
knowledge, wisdom, and understanding that will show in the long run.

When I was growing up in the Lutheran Church and public schools the
history "education" I received consisted of Sunday School lessons
about the Bible and "real" history taught in school. The only
school lessons I recall were American history. I cannot remember
ever having world history until I went to college. As for any
church history, none was formally taught, but my dad, who's
something of a history buff (mainly American and Norwegian history), talked
about church history at home, which of course began in 1517 with
Martin Luther. Anything between the Bible times and the Reformation
(and then a quick leap to America) was a hazy area called the Dark
or Middle Ages in young mind. And even that wasn't cohesive because I failed to
connect the fact that the Bible actually happened in a time in world
history. Somehow "Bible times" were disconnected from the real
world. Yes, I knew Jesus and the apostles were real people (we
didn't talk about Mary, except at Christmas) but all of this was
fragmented in my brain and I gave history no thought whatsoever
unless I had to take a test on it in school.

My personal revelation began with an introduction to classical
history in my freshman year of college, and later with my husband, a
cradle Catholic and history-lover, who knew about all kinds of
things I'd never heard of. It wasn't just his knowledge of
historical facts (he has a wonderful memory, which so far our sons
in particular, seem to have inherited) but his insights into the
causes and effects, the relationships and meanings in history blew
me away. In fact, it was such a shock to my world view that at
first we fought and argued about these things. I was a cradle-
protestant, and his ideas about history made me crazy!!

It wasn't until I became Catholic myself that I had a religious and worldview conversion. I can't pinpoint when or how it happened, but my world was suddenly turned 180 degrees and I found such peace and joy and excitement that I was
like a small child discovering the world for the very first time.
I'd hear Bible readings in mass that I would swear I'd never heard
before - even though the Lutheran church I grew up in was liturgical
and had most of the same Sunday readings as the Catholics. But now
the words made sense for the first time! And through home educating
my children I could suddenly see how everything was history: the
Bible, the Church, politics, geography, literature, music, art,
math, science....
History is taught in compartments most of the time, even in good
schools, Catholic schools, colleges.... You've got classes on Bible
History, Ancient History, Medieval History, Renaissance History,
Church History, Geo-political History, American History, Art
History, History of the Saints, History of Science, Greek History,
Roman History, the list goes on and on...

Connecting with History means de-compartmentalizing all of these
areas and putting them back together; integrating them so that
everything connects and makes sense. None of it happened in a
vacuum. The church didn't exist in its own little universe separate
from governments and politics. Artists and scientists don't live in
their own realm apart from popes and saints. St. Paul visited the
same Greece that Aristotle lived in; Moses' Egypt is the same Egypt
as King Tut's. Actually, the most integrated books on history tend
to be the ones on Church history because you can't talk about the
Church apart from secular events - it's all interconnected. But
Catholics have the opportunity to see that more clearly than most
people, even when they don't realize it.

Hilaire Belloc, in his book, Europe and the Faith, says it best,

"...the Catholic "conscience of history – I say "conscience" – that
is, an intimate knowledge through identity: the intuition of a thing
which is one with the knower – I do not say "The Catholic Aspect of
History." This talk of "aspects" is modern and therefore part of a
decline: it is false.....I will rather do homage to truth and say
that there is no such thing as a Catholic "aspect" of European
history. There is a Protestant aspect, a Jewish aspect, a
Mohammedan aspect, a Japanese aspect, and so forth. For all of
these look on Europe from without. The Catholic sees Europe from
within."
"The Catholic brings to history (when I say "history" in these pages
I mean the history of Christendom) self-knowledge.....Others, not
Catholic, look upon the story of Europe externally as strangers.
They have to deal with something which presents itself to them
partially and disconnectedly, by its phenomena alone: he sees it all
from its center in its essence, and together."
"For the Catholic the whole perspective falls into its proper
order. The picture is normal. Nothing is distorted to him. The
procession of our great story is easy, natural, and full. It is
also final."

