Since finishing my formal education in May at RPI, moving to the city, and landing in the midst of a bunch of intellectuals and thinkers, I’ve realized just how valuable my education was - particularly junior high and high school, when my parents were homeschooling me.
Neither of my parents have a college degree, and when they started homeschooling in 1994, it was still a somewhat freakish and strange idea. Back then, we still had to explain what homeschooling was to inquisitive strangers and family friends. Mom and Dad still had to defend the idea to people. Everyone had an opinion, and though most people thought it was a neat idea, there were plenty who thought they’d ruin me for all time and I’d end up ignorant and uneducated. (For the record, they were horribly wrong. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from RPI in four years, made the Dean’s List every semester, and had my pick of employers.)
I’m sure Mom and Dad would say that it’s all God’s grace that they managed to find good curriculum and teach it to me and my brother, who is now turning in a truly impressive academic performance as a junior in his first year of “real school”. I remember them doing a lot of research and talking to a lot of teachers and homeschooling parents while they chose the curriculum. Whatever the limitations they were up against, they gave me a truly fantastic secondary education, both scientific and cultural.
In my view, one of the worst failings of the traditional American educational system is its intense ethnocentrism. Students literally study American history every other year for their twelve years of school. We come to think that history began in 1492 and everything before that is kind of just a mush of names and dates with no chronology attached. For instance, how many of us stop to consider where in history the biblical Exodus story occurred, and why? How about knowing the church’s history intertwined with the Middle Ages? And why do we not study and compare the myths of the major civilizations? What are we afraid of?
And the other failing is simply that kids are taught what to think, not how to think, which is why the public is so easily duped by anyone who can talk eloquently, or by the “news lite” on the TV at 6:00 pm every night.
So now, I’m here to sing the praises of some of the books and curriculums that I am recalling nowadays in conversations.
Understanding the Times -
We did the whole kit & kaboodle of this, video series and all, two or three times in my education. As much as we grumbled as kids about the grownups taking over the conversation all the time (tongue in cheek now, though I think it was probably merited), I find myself recommending it a lot lately. This is definitely the most comprehensive worldview overview curriculum I’ve ever seen. It will rock your world. I’ve only linked the textbook, but there’s a lot of extra permutations. The book (a tome) is worth reading, especially for adults and high schoolers, and has excellent comparisons between different worldviews and discussions of what that means, and though I don’t agree with all their conclusions and analyses, I still think it has a ton of value.
Greenleaf Press Chronological History Studies -
I can’t be more delighted and grateful that we used this curriculum in junior high. We studied the Old Testament history, ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece, the Middle Ages, and the Rennaissance & Reformation - which is all the curriculum they’d released at the time. The emphasis is on reading historical fiction, learning about the myths of the culture, and following timelines to gain a good grasp on who and what was important and why at different points in history. It’s infinitely extensible to add art studies, mathematics, engineering (build your own trebuchet) - you name it. This is one of those things that I hope my mother didn’t throw out.
Church History in Plain Language -
This was my history curriculum for a year in high school, and I’ve read enough church history books to know that it is a step above. It is a balanced, comprehensive text of the history of the Christian church from Christ to the late twentieth century. The author does a great job of avoiding “this denomination is screwed up” discussions, to the point that I don’t know what his theological persuasion is. And that’s exactly what a history book should do. It is completely readable and fascinating, with a really interesting discussion of the recent history of the Roman Catholic church, a subject that most Protestants ignore completely but is vitally important to our world.
Sonlight Curriculum -
I have to qualify this by saying that I never participated directly in Sonlight, as they hadn’t developed it to my grade level at the time. However, my brother is five years younger, so I used to wait in breathless anticipation of the curriculum’s arrival and then read all the books. Sonlight teaches through “real books”, mostly historical fiction, that are placed into a framework by the curriculum’s developers. They also don’t shy away from reading books that may have offensive material in the latter grades, because they believe the Biblical idea of having your “powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil”.
How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig -
By Francis Schaeffer’s daughter. A hysterical and quirky look at worldviews and how your identity affects how you act. Lots of examples from L’Abri.
Easy Grammar -
I took grammar for every year of my education at home, and though four years at an engineering university pretty much destroyed it, at least I know my grammar is often poor. This book was the best. It’s a huge workbook, but I recall learning useful things like how to avoid dangling participles, the uses of “who” and “whom”, and what to do with prepositions, rather than obscure grammatical anomalies about which nobody really seems to care. (Very nearly ended that sentence with a preposition.)
Introductory Logic -
This is mainly a philosophical approach to logic, involving learning to spot fallacies, which is terribly useful when listening to talking heads and politicians. (That’s as opposed to mathematical logic, which I studied in college, though clearly they’re very related and mathematical-style logic is definitely covered in the book.) Nobody knows how to argue logically these days. This book helped immensely.
English from the Roots Up -
I studied Latin for two years of junior high school, as well as using several different Greek- and Latin-based grammar books, but I chose this one because I think it was ultimately the most useful. I credit this book entirely for my SAT verbal score (800). It teaches Greek and Latin “root” words, helping students learn to deduce the meaning of a word from its roots. Highly recommended.
Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? -
Best introduction to economics that I’ve ever read (inflation, supply and demand, etc.), and extremely easy to understand.
Are You Liberal? Conservative? Or Confused? -
I’m ticked that this book has gone missing from the library at home, as it’s the book that first explained clearly and concisely what political parties believe, what our party system represents, the leanings of different groups throughout history, etc. For instance, I didn’t know until reading this book that while Stalin and his crew were ultra-left-wing, Hitler and his people were ultra-right-wing. Suddenly, World War II made sense to me (before, I couldn’t figure out why we were allied with Stalin - seemed like Hitler and Stalin were on the same page, namely that of killing most of their citizens). It’s also the first book where I encountered (and subsequently embraced) libertarianism.
A Taste for the Classics -
I’m horrified to discover this has apparently gone out of print. It’s a fantastic, entertaining roundup of the most important pieces in most classical genres (chamber music, opera, symphony, song, concerto, etc.), along with accessible information about concerts and instruments and musical terms, all written for the non-musician (though clearly musicians will learn a ton). I think I learned more about classical music from this book than from any of my actual musical training.
And this one wasn’t strictly part of my school curriculum, but was quite good:
Deliver Us From Evil - a video series that the college Sunday School class at my church back home worked through one semester. Gives a really good overview of how our society got the way it is (with a standout discussion of pluralism), what’s good about it, what’s bad about it, what history teaches us, and what we should do about it.
Audience Participation Time:
Any books or curriculums in particular that you love or recommend?
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