History At Our House

Preview of the 2010-11 School Year with HistoryAtOurHouse

February 24th, 2010 by mrpowell2

2009-10 has been an amazing year for HistoryAtOurHouse!  Thanks to all you homeschoolers, the program just keeps growing and growing, and 2010-11 promises to be best year yet!  This September, the HistoryAtOurHouse program will offer an ever expanding range of secular history products for families on any budget.  This is the time to introduce your child to their new favorite subject!  Read on to learn about some of the highlights of what HistoryAtOurHouse can offer your child in Ancient history, European history, and American history this September.

Ancient History

THE PERFECT INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY!

For the 2010-11 school year, the exciting HistoryAtOurHouse Ancient history program will be available to students at three levels:  Lower Elementary (ages 6-8), Upper Elementary (ages 9-11), and Junior High (ages 12-15).

The Lower Elementary program is the perfect place to start for students in 2nd-4th grade.  The Ancient World is an exciting universe, with larger-than-life characters like Tutankhamun, Julius Caesar, and Cleopatra.  It’s also an intriguing exotic world full of strange customs, mythology and ancient religions. And it’s a compelling tale of heroic deeds, such as the forging of the world’s first free societies.  Ancient history with HistoryAtOurHouse has everything that can make your first-time history student fall in love with history!

It’s also a perfect way for older students to move past simpler products like the Story of the World, and build a stronger foundation of knowledge.  For Upper Elementary and Junior High students, the HistoryAtOurHouse program provides the same inspiring stories, but with greater academic rigor.  Check out the HistoryAtOurHouse Curriculum Page to see how the program evolves to meet the needs of students at different levels.

HOW IT WORKS

HistoryAtOurHouse isn’t a bland textbook.  It isn’t a recorded reading on CD.  It is exciting interactive lectures recorded with live students and available as MP3 files for playing on your computer or portable player.  Students who use the program get exclusive access to an archive of recorded lectures on a month-by-month basis starting in September of each academic year.  They can listen to lectures, view maps and images as often as they like.  They also get geography maps and tests, and they learn how to appreciate art through the unique HistoryThroughArt program.

HOW TO LEARN MORE…

• Peruse this blog, and the main site to learn more on your own.
• Join the HistoryAtOurHouse Yahoo Group to talk with parents who already use the program.
• Join the HistoryAtOurHouse mailing list, for the latest news, including pricing options and exclusive registration specials.
• Contact Mr. Powell at mrpowell@historyatourhouse.com for a detailed syllabus for Ancient History.

European History

THE STORY OF EUROPE FOR STUDENTS OF ALL AGES

In the 2010-11 school year, European history classes are available to students of all levels:  Lower Elementary (ages 6-8), Upper Elementary (ages 9-11), Junior High (ages 12-14), and High School (ages 15-17).

HOW IT WORKS

As with Ancient and American history, students have access to interactive lectures recorded with live students and available as MP3 files for playing on your computer or portable player.  Archival access is granted on a month-by-month basis starting in September.  Students can listen to lectures, view maps and images as often as they like.  They also get geography maps and tests, and they learn how to appreciate art through the unique HistoryThroughArt program.

HIGH SCHOOL CLASSES IN EUROPEAN HISTORY

HistoryAtOurHouse introduced its High School level in 2009-10, and in 2010-11 will offer High School classes in both European and American history.  In this special program, students receive lectures, maps, and images as they have before, but they are also assigned independent readings and written assignments.  They are also challenged to take class notes and prepare for tests independently, although they are assisted in both these processes, to help them develop these skills for college.  The HistoryAtOurHouse High School program is the ultimate springboard into college for homeschooled students!

TO LEARN MORE…

• Join the HistoryAtOurHouse Yahoo Group to get the latest news on the upcoming European History program, including live classes and High School instruction.
• Join the HistoryAtOurHouse mailing list, for pricing and registration specials.
• Contact Mr. Powell directly at mrpowell@historyatourhouse.com with any questions.

American History

In the 2010-11 school year, Mr. Powell, creator and teacher of HistoryAtOurHouse, will be teaching live classes of American history to all levels:  Lower Elementary (ages 6-8), Upper Elementary (ages 9-11), Junior High (ages 12-14), and High School (ages 15-17).

LIVE CLASSES IN 2010-11

Every year, Mr. Powell teaches one segment of the three year (Ancient-European-American) rotation live.  In 2010-11, that will be American history.  This offers a terrific opportunity to homeschooling families who want to enjoy the value of live expert instruction.  Students in live classes call in to a conference-call at scheduled class times and talk with Mr. Powell directly.   They hear live lectures and are asked questions, and they are able to interject and ask questions themselves.  This provides a uniquely challenging and motivating environment.  Of course, recorded MP3 archives are also available to all students as they are every year.

EXTREMELY LIMITED AVAILABILITY!