That disconnectedness Belloc mentions is what I experienced
firsthand in my early life. The experience of becoming Catholic
and "the whole perspective [falling] into its proper order" was life-
changing for me. It's that conversion to the Catholic religion,
culture, and historical understanding which led directly to the
birth of Connecting with History. It is my own effort to share the
joy of discovering the richness and depth of true history. It is
why when we study history we need to study saints and scientists,
popes and poets, martyrs and musicians, the people and the events of
history through time as they happened, when they happened, where
they happened and even why they happened. That's when history
ceases to be just another subject to cover or just a list of dates
to memorize and becomes the story of life – our story, our history,
our heritage!
How do you put these ideas into practice??  Well, that's where Connecting with History comes in:

Chronology:
First of all, history is presented chronologically rather than
thematically. For example, rather than study the Egyptians, then
the Greeks, then the Romans, you study a particular period of time.
Within that time period you will come across people/events from
various cultures because they overlap. Cleopatra reigned in Egypt
when Octavius ruled Rome and meanwhile back in Greece and
Israel.... They lived at the same time, they interacted, they
affected one another. Studying these events chronologically helps
you see and understand the causes and effects. It helps answer not
only the "what" of history, but the "why and how."

Themes:
Although CWH is chronological, we do include themes for each period
of history. The themes are mainly spiritual ones, which connect the
various levels of history.

Levels of history:
History occurs on several levels. What we generally think of as
history is the geo-political level: the people, places and events
that make up history. But history also occurs on a spiritual level;
Divine Providence (aka God) is active in history, God doesn't just
sit back and watch the unfolding, He involves himself in world
events. The battle rages on the spiritual level between the demons
and the angels for control or the destiny of the world and of
individuals. The spiritual battlefield is in the souls of people,
you and I, your spouse, your children, your neighbors, world leaders
and ordinary people. CWH includes both levels of history, secular
and religious/spiritual. It does this mainly in reference to the
big events, but also attempts to connect the student to those events
and themes on a personal level.

Personal applications:
History isn't just other people, other times, other places. All of
us are living right now, right here in a specific time in history.
What we think and do in our lifetimes affects the lives of countless
others, in ways we may never even suspect. Some people are called
to do great things that will go down in the history books of the
future, but all of us are called to live greatly in our own sphere
of influence; our families, our neighborhoods, our parishes, our
workplace, our schools, etc. History becomes personal when it
teaches us lessons from others' lives and enables us to apply them
to our own. Through the themes, essays and discussion questions CWH
attempts to help students reflect on their own choices in life and
their God-given purpose, their unique vocation in life.

This is another element which makes CWH a distinctively Catholic
program. It's not just a matter of adding in saints and popes to a
secular or protestant program, it's about developing a Catholic
worldview and self-view.

Years ago, when I was a new homeschooling mom, a friend handed me a photocopied handout from a talk she had attended by a woman named Laura Berquist. The handout explained the idea of classical education and referred to "The Lost Tools of Learning" by the English scholar, Dorothy Sayers. Just a couple of years earlier I
had gone back to college to try to complete a degree in Developmental Psychology. I hadn't managed to graduate because baby number four came along and my oldest being only five, I was just too busy (and tired!) to finish those last few credits for my diploma. But what I appreciated in both of the essays by Berquist and Sayers
was the recognition of the developmental stages of learning in children. This focus on the needs and abilities of students at particular ages was something I hadn't seen emphasized in other homeschooling books or programs.

Now, a few undergraduate courses in child psychology do not an expert make, so please take this only as the idea of a mom of seven (ages 22-6) who has home educated her children for the past sixteen plus years; in other words, with a grain of salt. Taking into account the developmental stages of your children will enhance their ability to learn as well as their enjoyment and will make your task
as teacher an easier one! And since I write and sell history resources I'm going to illustrate how the classical stages of learning can color your approach to teaching history in your homeschool.....
Read more here...

 Connecting with History is a curriculum syllabus which explains why and how to teach all ages at once.  One family studies the same time period at the same time, each age group reading and studying at their own level.  The program contains background information about the time period, family discussion starters, ideas and instructions for each child to compile a history notebook which is added to as they study each time period, writing ideas, hands-on activity ideas, reading lists broken down into four main ages levels with daily reading suggestions. 

That's a quick overview.  For more information and ideas I recommend you join our email discussion group at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/connect_with_history/

A guide for implementing a very comprehensive history program for all ages from preschoolers through adults (yes, even mom!), “Connecting with History” also incorporates religion, literature, discussion, composition, scripture and poetry memorization, hands-on activities, and more.  The stated goal of this program is to help families better understand the Catholic Faith through the study of history, and to better understand true history through the study of the Catholic Faith.  Faith, facts and reason are intimately inter-connected in a way that is effective, easy, and interesting.  It is designed as four separate volumes covering history from Creation to the present, to be covered in a sequential four-year cycle.  Volume One is currently available.  Volume Two is available in units and will be available in its entirety by winter 2007.  Volumes Three and Four will be forthcoming shortly thereafter. 

