Why We’re Ditching Story of the World
If you’ve been homeschooling for any length of time, you’ve come across a situation where you thought a curriculum would be a big win and quickly realized it wouldn’t work for you. It’s totally normal and ok to do that. What works for one family doesn’t work for everyone! For us, one of those times was when we tried out Story of the World and ended up ditching it for a different approach.
If you’re on the fence about whether to use Story of the World, my hope is that sharing our thought processes here will help you one way or the other! Bottom line: do what works best for your family. That’s part of the beauty of homeschooling! ❤️
(Note: When I originally wrote this post, my oldest was 6 at the time. Now he’s 14 and we have 6 kids in all. I have updated the post to reflect what we’ve used instead, and you can also find our current curriculum picks here. I don’t think Story of the World is a “bad” curriculum. It just didn’t fit our needs at the time and we found other resources that better match our goals and values.)
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The Story of the World is a very popular history curriculum in Christian homeschool circles and co-ops. My husband and I originally wanted to look into Mystery of History, but at the time (our oldest was 6) some other more experienced moms advised that it might be better to wait a few years because it was a bit more rigorous than we probably needed right away. They were right. So we checked out Volume 1 of Story of the World, both book and audio, and tried it out.
We quickly realized it wouldn’t work for us and made the decision to ditch it.
I’m sure we’re not the only ones who have made this call with a curriculum. However, in my limited searching at the time I found nothing but glowing praise for The Story of the World for young kids! So my hope here is to present some pros and cons for your consideration.
Let me brace myself to dodge some rotten tomatoes and I’ll tell you about what brought us to this decision.
What We Liked About Story of the World
There are many things we really liked about the curriculum:
- My kids love the engaging story and asked to listen to it. That’s big plus!
- It’s available at the library! That doesn’t happen often with curriculum audios.
- I appreciate that it teaches through storytelling. It’s our favorite way to learn!
- Many others use it, so there are vast amounts of resources and tips available online.
- Moms I like and respect use it to teach their kids.
Why We Dropped Story of the World
- Too much focus on false gods and idols without calling them out as such.
- The Lord and the Scripture have very little authority – the Bible is treated like just one more story
- Too violent in places. When listening on audio with little kids it’s hard to anticipate to pause or skip ahead, but you could get around that by editing on the fly as a read aloud.
- Reported inaccuracies (just worth noting, but in truth, every history curriculum will have some things that need corrected).
- A generally secular rather than biblical worldview. We learned through this experience that we strongly prefer a biblical worldview for the subject of history.
Let me explain some of these points a bit more.
The biggest problem we had at the time is the constant focus on false idols and gods without calling them out as such. The One True God seems to be just another story among many gods.
The curriculum is not Christian, contrary to what some might assume or suggest. (I don’t believe it is even marketed as Christian.) Major pieces of God’s story are left out. At that stage in our children’s lives, we felt it was unwise to muddy the waters between the true God and false gods, using a curriculum that spends so much time on the latter.
When we do talk to our kids about false gods and idols, we make it clear that they are, indeed, false. The purpose of the discussion is always to highlight God’s authority and glory. This isn’t the case in SOTW, and until we had more time establishing that concept with my children through biblical resources, we needed something that spoke to this in a more direct way.
There is also just enough violence in some of the stories that I just can’t casually listen to the audiobook with them. I’d have to read it instead or listen ahead, and that wasn’t going to work for me in that season of life.
We could probably have continued to use SOTW by switching to the print book and skipping over these parts or by adding our own explanations. However, we realized we needed more work on a biblical foundation in this area, so it made more sense to switch to resources that are biblical.
The Approach We Took to History Instead
Start with the Bible
Bible Road Trip is not only our Bible curriculum but it ended up being our history for that year once we dropped Story of the World. Bible Road Trip is an amazing Bible curriculum and there are plenty of opportunities in it to discuss violence, false gods, and other cultures just through the Bible stories. This helps us keep focused on Scripture but introduce those topics with gentle guidance, setting up a framework to evaluate other resources together later.
This is also when I started writing Sound Words for Kids: Lessons in Theology. In the first unit, All About God, I included a lesson on Elijah and the prophets of Baal that my kids still talk about! It was a great Bible-centered way to teach them about this concept and have it as a reference when we encountered false gods in history later.
