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Is SOTW secular?  

post #1 of 37
8/17/05 at 11:00pm
Thread Starter 
That's all Thanks in advance.
post #2 of 37
8/17/05 at 11:05pm
Well...yes, until the end, when it gets heavily into the emperor Constantine seeing a vision of the cross during battle. The author in her website makes no bones about being Christian, and I think you can see traces of it, but I'm Jewish and I'm using the book - I'll just discuss bias with ds when we get to the last chapter. HTH!
post #3 of 37
8/17/05 at 11:28pm
We're going to use it as a read-aloud because it looks fun - I'll let you know. Altho I'm sure you'll get varied responses here in the meantime, of course!

I'm Catholic but greatly prefer secular materials, myself. I looked at Sonlight for instance and it was too Christian for my tastes, if that gives you any idea about my discernment.
post #4 of 37
8/18/05 at 1:01am
Like the PP said, the author IS Christian. However, she does cover the foundings of several different religions (Christianity, Buddhism, Muslim...) and gods/goddesses (Egyptian, Greek...).

I'm a Christian and it doesn't seem to have much religious tone to it. *shrug*
post #5 of 37
8/18/05 at 3:20am
Thread Starter 
Thanks guys!

Like Feebeeglee, Dd and I picked it up (Volume 1 Ancient Times) just because it looks fun and interesting. I hadn't had time at all today to look through it though, so I was just needing someone to shed a little light. I am a Jesus loving Wiccan who practices Buddhism so clearly religion is no issue in and of itself...I just was hoping it wouldn't be over the top fundamentalist etc, and it doesn't sound that way from the replies. Cool
post #6 of 37
8/18/05 at 3:26am
My perspective, after going through 4 books with my son, is that yes, this is a secular resource. I also find it to be enjoyable and wonderfully written. It's almost like the Durants for children -- which is what we'll be reading together next! My bias is that I am Christian -- Episcopal -- very liberal in some ways, traditional in others, and uncomfortable with most Christian homeschooling resources. I'm very, very poor when it comes to evangelism or fundamentalism.

peace,
teastaigh
post #7 of 37
8/18/05 at 9:26am
It isn't 100% secular. In the first book I had to correct the story of Abraham and the 12 tribes of Israel. Actually I taught the Judeo/Christian version and the Muslim version of Abraham and left as a histories mystery (Time and National Geographic has good articles on it). Specifically taught that this story is widely held real by many people but we do not know the truth. I do not want to leave out an important aspects of peoples (modern and ancient) belief system. I think ignorance of other’s beliefs is why we have some of the problems we do in this world today.

I have to admit that I have done this with other books and stories and SOTW is not over the top Christian just a chapter here and there. Some of it is necessary to know to understand what is going on in the world.
post #8 of 37
8/18/05 at 10:54am
It isn't secular. Chapter 6 in Vol 1 is God Speaks to Abraham and Joseph goes to Egypt. I haven't gone much further than that so not certain how many "bible" stories are included. However it is not done in a "preachy" matter and it does cover stories from other relgions.
post #9 of 37
8/18/05 at 10:57am
I was going to chime in that it isn't secular. It relies heavily in ancient history on Biblical accounts. It's also rather more heavily centered on the Christian world than on a global perspective.

ETA that I read the first chapter of it and it was grossly inaccurate (not just simplified, INACCURATE) in it's account of the first farmers and nomads vs. hunter-gatherers. (confounded nomadism w/ hunting/gathering, implied that h/g's were dirty, etc.)
post #10 of 37
8/18/05 at 11:02am
Jumping on high horse here ......

Sorry for the little side track, but I think that in many "Christian" minds secular means not pertainly to any particular branch of Christianity. We went around this issue before when I said Calvert K wasn't secular because it talks about Christ at Xmas and the music tapes had songs about God. I was basicaly called a lier for saying it isn't secular.
post #11 of 37
8/18/05 at 11:10am
Just saw Ch37.... The Birth of Christ and Jesus Crucified and Resurrected. Only 5 pages long and is just a breif overview. Very easy to either skip or use as a basis to explain what others believe.
post #12 of 37
8/18/05 at 11:10am
Does anyone know if Hillyer's A Child's History of the World is secular or how it deals with early man?
post #13 of 37
8/18/05 at 2:54pm
I'm interested also. I just started reading SOTW Vol.1 w/dd. Luckily we just started, but I got a funny "this is too simple" feeling just from the first chapter. I don't want to have to second-guess everything we read (or look up the info elsewhere). I know all literature has bias (especially books on history unfortunately), but I was hoping this one was well-rounded and not ethnocentric like others. We don't plan to read several different versions of each historical event just to see the different biases, jeesh, she's only 8.


I hope someone knows of something better out there....

:
post #14 of 37
8/18/05 at 3:00pm

ummm...

: What is SOTW? Thanks
post #15 of 37
8/18/05 at 3:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda on the move
Does anyone know if Hillyer's A Child's History of the World is secular or how it deals with early man?
There are some good reviews at Amazon....

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846

One that stands out (I only quoted part of it, per MDC guidelines)....

Quote:
Here is an example from page 5: "...before this, there was a time when there was NO WORLD AT ALL! No world at all! Only the stars, and God, who made the stars."

You've got to be kidding me. If you're trying to market your Calvert Homsechooling program as non-religious (which they do), you're going to want to take the references to God out of the history book and put it in a religion book where it belongs.
My other strong objection is the Euro-centric focus of this book. A child reading this book would think that nothing ever happened in any other part of the world except Europe since the beginning of time.

Has anyone "read" The Usborne Book of World History? Is this the only truly secular children's resource on history out there? :
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846
post #16 of 37
8/18/05 at 3:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wynkenblynken&nod
: What is SOTW? Thanks
The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child by Susan Wise Bauer
post #17 of 37
8/18/05 at 3:34pm
Thread Starter 
Loving all these comments/perspectives. I will have to update after I've read the book a bit. Discussing the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus won't be a problem for us, Dd knows all about that already (and my take on it). I just was concerned that the book (series?) might have a "Christianity is the only right one" kind of flavor to it, and that kind of thing creeps me out.

I am thinking I should have titled the thread "Is SOTW Christian?" Because that's really what I was wondering most about lol.
post #18 of 37
8/18/05 at 3:47pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sha_lyn
However it is not done in a "preachy" matter and it does cover stories from other relgions.
Ahh, yes that's what I was hoping for. Religious stories/history are no biggie but I absolutely do not want preachy. Good to hear
post #19 of 37
8/18/05 at 3:54pm
Question/clarification for those who are using SOTW as part of the classical education system: Do I understand correctly that the first go-round of world history is simply a more or less unquestioning relating of history as a series of stories? Don't they go through all this history again 4 years later and begin questioning and comparing at that point, then cover it yet again as a teenager using original texts, critical analysis, etc.? If so, the basic simplicity of the stories in SOTW wouldn't bother me much. Different parents might choose to portray different parts of the book as more certain than others, but I thought the idea was to use the book *in conjunction with* other resources (such as Usborn History of the World) to give the child a framework of knowledge on which to hang further history study in the future. Do I have that about right? Hope so, because I've been planning to start this program with dd next year!

Ultimately, if you use *any* single source for information, you will get inaccuracies, don't you think? That was one thing I liked about the history program in TWTM -- it seemed to encourage digging into other sources, fact checking, etc. (Though probably more so in the higher age groups.) Ravin, thanks for the heads-up about the first chapter. I will consult some other sources before we cover it.
post #20 of 37
8/18/05 at 3:56pm

Thank you!!

Ya learn something every day!
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