Because of the growing popularity of HistoryAtOurHouse, the live Upper Elementary and High School classes were full in 2009-10.  In 2010-11, it is likely that ALL LIVE CLASSES WILL BE FULL.  This means that if you are interested in live classes, you should contact Mr. Powell immediately to see if places are available, and, where relevant to join the mailing list, so that you can be at the head of the line, if spots open up.

HOW TO LEARN MORE…

• Contact Mr. Powell at mrpowell@historyatourhouse.com for a detailed syllabus for American history.
• Join the HistoryAtOurHouse Yahoo Group to talk with parents who already use the program.
• Join the HistoryAtOurHouse mailing list, for the latest news, including pricing options and exclusive registration specials.

REGISTRATION OPENS THIS SPRING!

Registration for the 2010-11 academic year with HistoryAtOurHouse will open this June.  The best way to stay informed about pre-registration specials and to be the first in line, is to join the HistoryAtOurHouse mailing list.

Posted in Homeschooling Curriculum, American History, History, Homeschooling, European History, Ancient History, Secular homeschooling, History At Our House, History Curriculum | No Comments »

Those Who Cannot Remember the Past Are Condemned to Repeat it

February 2nd, 2010 by mrpowell2

Arguably the most famous quote about history, which even people who know little history themselves readily recognize, is George Santayana’s warning:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

This often misquoted aphorism is generally dismissed by both professional historians and laymen alike because it is seemingly facile.  Despite its apparent simplicity, however, this one statement of his — unlike his general philosophy, it must be said — is both precise and profound.  (Truth be told, I can’t find a single other historical or philosophical tenet of Santayana’s that I agree with, but I nonetheless view this statement as intrinsically valuable.)

One element of this quote that is indispensable to its meaning, but is nonetheless often misquoted, is the word “remember.”

Often one encounters instead the modified statement, “Those who do not understand the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Naturally, also, many are prone to substitute simply the word “history,” thus yielding a common variant, “Those who do not understand history are condemned to repeat it.”

The latter of these two unconscious substitutions is generally benign, but the switching of “understanding” for “remembering” is a serious corruption of the truth of Santayana’s insight.

People today commonly deride the memorization of historical facts as meaningless.  Anyone who has rote memorized information for a high school or college history test will be susceptible to this view, because, as everyone who has done this knows, once you’ve dumped that information onto the “scantron” sheet and you walk out of that testing session, you instantly forget it. Consequently, homeschoolers and other educators take the view that what matters is only a student’s understanding of history.

The problem with this view is that understanding without memorization is just as useless as memorization without understanding.  It really doesn’t matter if we understand whatever stories we hear in history class when we are exposed to them, if in the end, we don’t memorize their key elements, i.e. if we do not retain them in memory and carry them with us through our daily existence, without need for external reference.

Let me illustrate why retaining information in memory is as crucial as understanding with a couple straightforward non-historical examples.

I once understood all the basic elements of scuba diving, and after having sat through all the classes and done all the practice, I became a certified scuba diver.  Then, one summer in Mexico I went for a few dives and had a great time. That was twelve years ago.  I have since forgotten almost everything I learned.  Now, since I can’t remember what I once clearly understood, there is no way that I could safely go diving.   Similarly, having once worked as a programmer for over ten years, I understood certain systems analysis methodologies and applied them to assist my clients.  As much as I recognize abstractly the need for such a methodology in designing information systems, I can no longer implement it, because I don’t remember how to.

If I wanted to go scuba diving again, I would basically have to take a diving course all over again.  If I wanted to get back into programming, I would have to go back and study my old information systems textbooks.  In either case, I would have to repeat all the learning I did before, because I can’t remember it.

This is the situation Americans are in today when it comes to history.  How many Americans recall that the British once occupied Iraq after WWI–in a tutelary mandate to promote Western government? The United States is now in the same position, repeating history nearly a hundred years later. Does anyone remember that the British also attempted to turn tribal Afghanistan into an useful appendage to its global policies in the “great game”–another policy that America is repeating now. Nobody remembers these things.  Thus we are condemned to repeat them. Regardless of one’s political affiliations, anyone should want America’s foreign policies to reflect all the relevant knowledge that can render them viable.  Sadly, history does not figure in American policy-making or public discourse.

For those of us who know and remember history, the frustration isn’t just in seeing America make mistakes, it’s in seeing America make the same mistakes others made before, as another cycle of history repeats itself because we don’t bother to remember the past.

Posted in Education, History, Homeschooling, Secular homeschooling | 1 Comment »

Why Most People Think Memorizing Historical Facts is Useless (and Why It Isn’t)

November 27th, 2009 by mrpowell2

Why do most people think that memorizing historical facts is useless?

Because the way history is taught nowadays, it generally is.

Here’s a great example…

Who hasn’t been asked this question in what passes for a history or “social studies” class over the past fifty years?