Begin with American History
After a lot of research and discussion, we decided it made sense to move to American history after that year with Bible Road Trip. It was more relevant for our kids at that time and there are just more materials available to choose from that aren’t riddled with false gods and violence.
Resources we’ve enjoyed for this are Beautiful Feet Books Early America bundle (we love living books!), America’s Story from Master Books with some living books added on, and history resources from Schoolhouse Teachers.
Go Back to Ancient History Later
We worked through year of Tapestry of Grace (ancient) as a family and then moved to BiblioPlan for year 2 (medieval). We have since continued with BiblioPlan as it was a great fit for us. The BiblioPlan spine text has a biblical worldview and there are plenty of opportunities to discuss violence, false gods, other religions, etc. now that we have our foundation laid.
Both of those are multi-level teaching that easily allow for a biblical worldview presentation of these time periods by careful selection of family read alouds and adding independent reading and notebooking for the older kids. If I wasn’t doing multilevel teaching, I would consider Master Books or Notgrass for my older kids.
Keep our Focus on the One True God
We teach our children about things like Greek gods as an overview to cover understanding for purposes of history, literature, culture, etc. as those issues come up, and always through a biblical lens.
We see no reason to go deep into those topics in our studies or provide books on those topics solely for entertainment. There are SO many other good things to explore and dig into that are more worthwhile!
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I know many will not agree with our take on The Story of the World and that is totally fine! Families are different and we’re all called to follow God’s leading in our homeschooling.
May we all be blessed as we teach our children!
~ Tauna
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How to Homeschool with a Biblical Worldview
I applaud you for your decision and for blogging about it! It’s not easy to go against the mainstream. I commend you for guarding the hearts of your children. My children are nearly all grown now and I do not regret all the times I guarded their hearts and protected them from things that may seem overly protective to others. YOU are accountable for the way you raise them, not anyone else.
I did not introduce my children to mythology and other gods or idols until they were more mature and had a solid foundation and knew what they believed. THEN they could see how the gods were false for themselves. The only exception is when we came across other gods in our study of the Bible.
When my kids were in their teens and we studied the plagues, we did some study on the false gods associated with them, which was interesting to us all.
Blessings!
I’m glad someone else thought that SOTW wasn’t great. I was shocked when it didn’t start with Adam and Eve and the more I read the more I didn’t like it! We went with Mystery of History and LOVE it! I am so glad we did. Yes, they talk about idols, but along with the repercussions the people suffered for their leaving the ONE TRUE GOD. (There is nothing “lukewarm” to spit out!) My kids, 11 and 9 y, have loved it also.
I too ditched SOTW. I was listening with my kids and kept having to correct the story, telling them what was really the truth. We now read historical fiction or non fiction history books for each grade level. The kids get to pick books from our library, and they love it! I have our home library sorted by time period and labeled with colored stickers.
We used SOTW v.1, v.2, v.3. When it came time for V.4, I felt like there was too much emphasis on the nasties of the wars. So, we went with Simply Charlotte Mason’s Module 6. It was PERFECT! Now that we’re ready to go back to SOTW v. 1, I too chose to ditch it and I’m making my own curriculum this year. For 2015-16, we’ll probably do SCM’s Module 4.
I totally agree! We put it down years ago for the very same reasons! I too am surprised at how many glowing reports it gets from christians as well as how it seems to be a standard among christian homeschoolers.
I have noticed the same. Nearly every co-op around here that I’ve heard of uses it. I don’t belong to Classical Conversations but I know that although they recommend it (or at least use it as a main history curriculum), many families can and do choose other curricula without any problems and they work well with CC.
I originally stayed away from SOTW for many of the same reasons, though I don’t run from violence as much because even the Scriptures have quite a bit of violence. Then I snagged a really cheap used copy of SOTW 1 to read myself so that could accurately gauge if it would or would not work for our family. I never expected it to be full of Bible history because it is a secular resource. It is never touted as a Christian history curriculum.
There is a lot of focus on false gods, but that is part of ancient history and I want my children to be knowledgeable about that so that we can then discuss WHY we do not believe as those people groups did/do.