Unlike other family-based programs on the market, “Connecting with History” provides a detailed and thorough history education at all academic stages (even high school) that is specifically laid out, offering both options and structure at the same time.  Because of it’s totally unique format, it is effective for virtually all teaching and learning styles, including those who prefer a Classical education (it is based on the trivium‘s stages of learning), theme units (it involves the whole family and many academic subjects), textbook approach (it utilizes core textbooks and fact-based books as its foundation, broken down into specific daily readings), Charlotte Mason (it is literature-based and offers narration, dictation, and notebook suggestions), or interest-driven (the students are encouraged to choose from various resources and activities).  Visually appealing, its use of large subject headings and charts makes it easy on mom.  Just a glance is needed to understand how to implement the program.  Coordinated products such as timeline cards, notebook timeline pages, student report pages, and complete literature units further simplify its use and effectiveness.

On a personal note, “Connecting with History” has far and away done more for my family than any other purchase I have made in eight years of home schooling.  Not only have we been brought closer together through this truly family-based approach to history, but never before has the truth of God’s Word and His Church, within the larger context of world history, been made so brilliantly clear to my children.  The discussion prompts and supplemental books and activities bring out the deeper concepts in a way that engages their intellects and helps them to connect the facts of their studies with their day-to-day lives and spiritual growth.  It has made home schooling enjoyable and interesting for the kids and myself in a way that nothing else has done (and I’ve tried the gamut of all the different educational approaches mentioned above, and countless products).  Additionally, my four children range widely in ages and learning styles: two have ADD and additional unique learning needs, one is a more typical learner, and one is a kindergartner who wants to be included in school with the rest of the family.  “Connecting with History” works for all of them equally well without overwhelming their pregnant mother who is plagued with health problems!  And though we operate on a very tight budget, the multiple subjects and grade levels covered with this product help to put our money to very good use without waste.  I cannot begin to recommend “Connecting with History” highly enough!

As we studied Volume One (ancient history and Old Testament), my children really understood Salvation History and the personal love of God as He continually reaches out in greater mercy and tenderness. They felt the newness of revelation when God called Abraham.  They felt horrified at the slavery in Egypt.  They felt the importance of obedience to God's Law when God gave the Ten Commandments and Moses proclaimed "I place before you today a choice: life or death. Choose life!"  They felt frustrated as Israel fell over and over again. They suffered during the Exile.  They rejoiced during the Return.  They felt the anticipation as Israel waited for the coming Messiah.  They understood the historical context of what was happening in the world at those times.  They understood the political upheavals, the greatness of Greece and Rome, and how God was preparing the world for His Son.  When we got to the New Testament, the study of the life of Jesus and the institution of the Church finally made sense in a way it never did before (even for me!).  Nothing has affected us quite the way this product has! 

For further information, please visit: 

http://www.rchistory.com/cwh_intro.htm 

 

Review by: C.H. (7-13-06)
Available from RC History (http://www.rchistory.com)

 

I recently received the following questions from someone interested in the program, but still confused about exactly how it works.  I've edited her questions and added my responses here:

 

Q:  Does the Connecting with History manual have activities for grades K-6? The sample I saw only had activities for junior/senior high.

A: Volume One has writing assignment suggestions for junior and senior high
students only.  There are brief suggestions for hands-on activities for all
ages.  We also suggest several books of hands-on activities for families who
want more of them.  Volume Two includes a lot more activities for all ages written right into the
program.

Q: Does K study Ancients, 1st grade study the next era, the 4th grader would study American History and 5th grade would start again with Ancients?

A: No, the whole family studies the same time period at the same time, but at
their own levels (although you can do some combining if you have children close
in age and/or a lot of kids to teach. So Year One the whole family studies ancient history and the Old Testament.   Year Two the whole family studies early church history/late Roman Empire/early  medieval times. And so on.

