Wednesday, June 20, 2007

deciding on an American/Swedish/European classical home schooling curriculum

In the light of our children's upcoming 3 years of home schooling, over the past few weeks, the Husband & I have been discussing elementary education.

It is quite obvious the Husband & I were schooled very differently. My education had a broader historical, geographical and linguistic approach, while his was more detailed in sciences, math and personal development. While my history and science education started with the Big Bang and moved forward in time carefully covering the ice-age, stone-age and bronze-age, the Husband's started around the civil war, and then later covered the classics without really focusing on the development in a broader sense predating the Egyptian and Greek cultures.

The emphasis in my educational background is a result of many causes, I'm sure. The regional influence is certainly obvious; around the area where I grew up in Sweden, a large amount of findings from the stone- and bronze-ages have been excavated, and the impact of the ice-age is visible in the pysical landscape all around. Because Sweden is a small country whose history and development are largely intertwined with those of the larger region, and because Swedish is a language not widely spoken, a broader geographical and linguistic education has been important. Further, the social and historical development of Europe ranging from the Vikings, the Roman Empire, the Crusaders, the Feudal society to Fascism and Socialism have contributed to a very specific history not comparable to that of eg. the people of United States.

Together the Husband & I are now trying to decide on a curriculum for our children's homeschooling, and with a compromize of American/Swedish/European schooling, it should be very interesting.


By Lovain

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