We have chosen to use Biblioplan with SOTW 1. This very nicely integrates Bible history and puts the focus back where it should be while still using a good resource.
You will never find a history curriculum that does not have inaccuracies. 😛
I do applaud you for standing up for your convictions and sharing about them! It’s great to find well rounded views on any curriculum!
I plan on introducing my kids to false gods (and already have through Bible stories) but choose to go with a curriculum that calls them out as such, especially in these early early years. Later when that foundation has been laid, I may not be so particular about what the audio/text says. I view violence in a similar way. I’d rather introduce it to them on my terms, as much as possible, and with a biblical perspective, instead of happening upon it in a history curriculum playing on audio when they’re 3, 4 and 6.
I just believe there are better choices for my family. I HAVE had a chance to read the book a bit since writing this post and I have to say I’m glad I made that choice before! But I am happy to know that we HAVE choices so that we can all choose the right curriculum for our families.
Thanks for the resource, Dusty! I feel similarly to you. And thanks for your thoughts, Tauna! I completely understand and respect them. 🙂
I heavily considered SOTW this year because “everyone” says it’s the best for the young ones! However, I have read a fair share of warnings about this, and they reiterate everything you stated in the post. My oldest will be 6 in a few weeks, and I also have a 4.5 yo. I chose to go ahead with Mystery of History Volume 1. We’re only a few lessons in, but I am taking it slow. I can read through the lesson and either summarize or choose to leave out a section if I think it’s above their understanding. We can choose to do a coloring page, recommended project or additional reading – if we want to. I chose MOH because it already has the biblical history intertwined. I know a lot of people recommend Biblioplan as well. I wanted to keep it simple this year, though. We really just add our History reading to our “circle time”. — Thank you for sharing your honest opinions. I think it’s important that we use our influence to educate others.
Thanks for the comment Melissa! We’ve decided to stick with Bible history for first grade using Bible Road Trip (referral >> http://thinking-kids-press.myshopify.com/?aff=21) as our core curriculum and then adding in some holiday-based history units. I think that’s plenty for now!
I am using Vol 1 this year with my 4 and 6 year old. So far I haven’t had any problems with it. I like that it intersperses secular and Biblical stories. I am interested to hear what others say.
We considered this curriculum but shied away from it for some reason that I could not put my thumb on. It just didn’t “fit”, even though I had not read through it or done anything more than read a bit about what others were recommending and flipping through it at convention. After reading this post, I am so glad we did not choose to pursue it very far. We are loving Mystery of History v.1. I commend you for sharing these thoughts, because, this is a highly touted history choice among Christian homeschoolers. Thank you for speaking up and sharing your heart.
I’m so glad you found this post helpful. Bless you on your homeschooling year!
We also ditched SOTW. I wished I didn’t go against my gut and just got MOH. My oldest was 9 so I thought I would wait a bit until the younger was older to start and picked up SOTW. my kids loved the audio but I also was frustrated with all the false god talk. It didn’t seem any different emphasis on the one true God and I found that unacceptable. I had to keep correcting and adding to the story. We opted to do time line chunks of time or clusters of events where the kids have sparked interest. We will pickup MOH soon and I’m thinking we won’t be disappointed.
Thank you for having the courage to share your thoughts on this. I came to a similar conclusion with Sonlight for my 1st grader but made the mistake of pushing on with it and hoping it’d be okay. My biggest HS regret is not having the courage to let go of questionable curriculum and let the cost keep me from ditching it. Blogged about it here: http://blessedtobemeagain.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-book-in-trash-can.html . Am thankful that we can do it differently for second grade!
Thanks Amy! Off to read it. 🙂
Thanks for the honest review! We haven’t used SOTW yet, but a friend just passed on the activity books and volume 2 to me. My oldest is also 6, so I don’t plan on using them yet. So far we are just supplementing our history sentences (we do CC as well!) with books from the library. I discovered at tutor training (and you might already know this, but I didn’t!) that there’s a “matchup” near the back of your Foundations guide (around page 200 I think) of the Timeline cards to the history sentences (so, for example, on the week of Columbus, it tells you which Timeline card to pull, and then you can read the back of the timeline card to fill in a little more information). It’s not a full history curriculum like SOTW and some of the others are, but for us it’s a good way to give a little more “oomph” to those pegs we’re placing with the memory work. 😀
Have a great weekend!