You go through the whole four-year cycle together and then year five you start
all over again.  But this time through each child is four years older than
he/she was when you did ancient/OT so they'll be studying it in a deeper way,
reading harder books, doing different projects and building on what they
already learned.

 

It's so much less complicated for the teacher (aka Mom) to teach one time period to everyone than try to keep track of four different time periods all at once!  And all the kids can learn from one another - and usually Mom, and even Dad, learns something new from the kids.  The whole family learns cooperatively, as a family, and that's so much more fun!!

The Connecting with History program started as an outgrowth of an ongoing conversation held on an email discussion group that I've been a member of for about 6 years. That group of Catholic home educating women discussed many topics, but the discussion of history and various curricular choices - or the lack of -caught the imagination of several of us. Over time a smaller group of women started discussing privately the idea of coming up with a curriculum of our own and we bounced around many ideas, sharing some of our own experiences, ideas that had worked and those that hadn't worked. This little brainstorming session eventually evolved into two of us working together to create a history curriculum that would meet our criteria.

What we attempted to achieve was to create a framework for an integrated curriculum with history as its core. One woman wrote out a wish list for the "ideal" curriculum that would include:
- flexibility
- chronology
- cross-curricular recommendations (integrating the arts and sciences, literature, geography and composition)
- core recommendations for an overview along with additional recommendations for a more intensive study
- usable with multiple ages, including suggestions for various age groups so that the whole family can work on the same theme at once, but each at their own level
- background information for the teacher, including Catholic perspectives and Church teachings
- litature-centered and integrated with writing: with recommendations for dictation, memorization and copywork
-suggestions for putting together student notebooks and timelines
-saints, scientists, composers, artists with biography recommendations by reading level within each corresponding era
-map outlines, timeline figures, laminated timeline cards
-vocabulary lists
-discussion questions
-a strong theme throughout regarding the reason to study specifictopics/eras: how it relates to our Catholic Faith/Church.

These were the initial goals that we had already begun to incorporate into writing our history program. During the summer of2001 we worked together - by email - to put all this into a usable framework that would fill as many of these wishes as possible.The result was our first edition of Connecting With History which included the study of ancient history and the Old Testament from aCatholic worldview. Our next goal was to come up with three more volumes filling out a four-year cycle of history studies covering all of world history, with the idea that once a family had gone through all four years of the cycle they would then go back to the beginning and begin again. As they cycled through a second time each child would be four years older than the first time and able to study the time periods at a deeper level.

In the meantime, however, life kept happening. In the spring/summerof 2002 our family made a major move from rural area to a semi-rural suburb in a nearby state. Meanwhile, my co-author has moved on to some other collaborative projects and was unable to work on further volumes of CWH. Once the dust had settled from our move I began working on the next volume of CWH by myself. By the next spring I was planning to have volume two ready for publication by mid-summer. July 15, 2003 our house caught fire and we lost most of our belongings and everything related to my business and the curriculum. Big set-back! Our subsequent family travails included displacement from our home for nearly a year, haggling with insurance company representatives, rebuilding our home, hastles with construction companies, sending off 2 more children to college within that year, and some stress-induced health problems that are ongoing. There was no time or energy for writing a curriculum!!
So CWH was once again put on the backburner until very recently.

Last  fall/winter I began reconstructing my plans for CWH,Volume Two. We began publishing it unit-by-unit over the summer and continue to upload new units to download individually.  Next spring, when the units are completed for Volume Two we'll publish them in hard copy form for sale.  Then we'll start working on Volume Three in the same manner.  You can see the ongoing work at the RC History website

 

ConnectingWith History is a continuing work in progress and your input can help us improve and expand upon our solid base!

• History is presented from a distinctively Catholic worldview.
  
• History is taught chronologically and in repeated cycles.
• The program is designed so that family members of all ages learn together.
• History is not taught as an isolated subject - religion, geography, literature, sciences and arts all have historical components which are included in the program
• We believe that children learn best when they are actively involved in their education.
  
• Notebooking, classical structure, copywork, living books, narrations, hands-on activities and writing assignments are all part of the program.
• Connecting with History is a flexible format which enables each unique family to tailor it to fit their learning and teaching styles.

Read Cathy Duffy's review of Connecting with History

The answer is no, and yes.

