I just learned about a program by Pandia Press (who also does R.E.A.L. Science) called History Odyssey. It’s kinda Charlotte Mason-ey, in that it focuses on living books and history through stories as much as possible, rather than pure textbooks.

It’s a bit more structured that “pure” CM, though, since there are some guided question-and-answer activities, not just “pure” narration.

When you buy History Odyssey, you’re not buying a textbook… you’re buying a schedule, you’re buying organization.  You’re getting a fully coordinated program incorporating different literature materials as well as hands-on activities.  The “level two” programs (where Flipper would be) gradually introduce the skills of making and using outlines, and writing research reports.  These skills are taught with much hand-holding, step-by-step guiding through to eventual independence.  This is the way he needs things, fully spelled out — but still with room for individual creativity.  I think the way it’s done would be a good match for him.

When I started our CM-inspired approach a couple months ago, I followed the instructions at an online Charlotte Mason site (I can’t find which one, at the moment… I downloaded an e-book planner…) for setting up my own history curriculum, based on spine books we already had.  I thought I came up with a pretty good program, coordinating with lots of living books.

But now that we’ve been into it a little while, I’m not completely satisfied with it.  I think there could be so much more, especially in the hands-on activities area.  I’m just not very good at coming up with those kinds of things myself.

We’ve been using NOEO Science this year, which is a similar kind of system (a schedule of readings and assignments using third-party resources) and I like having the schedule already laid out for us to follow.  I know that I could organize something like this myself, but to do it with the depth and completeness that NOEO does would take… well, more time than I have.  I can trust that the program is well thought out without worrying that I missed something.

So I’m contemplating trying History Odyssey for similar reasons.  It would take a lot of pressure off of me to trust someone else’s organized schedule.  Of course, avoiding someone else’s arbitrarily imposed schedule is one of the reasons we’re not in the regular school system in the first place!  But, if an externally-imposed schedule is accepted willingly because it synchronizes with your own ideas and philosophies and is similar to what you would put together yourself had you the time and talent — then why the heck not follow it?

Pandia Press offers a wonderful Try It Before You Buy It option, which I think is just fantastic.  Rather than just a few random sample pages, you can download the first couple month’s worth of lessons for free, and try them.  If it works for you, then you buy the whole thing to continue.  If not, no great loss.  What a great expression of confidence in the success of their product — and of respect for the homeschooling parent, who often has great quandaries and dilemmas comparing countless curriculum options, evaluating the perfect match for our families without being able to leaf through everything, trying to figure out what really is worth spending our limited financial resources!

My only real concern is that the level two Ancients program, which we would start with, uses The Story of Mankind as one of its main spine books.  Being an older history book (originally from the 1920′s), there are many cases of author bias and inaccuracies.  Whether these are serious enough to actually be a problem is a matter of some debate, with many homeschoolers finding them not in the way at all, and others completely ditching the book because of them.

This blog entry, comparing SoM with another similar resource, is very interesting and would tend to lead me to worry about SoM.  For example, this quote about Phoenician traders:

They bought and sold whatever promised to bring them a good profit. They were not troubled by a conscience. If we are to believe all their neighbors they did not know what the word honesty or integrity meant. They regarded a well-filled treasure chest as the highest ideal of all good citizens. Indeed they were very unpleasant people and did not have a single friend.

But I can’t truly know until I’ve had a chance to look through it myself.  I can get a copy free from my library, and of course the History Odyssey is free to try.  The only thing we have to buy to try it is the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, which is unfortunately not available at our library.  But it looks like a good resource to have whether or not we continue with History Odyssey, and it’s not too expensive.

I’ll post some more reviews as we try it out over the next few weeks or so!

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