Our first year schooling at home began in the Dark Ages of 1990. We ordered materials from the textbook supplier suggested by the local, non-denominational Christian support group. And of course, I hadn't a clue that there were other Catholic homeschooling families in the area. So we invested a hefty chunk of change at the local book fair. Devastation! Anti-Catholic jargon permeated the books beginning at the 3rd grade level. Fortunately, I met a Catholic veteran homeschooler midyear, that invited me to a Catholic Homeschooling Conference. While the materials were definitely faith friendly, they lacked color, appeal, and zest. Surprisingly, the Catholic vendors also suggested using some protestant materials with supplemental pages to counter the anti-Catholic slurs. I was at a loss, but did stumble upon a better path than the usual "biased textbook" approach to teaching.It happened that my third grader was questioning the presentation of some material in her Science book. We decided to look up the same scientist in a secular text, and then again in the rebuttal provided by the Catholic vendors. It was a beautiful lesson about publisher bias and not being able to trust everything purported in a textbook. This was also a "Renaissance moment" in our homeschooling experience. We turned to primary sources to uncover the truth. This exercise was repeated for the history lessons throughout the year. Little did we suspect it was a second step away from traditional education (I suppose home schooling was the first giant leap) toward a classical education. Check out this link which explains Primary Sources and how to verify information. http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/History/RUSA/
Wouldn't it be fabulous if home educators could receive the same tax payer funding as the public school system? With that kind of money per child, we could go to Egypt, Greece, and Rome while studying Ancient Civilizations. Since it was always more of a daydream than a possibility, we visited those places in our imagination with the help of living books (lots and lots of books) and internet resources. It definitely spurred a wanderlust in all of my children. I think they also an inherited the travel gene from my Dad's side of the family. As a teenager, his father took an unexpected journey as a stowaway on a slow boat to China (literally), which in a VERY roundabout way led to a career in Aruba, where my father was born. As an adult, my dad joined the military and raised his family across the USA, with 4 year stint in Okinawa. Last count I had attended 16 different schools before finishing high school. Don't ask me to recreate that count. My memory isn't what it u...
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