Let’s talk about history streams.
Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast. I’m Sonya Shafer.
We have received several questions recently about history streams in our curriculum. So
we wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes look at our streams and why we chose them.
For those of you who may not be familiar with that term, streams, in an educational context,
it is how we describe the practice of offering more than one focus in
a particular subject during the school year. Charlotte Mason often had her students learning
about more than one country’s history during the year. For example, she might have them read
and narrate English history a couple of days per week and French history another couple of days in
the week. So it’s helpful to picture them as two history streams, flowing through the school year.
Now, when it came time to determine our history streams, we knew that they would
not look exactly like Charlotte’s. Her programs were designed for students who lived in England
100 years ago, many of whom studied in classroom settings. We wanted our program to be designed
for Christian homeschooling families who live in America in the 21st century. But we definitely
wanted to stay true to her methods and principles. So we took a look at our goals and at Charlotte’s
guidelines for teaching history in order to come up with history streams for our curriculum.
One thing that was very important to us was helping our children place
Bible history in the context of what was happening in the world at the time. When we were growing up,
we learned Bible stories in isolation; they were simply stories that we read
on Sunday or in Bible lessons. It never occurred to us that those were actual historical events
that happened side-by-side with other world history events. For example, we learned the
account of Joseph’s interpreting the pharaoh’s dream and being promoted to second in command;
but we didn’t connect that event with the history and culture of ancient Egypt,
because the Bible accounts were not presented in a historical context.
So we wanted to make it a priority for our children to learn about Bible history
alongside the world history of those time periods. They needed to see how the decisions
that those Bible characters made were made in the midst of trends, beliefs, and traditions
held by the people around them. Our children needed to learn about the stronghold that idol
worship held in ancient Rome from the centuries filled with their worshiping gods and goddesses,
so they would grasp the significance of why the mob chanted, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians” for
hours, and the violence with which they attacked Paul for daring to talk about Jesus Christ.
When the children understand that context, they realize what it meant for him to stand against
the popular culture of that day in that town. When Paul revealed his Roman citizenship
to avoid an unjust beating, it adds depth to realize all that Roman citizenship
stood for and why. And when he appealed his case to the emperor,
more comprehension dawns if you know who that emperor was and what he was like—in fact,
what direction the Roman emperors were heading morally at that time in history.
When you know the historical and cultural context of a Bible event, you understand much more about
the personal experience and gain more spiritual insight and fortitude from the person’s example.
So presenting Bible history alongside world history was one goal.
Another goal was that our children would understand the long
chain of cause and effect that led to the founding of their own country, America.
Studying history in chronological order is the best way for students to trace cause and effect
in the events. That’s a Charlotte Mason principle. She explained that in history studies “the work
throughout the Forms is always chronologically progressive” (A Philosophy of Education, p. 177).
In the scheme of things, the United States is a young country. England can trace its history way
back to ancient times, but America didn’t come on the scene until Early Modern times. So we
wanted our children to see that pageant unfolding as they worked their way through history and also
understand what was going on in the rest of the world as American history happened.
As the world becomes “smaller” through technology, it is increasingly important that our children
learn to lift their eyes and see the big picture of history as it happens around the globe.
Focusing on just one’s own country can foster unwanted attitudes of arrogance and prejudice.
Other countries have histories too. Let’s help our children see that history is the story of our
fellow human beings, no matter where they live on this planet. As history rolls on in modern times,
interactions between humans around the world become more vivid and more frequently intertwined.
Charlotte understood the importance of learning about other countries. In fact, that was one
of her principles for studying history: don’t study your own country in isolation.
She encouraged us to “Let [the student] know what other nations were doing while we at home were
doing thus and thus” (Home Education, p. 281). History helps us gain knowledge of our fellow man,
and when it is studied properly, it helps us become better global neighbors.
Of course, we wanted to use living books to teach history. Since the Bible is the Living Book,
Its historical accounts fit quite nicely in our history book lists.
And we wanted to adhere to Charlotte’s principle of bringing in primary sources,
literature, biographies, and historical fiction of the time periods for the older students.
So with all of that in mind, we put together our history streams.
The first three studies present Bible history as one stream, the accounts from Genesis through
Acts, and bring in ancient world history as the second stream. These studies are spread over
three years, because following Charlotte Mason’s principle of not hurrying through a time period,
we didn’t want to cram all of the events from Creation through Paul’s missionary journeys into
one year. Spreading it out also allows us to focus on ancient world history as stories of people,
shining the spotlight on those major nations that were the influencers as the centuries rolled by
and gleaning rich character lessons from their prominent citizens.
Once we have covered all of the historical accounts in the Bible,
we have only the epistles and Revelation left and will bring those in as Bible lessons on the side.
So we pick up the world history stream with a study of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
while the other stream focuses on church history events, picking up where Acts left off, from the
early church through the Reformation. As we arrive at the Early Modern era,
the fledgling nation of America comes on the scene. One history stream focuses on
world history events and the other on American history during those years.
And Modern Times continues those two streams up through present day:
world history and American history. Studying the two streams side-by-side adds
understanding to the world wars and other major conflicts of the era.
There you have it: the history streams of the Simply Charlotte Mason Curriculum. Do we think
that our application of Charlotte’s principles for history is the only way to do it? Not at all.
It is simply our attempt at applying her guidelines to fit a modern American home school,
and it reflects our heart’s desire for children in a Christian home
to know the Bible well and Bible history as real events in the context of world history.
If you share the same goals, our history studies are available to help you reach them. The book
lists are posted on our website by time period, along with our suggestions of where you can find
each book—from SCM, at your local library, free online, or at your favorite bookstore.
Feel free to pick and choose or use all of those favorite living books for history.
We have also been adding bonus titles to our book lists that you can use for
substitutions or leisure reading or to create your own heritage history stream.
If you would appreciate more guidance along with the book lists,
daily lesson plans are also available to walk you through those books for every grade level
one day at a time. I’ll leave links in the show notes to the book lists and
lesson plan guides for you for all six studies. Don’t you find it encouraging that Charlotte’s
methods and principles are so sound that they can be adapted in different centuries and settings
and still remain so astonishingly effective? That’s the beauty of a Charlotte Mason education.