No one program will be perfect for everyone. Families are unique, individual teachers and students are, well, individual! The first step in evaluating any curriculum choice is first evaluating your family's goals, needs, your preferred teaching style and your individual students' learning styles and interests. To do this I can recommend some wonderful tools and resources:

First, find out what kind of teaching style is most comfortable for you. Andrea Chen, PhD Psychology (and co-author of volume one of CWH) has designed an excellent (and free!) on-line evaluation that has been found to be extremely accurate. Take her Teaching Type Test . Teachers who are most likely to enjoy using the Connecting with History program are those who like to design their own curriculum, but need some help and guidance or just need to save on planning time.

So now you have a better idea of your personal teaching style. It's also important to consider your students' interests and learning styles. The first year I began home educating my children I was very excited and idealistic. We would never use textbooks, make learning fun and hands-on, do lots of projects and follow our interests! My oldest child, however, had just come out of nearly 4 years in the public education system. She liked textbooks, worksheets and schedules. It wasn't just what she was used to, it related to her learning style and personality. It took several years of struggling to understand each other and find workable compromises before we found a system of "doing school" which worked for us both.

There are many, many books on learning styles available through your local library or bookstore. I'm going to recommend a short-cut that is less overwhelming and takes you to the core of things quickly - have each of your children take an on-line learning styles analysis. If you have only young children, go straight to the books, but if your child is reading relatively well and can use a keyboard they'll have fun taking the on-line test and you'll have immediate results and suggestions for your specific child.
There are two on-line tests that I can personally recommend.
Dr. Andrea Chen, again, has designed an excellent test that you can take at Mercy Academy"; there is also a very good test available here.

 

OK, you have a pretty good idea now of what kind of teacher you are and what kind of students you have. Now back to the original question, "Is Connecting with History for Everybody?" I answered no because no one program will ever please everyone.

But I also said yes.

Connecting with History isn't a heavily structured program - there are no pre-written daily lesson plans, no scripts for the teacher to read to the student, no written tests to take at the end of a unit. But, that's only what CWH is not.

CWH is purposely flexible to be easily adapted to almost any situation. It's a Guide that takes you by the hand and teaches you how to teach and learn history - from a Catholic worldview. For more on the Catholic worldview go to the Articles section of our website.

What Connecting with History provides is a structure to follow - the 6-step CONNECT system which is designed to lead you through each unit of a year's worth of history lessons at a time. It also provides background information for you the teacher to increase your own understanding of history in general and the specific time in history your family is studying. You don't have to be a history scholar to use this program, we give you the information you need to make your children think you know more than they do, and then you can learn right along with them, and even from them!

More specifically, Connecting with History prepares the teacher and student for each unit, includes teacher's notes and discussion starters, an overview of the time period so students know where they are headed, instructions for students to compile a notebook of projects and activities along with specific suggestions for each unit, planning charts for the teacher and students, writing ideas, hands-on activity ideas, and reading assignments for each unit with page assignments based on how much the "average child" could cover in a day. Also included is memory/copy work including poetry and scripture passages and research charts to help students focus in on the people and civilizations covered in each unit.

And don't worry, we also include a Guide to using the program which takes you step-by-step through the process so you're never on your own! CWH is like having a Catholic history teacher come into your home and teach you how to teach! If you're not already a history-buff, you'll soon become one!

Want more info? Go to Connecting with History. Or email your questions to me and I'll post them and my answers on this blog!

Another superb resource for understanding learning styles and how to choose the best curricula for your children's unique needs:

Cathy Duffy's new book
100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum: Choosing the Right Curriculum and Approach for Your Child's Learning Style

The first five chapters of this books are worth their weight in gold, and this is a hefty book!

Chapter titles include:

1. How on Earth do I Figure Out What Curriculum to Use?
2. "Drill and Kill," "Real Books," "Delight-Directed Studies"...What's Best?
3. Putting Together Your Philosophy of Education
4. Learning Styles: How Does My Child Learn Best
5. Who Should Learn What and When?

After those treasure-filled chapters Cathy goes on to give her top picks of curriculum materials, noting which ones fit which learning style/teaching style best.

This book is long overdue and would have saved a lot of people (including myself) a LOT of money, time and grief - but it's never too late to learn!! That's one of the great lessons of home education!

I got it at the library, but I'm going to have to buy my own copy because it's torture not to be able to take notes and highlight things in it!!

You can find it at Cathy's site:
http://www.cathyduffyreviews.com/index.html