Thanks Lindsey!
We are using History Odyssey this year, they have all grade levels. I have looked at SOTW but never used it. My last visit to Alabama my cousin gave me the giant SOTW book with the time line, it’s pretty impressive. History Odyssey actually recommends having the timeline with their program. They also have a ‘try for free’ option on their website if anyone wants to have a look. 🙂
Great info, thanks for the recommendation! 🙂
we felt the SAME way!
We never got past chapter 3 in SOTW. Have you looked into Truth Quest, it is a biblical based history curriculum. They have samples on their website, we plan on using this next year.
Yes! I have heard great things about TruthQuest. Hope you enjoy it!
I’m looking into Truth Quest for next year…how do you like it? How are the kids doing with it?
I AGREE! When I first saw the rave reviews online from Christian families, I was sure I had found a history program to use. When I checked it out from the library to review it personally, I was shocked. I didn’t find it to be Biblically based or what I wanted my daughter exposed to. I love The Mystery of History and its Biblical foundation. Glad to know I’m not alone. I appreciate your comments.
Thanks Denise!
i think it is great that you took this seriously, and I think we are each given the grace we need to guide our children! I will keep these thoughts in mind for my second girl… My first is very precocious and SOTW does not confuse her on who God is at all- for her she is able to compare the lies with the truth she knows and feel compassion for the people living under strong and systematic deceptions… Very important skills as a Christian living in an extremely liberal and secular (with lots of random spiritual influences) culture… God bless you & lead you into all truth!
Cannot thank you enough for this post. I am currently searching for a history curriculum for by boys 9 and 7 and SOTW receives such high reviews everywhere I look but my gut is saying not to do it. I have been looking into Truth Quest History and have started praying for guidance. Thank you for explaining your experience so well.
You’re welcome Valerie! There are so many great options to choose from, too! 🙂
I do not understand people who try to brainwash their children into believing exactly what they believe. I am a Christian, and came to that path on my own after exploring many different religions. I want my children to have respect for all religions, not condemning them as false, and therefore feel free to explore all of them before coming to their own spiritual conclusions. Even though I personally believe that the Bible is the word of God, I realize that: 1-There is no definitive proof that it is, and therefore belittling other religions is ignorant; you cannot disprove other religions, no more can you prove your own. That’s why it is called faith. To claim that others hear the devil talking to them while only you and those like you receive true divine inspiration is frankly quite arrogant. 2- There are some truths in all religions, just as all religions–being human-made, not God-made–let’s face the facts, men wrote the Bible, not God–have flaws. 3-Not everybody who makes it to Heaven will be Christian, and not all people who believe in Christ will get into Heaven. So what is really more important? Your child being Christian, or your child being a moral person? I see plenty of Christians who oppose increased taxes for the super wealthy, for example… But Jesus himself talked mostly about being generous, helping the poor, and how “it would be easier for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle than to enter the kingdom of God”. Yet those same people oppose gay marriage (even though Jesus never once condemned homosexuality).
Hi Meg – I appreciate that you stopped by and took the time to comment. I really do appreciate that we can voice our differing opinions. I thought for a while about what I could respond with that would be useful, whether to you or someone else who might be reading. I’m thinking that addressing each point you made is probably not helpful, although if you are interested in dialoguing more with me about that, I can be reached at tauna(at)proverbialhomemaker(dot)com.
However, I will at least offer two things here: my personal experience and Jesus’ own words.
First, I came to Christ in my late 20’s and I was a hard sell. I was intellectual, skeptical, and frankly disdainful of a lot of Christians and their claim to being the only real way. I came to the path of Christ after a long search (and maybe just a little kicking and screaming), but I believe it was God’s grace and mercy that led me there – not my own efforts.
Because I am a very stubborn woman, at heart. But that stubbornness was put to good use. As with many things I decided to really press the scriptures, do a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of digging into the history of Christianity and the Bible. And you know what? It holds up. There is more evidence for Christ and the scripture than there is against it. I was shocked. Although I was determined not to be a “check your brains at the door” Christian, at some point I made the decision to take that leap of faith and see what happened… and a lot happened. It’s a long story.
