secular, non-Eurocentric history text? does it exist? - Page 2

[luv-my-boys]

subbing

[Mama_Leah]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee

How Christian / Biblical is A Child's History of the World ??

Aimee

The dialogue assumes the reader is a Christian who believes in one God. Most times when religion is brought up it is in the context of how it compares to Christianity.

[yllek]

I'm reviving this old thread to report what we've finally decided to do for K history/social studies. For a while, I've decided to just do geography with ds until I could work out our approach to history. So far, we've done a bunch of map skills stuff and some landforms.

We started doing K12 K history, and it seems like it is going to fit the bill for us for the rest of the year (we go year-round, so we'll finish up their "year-long" curriculum by summer). It starts with a broad overview of the continents and a few key countries. Then it does some American history, mostly cultural stuff like national symbols, important holidays and a few key figures.

We are supplementing this with lots of picture books and a few encyclopedias, atlases, Google Earth, Discovery Education videos, etc. Ds is loving the continent study. We haven't gotten to the American history yet.

The other resource that seems like it might work for us is the What Your ___ Grader Needs to Know series by Ed Hirsh and Core Knowledge. I have a lot of misgivings about his basic philosophy, but while the text is a bit banal, it is also gentle, to-the-point non-fiction. I can deal with that. At least it isn't the fictionalized narrative that is sprinkled throughout SOTW. Ugh. Viewpoints seem general and balanced, for the most part. World religions are introduced, but no single religious viewpoint seems more dominant than the rest (although a Western perspective is, of course, clearly present). I thought the WYGNTK versions of history would be too light, but actually, I'm finding that I prefer that for K and 1st grade.

Anyway, ds is digging it. And so far, I don't feel like I have to censor or edit the readings. There's enough info, but it's not too much information. When ds is older, I'll probably look more closely at the Usborne/Kingfisher/DK options.