What is worse, the question is now asked in a multiple choice format, with something like the following possible answers:

a) 1620

b) 1260

c) 1776

d) none of the above

e) all of the above

Don’t laugh!  A good number of publicly-schooled kids today would pick 1776!  (See this representative sample of high school students’ knowledge of history, courtesy of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.)

America’s students’ (and their parents’) knowledge of history is so poor because they were taught that the purpose of history was to learn seemingly useless facts like “when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock” and “who wrote the Declaration of Independence.”

Most students cannot fathom how an entire profession can exist whose purpose it is to collect disconnected atoms of antiquated information of no relevance to real life, but they can sense on some level that it is wrong. Thus they view history class as an exercise in meeting society’s irrational educational requirements, and they look to escape from those requirements as soon as possible.  What is worse, the smarter kids don’t just shrug and move on, they get angry and cynical, because their time and effort is being wasted so egregiously.

The writers of Calvin and Hobbes may be able to put a humorous spin on it, but the truth is that viewing historical knowledge as the intellectual equivalent of an appendix is a tragedy.

Why?  Because the empowerment that one can derive from history is real, and it can only be derived from history.  A mind equipped with proper historical knowledge understands how the world around it came to be (for better, and for worse), can see where civilization is headed, and more fully appreciates the man-made values that make life worth living.  By contrast, a mind that is not equipped with the unique perspective that history can provide is stranded in a world shaped by forces it does not understand, moving in a direction it cannot predict, surrounded by values it cannot fully appreciate and defend.

Consider the question of when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.  To know that this event occurred in 1620 is not useless — as long as it is understood within its proper context.

In part, that context includes knowing, for instance, that the Jamestown colony was already well underway (since 1607) and that colonists in Virginia had even created the first representative assembly, the Virginia House of Burgesses, a year before the pilgrims arrived. The story of Virginia’s more secular and commercially oriented colony and its traditions of political freedom is typically glossed over in modern textbooks, and yet it is arguably more important than that of New England.  While the latter ultimately produced such greats as James Otis, Samuel Adams, and John Adams, the former’s history culminated in George Washington, James Madison, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson.  Unquestionably, without Virginia and the Virginians, the American Revolution would never have happened.

But knowing about specific events from the past (such as the histories of the various thirteen colonies), collecting them into “Piles, higher and Deeper” (that’s what “PhD” stands for in history!), and being able to perform academic comparisons with them is not the ultimate purpose of history. The purpose of studying history is to develop the trait of historical-mindedness -- the ability to use the past as a resource for living in the present.

Where does 1620 fit in such a perspective?  For one, knowing that the pilgrims were escaping religious persecution during the period of the “divine right” monarchy of James I is significant, because the story of the religious civil conflicts in Britain following the Reformation is one of history’s important illustrations of the pitfalls of integrating Church and State.  There is a lesson involved in this story that demonstrates a universal truth applicable to human life.

Ironically, the Pilgrims did not learn this lesson.  Even though they are often portrayed as seeking “religious freedom,” they were as intolerant and theocratic as the England they left behind — indeed more so, as the Merrymount settlers could attest.  That is why people like Roger Williams were forced to leave Massachusetts in the1630s, and why tolerationism in colonies like Pennsylvania and Maryland was such an important development in colonial history.  It was these productive contrasts to the oppressive Puritanism of Massachusetts — paired with other such instructive contrasts from history — that made possible the greatest advance in secularism in the history of world government: the American Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The story of 1620 is but one episode in a long chain of logical developments that carries through the Revolutionary period and brings us to a conflict that continues to simmer in American culture.  Hence its further relevance. Some of the oppressive elements of Puritanism remain in the thinking of many Americans.  There are those, for instance, who view it as entirely legitimate that the government should legislate on matters of conscience, as long as they perceive such legislation to be compatible with their interpretation of Christianity, thus making the return of theocracy to America a very real possibility. These views are not, however, compatible with America’s founding principles, that in Thomas Jefferson’s words (from the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom) “our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions,” and they are contrary to all the progress that has been achieved since 1620.

Thankfully, the genius of the architects of the Constitution continues to protect us to this day.  However, to sustain the irreplaceable value of secularism in government consistently during our own lives, we will need the same historical insight that went into creating it. It is only by studying history that one can learn not only that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, but also all the crucially connected information, such as their reasons for leaving England and the kind of colony they created, as part of the whole story which renders that knowledge meaningful and applicable to life here and now.  It is only by means of the lessons of history that we can accept with the same conviction as Thomas Jefferson the need for a “wall of separation between church and state.”

If the memorization of historical information were widely taught as a component of a proper history education that stresses these types of revealing and relevant stories from the past, then memorization would not be viewed as useless, it would be seen as worthwhile.