Nowadays, there is no doubt in my mind that God is real, Christ lived and died and rose again, and that He did it out of love to save me from sin and death. It is a confidence that comes from personal experience, continuous study (and not shying away from hard questions), and a great sense of peace about it that can only come from God.
I remember once telling a pastor years ago that I thought of God like a shining light of truth that every religion was reaching toward that light in their own way. He said that yes, it is like that, but that God knew we could never quite reach Him because He was perfectly holy and we were not, and so in His grace and mercy He reached out to US. His reaching out was in sending His one and only son, Jesus.
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'”
You’re right – my parenting, my teaching, and in fact my entire way of living is based on the premise that God is real, Jesus lived and died and rose again, and that He is my Savior. So I teach and train my kids accordingly, knowing that as they’ve been growing older, we gradually and appropriately expose them to more ideas, more religions, and more situations where their own relationship with God comes to play. I teach my children what I know and what I believe. I teach them to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind, and to love others as themselves. And in the end I trust God with their lives. They will make their own choices on what to believe and I will love them regardless.
I can see that you love your children and want what’s best for them. I hope this made sense and, even if it didn’t convince you of anything, at least gave you a better idea of my heart and where I’m coming from. 🙂
Tauna
I’m so glad to know we are not alone! Thank you for sharing.
I love everything you have written Tauna! EVERYTHING!!!
I found this looking for a history curriculum for my son and have found so much more! Thank you.
Heidi
I’ve heard Mystery of History is great, but also consider Veritas Press history. It divides history into 5 parts and has similar teachers manuals to SOTW, activities for kids, time line cards, etc. The history is Christian, and also has more of a focus on western civilization. We recently left SOTW for the reasons you mention. I was super discouraged by always having to explain to my kids, as we listened to the CDs, “no, this is another story that is not true”. I am very excited about Veritas press, so far. “Ancients” starts with the Old Testament history!……as it should!….not with a fictitious story about a smelly nomadic girl in Mesopotamia.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I understand your views on the religion part, and at first I had the same concerns. However, I as a homeschooled adult that had parents who were very strict in that area and didn’t expose me to anything other than Christian views, have felt as an adult that I wasn’t as well prepared as I could have been. Classical conversations came out when I was just about done with my homeschool education and my parents did a great job. Please don’t think I am saying other wise, but I didn’t have much exposure to other religions and why they were wrong. So I have taken SOTW and am using it to explain the differences to my kids and help fill in the gaps that I feel that I have. My parents skipped over parts of history just to avoid those subjects, part of that could have been that they were new Christians at the time and didn’t have the spiritual maturity to know what was best. I just would encourage other homeschool parents not to shy away from addressing uncomfortable subjects in the name of “protecting” your children. I explain to my kids that some people truly believe these things and how and why they are wrong and what the Bible says, and what arguments they will hear people come against Christianity with. Our faith is under attack and I have to prepare my kids for battle. Just some food for thought.
I totally agree! When you say “parents who were very strict in that area and didn’t expose me to anything other than Christian views” I want to point out that nowhere am I advocating not ever exposing your children to other religions, worldviews, or points of view. I just believe that for our family it was important to be careful HOW and WHEN we started that process. We chose to use the Bible as our text for introducing those topics. As our children have grown in that knowledge and we’ve had great, instructive discussions, we’ve been able to pull those into other experiences with history and literature curriculum that does talk about those things. 🙂 Take care!
I had heard so much about this curriculum, so I checked it out from the library to read myself. I couldn’t even finish the first book. Besides treating the Word of God as though it is just one version out of many stories, I felt like it also insulted the intelligence of the reader. One question sticks out in my mind “Why did ancient peoples always build cities near rivers?” Because all people modern and ancient need access to water. It made too much division between “ancient people” and “people of today” as if they were some how different species.
Thank you for your post! Most of my homeschool circle uses SOTW and it came highly recommened. So I was thrilled when a friend gave me a copy of volume 1. After reading the first few chapters, I came to the same conclusion as you have shared. I can’t teach my 6 year old about other religions when she is still trying to understand ours. I believe she needs to have a good foundation of God’s character before comparing false gods. For now, Bible stories seem to do just fine for this age and possibly some unit studies with living books. Thank you for having the courage to go against the norm. Blessings!
You’re welcome! 🙂 Timing and guidance are everything, I think!
Your post echoes my convictions; and you’re right, convictions I too found sparsely expressed across the homeschool Christian community. I’ve been researching 2nd Grade History curriculum for months now (not an exaggeration), leaning toward a guided Charlotte Mason approach, and I’ve been baffled at the prevalent use and praise of SOTW and A Child’s History of the World; when one is clearly secular, and the other takes a theistic-evolutionary view of how the world began and carries an undertone of racial superiority and political correctness. I tried again and again to shrug off my concerns; I told myself I could cherry pick, skip whole chapters if necessary, and supplement with other curriculum. Every time, I couldn’t bring myself to hit the order submit button, the books simply don’t sit well with my conscience. A few hours before happening upon your thoughts here, I happened upon Truth Quest History — the very curriculum I’ve been holding out for — and I don’t think it’s any coincidence. I look forward to what God will teach us this year!
It’s such a wonderful resource! We’re also going to be dipping into resources from Master Books this year to use as a spine with our living books approach. Looking forward to it!
I so appreciate this post. A couple of years ago, I sort of jumped in to SOTW with both feet because it had such high regards. After about half of the first book and looking ahead, we were saying exactly what you are saying here. I’ve held onto my set, but ‘put it all away for later.’ I don’t know if we will go back to it, but in the meantime we also found Mystery of History AND Diana Waring’s History Revealed. Both are fantastic. Thank you for your post!
I am staying away from Story of the World for similar reasons! Looking at the comments, seems like you were not alone! (The violence stuff isn’t as big of an issue with my son at 6, but at 4 and 5 I would have felt similar. But each kid is different. He already knows about the early persecution of the Church by Nero and how awful it was. We are Eastern Orthodox and read Saints Lives, etc.) One of Story of the World authors wrote something about their secular approach (it could have been in the book or a blog, I can’t remember) and the views did not sit well with me either. I will say that sometimes I don’t like when history books have too many Bible stories in them, mostly because kids already know them and they want to learn something new.
I am so glad I found this! We made our way through the first volume of SOTW (Ancient History). I was okay with it overall and just added in about how these were false gods, etc. And edited some violence and skipped some things. However, as I plan for Volume 2 of SOTW, I am shocked with just how positive of a light these shine on religions other than Christianty and fail to bring up the fact they are worshipping false gods. I am forwarding this to my husband.
Yes! As a new Christian and a homeschool mom (early years) I’m sensitive to not being led astray. I read the first chapter to my boys from a sample and right away it threw me/us into a tail spin of confusion because it presents “nomads” as a phase in the history of mankind. And that after some time people began to settle…. yet it uses the 7000 year old young earth time line. But the bible says Cain (Adam’s son) built a city and that his descendants (one or two generations?) were the first to make metal tools and instruments. So it literally threw me into confusion and I thought I had to resolve the whole Genesis 1:1-2 age of the earth topic before proceeding. Sheesh.
addendum: I’m happy to use a young earth resource by the way, in fact it’s a good place to start for us as we re-learn. I didn’t like SOTW because it didn’t present to me as a coherent young earth resource in that first chapter of the first book. 🙂
Hello Tauna,
Thank you for posting this well reasoned explanation of how you are teaching history to your children, and how you are not doing so. It has really helped me. I am a young father just starting to think about how I will approach educating my growing family. My oldest is 4 right now and has a powerful apetite for stories, and an incredible memory for them too. We’ve been expanding beyond scripture into children’s literature, but I’ve been thinking I would like to source more of my stories from history so he can begin to develop a working knowledge of it. That’s how I found your post. Thank you again for your explanation and for providing the alternatives you have found helpful.
Thank you so much for your review! I just ordered The story of the world, but ended up actually purchasing just the workbook instead of the actual book, and I’m feeling like I dodged a bullet by not getting this curriculum. Thank you for being open about this and helping Moms like me get a better idea of the content as well as offering helpful and Biblical options. Thanks so much.♡
Well I for one get it. And this is exactly what I wanted to know. Thank you!
I want a strong Christian world view especially at such an early age.