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For a more detailed explanation of the value of memorization in history education, see my article in Secular Homeschooling Magazine, Issue #9, The Importance of Memorizing History.  And stay tuned to this blog for more upcoming articles on this important subject, including practical tips on how to foster meaningful memorization.

Posted in Pedagogy, American History, History, Homeschooling, Secular homeschooling | 7 Comments »

Funny, and Sad

September 30th, 2009 by mrpowell2

(Click on the image for a link to the full size comic.)

Hat tip: The Erlansons!

Posted in History, European History, Comics | No Comments »

Carpe the Diem!

September 9th, 2009 by mrpowell2

Hey folks, just to let you know, I’m busy giving lectures to students around the country (and the world!) and I haven’t had a chance to increase the registration fee to $20 yet, but I’m going to anytime now.  Follow the registration links (previous post) to get in on HistoryAtOurHouse for 2009-10 now, before the fees go up!

Posted in Homeschooling Curriculum, American History, Homeschooling, European History, Ancient History | No Comments »

By Popular Demand: HistoryAtOurHouse Registration Re-Opens Early for 2009-10!

August 13th, 2009 by mrpowell2

Registration for the American, Ancient, and European history programs for the 2009-10 school year is now open, and will remain open until September 7, via the registration page.

ANCIENT HISTORY REGISTRATION

Three levels of Ancient history instruction are available in the coming year:

• Lower Elementary (for students age 6-8)
• Upper Elementary (for students age 9-11).
• Junior High (for students age 12-15).

AMERICAN HISTORY REGISTRATION

Two levels of American history instruction are available in the coming year:

• Lower Elementary (for students age 6-8)
• combined Upper Elementary / Junior High (for students age 9-13).

EUROPEAN HISTORY REGISTRATION

Four levels (and live classes) available:

• Lower Elementary (for students age 6-8)
• Upper Elementary (for students age 9-11).
• Junior High (for students age 12-15)
• High School (for students age 15+).

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Now adults can enjoy learning history too!

August 10th, 2009 by mrpowell2

It’s official.  The HistoryThroughArt program for adults starts this fall!

Learn to see history in a new way by combining the abstract lessons of history with the visual power of art!

Put away those boring textbooks, and learn to love and understand history by relaxing your way through classes in art appreciation!

Go into battle with Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, and George Washington!

Learn what animated the great men from Socrates to Columbus to Patrick Henry to change the world.

Live the life of a despot with Cleopatra.  Be excommunicated with Emperor Henry IV!  Cross the Alps with Charlemagne and Napoleon.

Experience history as if you were there, and learn to visualize its meaning.

The HistoryThroughArt program combines the power of history and art.

Head over to the program webpage for more information, including a class schedule and syllabus.

Classes start in September. Don’t miss this opportunity to enjoy learning history!

Posted in American History, History, Art, European History, Ancient History, History At Our House, History Curriculum, History for Adults | No Comments »

So you think you know this painting!

August 7th, 2009 by mrpowell2

Of course, you know this painting.

But can you name at least ten things in the image that are painstakingly accurate, even though this scene never happened exactly as depicted?

Do you understand David’s historical theme, and how he achieved it?

Is this image propaganda, or is it one of the greatest paintings ever–or both?

Find out in History Through Art for Adults, coming this fall to HistoryAtOurHouse!  The program website will be up this coming Monday, with a full range of information about the curriculum and various registration options.  Look for it!

Posted in History, Art, European History, History At Our House, History Curriculum | No Comments »

The Power of Art and History Combined

August 6th, 2009 by mrpowell2

 Who is taking this child? From whom? And to where?

What powerful forces are tearing his life apart?

How does this dramatically depicted episode help us understand the fall of one civilization, and the rise of another?

 For the full image and the answers, subscribe to History Through Art for Adults, coming this fall to HistoryAtOurHouse.

In this course, based on the History Through Art component of my homeschooling curriculum, I’ll be examining works of art with adult students that I simply could not use with my homeschooling pupils.  This is because the visualization of history through art produces such a vivid result that it can in some cases be conceptually shocking and emotionally overwhelming.  Be warned, you haven’t experienced history this way before!

 History Through Art for Adults starts this September.  Stay tuned to this blog for more course information.

Posted in Art, European History, History At Our House, History Curriculum | No Comments »

Learn to Be Inspired by History!

August 5th, 2009 by mrpowell2

Who are these women?

Why are they in chains?

 Which of them is committing a profound act of heroism in this very moment?

What does this painting have to say about the course of Western civilization?

Find out in History Through Art for Adults, coming this fall to HistoryAtOurHouse!

Stay tuned to this blog for more information about this exciting new history curriculum for adults! Join the HistoryAtOurHouse mailing list if you’d like to learn more about the HistoryAtOurHouse homeschooling program, and be first in line to register.

Posted in History, Art, European History, History At Our House, History Curriculum | No Comments »