With SO MANY Christian resources at our fingertips. And so Many wonderful Christian history and Biblical curriculums I just don’t understand trying to fit a square Peg into a Round Hole. Why waste ANY time, re-explaining, adding truth, worrying what the next page will hold, not trusting what the information your kids are getting…um…I can do that for free with public school. It may be interesting curriculum but so is a lot of other stuff that is Christ worthy. That’s like using secular science and having to un-teach evolution. Why? We have options…public school students don’t. Sadly.
I really appreciate your honest opinion on this. I’ve been considering SOTW in a sea of options. Biblical foundation is the primary consideration for all our choices but we do allow a lot of secular exposure with lots of discussion and explanation. Our youngest is 9. Looking forward to reading more from you! Good job mama!
Thank you for such a well reasoned post! I did research into SOTW because we did CC for the last 2 years (taking this year off because no available local group), and I know that’s the recommended history. I’ve seen other reports similar to yours, and it seems this curriculum won’t mesh with our family goal of centering Christ in every subject that we can. My oldest will be in first grade this year and I agonized over history. I’m interested in Mystery of History in the future, but it seemed like too much at his age. I’d already gotten the Bible Road Trip, so my plan is to combine that with edited readings from A Child’s History of the World. He and my younger son are pretty familiar with the CC timeline song by now, so I thought a general overview might be best. I’ve been going through it and making notes of where I need to reference the Biblical account instead.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this curriculum. We are in the middle of Beautiful Feet Around the World which my children have enjoyed. We are trying to decide what history curriculum to pursue (if we don’t stick with Beautiful Feet). There are several that I am drawn to each for different reasons, but definitely want to ensure a biblical perspective. I see several other great suggestions here, but do not see Good & Beautiful mentioned. Do you have any insight to offer on their history curriculum?
I’m glad it was helpful!
I don’t use or promote TGTB because of the ties to the Mormon church. I know that the curriculum itself is intended as non-denominational, but for several reasons, a “Christian” curriculum from a theologically non-Christian source isn’t something I can support. I would personally not use any of their materials.
I would recommend checking out Mystery of History if you want a sort of spine text to add to your living books selections. That is essentially what I do using BiblioPlan as well – it’s all mapped out for us. I hope that helps! Feel free to email me if you have any other questions. 🙂
I agree with you 100%. I stopped using the SOTW very early into the program for the same exact reasons.
Thank you SO MUCH for this post. We are Catholic, and there’s a Catholic knock-off of “Story of the World” called “Story of Civilization” and when I reviewed it a few years ago, I realized right away that it didn’t start with creation, but arbitrarily! I immediately discounted the series, and their companion series “Story of the Bible,” which is their way of making up for there being little Biblical content in “Story of Civilization.” But that further separates Christianity from the world’s history, making it just an aside. My children now attend a Christian school, and my daughter has been giving vol 1 of “Story of the World” for her summer reading. I am firmly opposed to this program. It’s an inappropriate way to present history to the Christian child. I am so glad I’m not alone in being concerned about this.
After using and LOVING the Veritas Press history program, I did read through the SOTW series during the summer months, with my kids ONCE THEY WERE OLDER. While a Biblical worldview is not compromised in our home or our homeschool, I did find a use for SOTW to teach the secular views of which my children will come in contact. However, don’t get me wrong, I would not use SOTW when the children were too young or too spiritually mature to differentiate the content. I also did not use it as independently read books, but I personally read it to them, yes, even though they were older.
All of my children have graduated high school, and four of the five are finished with college. If I started over, I would use Veritas Press’ self-paced online history program. While this was not an advanced program, it taught my children so much, so thoroughly, and so interestingly, that all of my children who took the college CLEP test for Western Civilizations said that they passed the CLEP test because of what they learned in the Veritas Press ELEMENTARY self-paced classes. Now that is retention!
Thank you for your perspective. I’m glad I found your blog.
I want to thank you for your article, and I wish I had found it sooner. As a homeschool mom of a 6 year old I decided on using SOTW but after purchasing everything and going through the books I ultimately came to the same conclusions. I am thankful that I found your article about what curriculum to look at from here. Like others have mentioned we should explore other worldviews, but only after filtering what our young children are exposed to.
I’m so glad it was helpful!