Veritas Press questions

[dragons in the flower bed]

1. Does VP Med/RenRef schedule FMoM and FMoRR to coordinate? Or do you have to figure out which cards go with which chapters by yourself?

2. Are the songs classical, rock, or . . . ? Are they catchy? Painfully slow?

3. Am I kidding myself to think I could use VP secularly?

[Julie in GA]

FMoMA and FMoR, as far as I remember, are loosely scheduled for you, in that they are listed on any of the VP cards that they correspond to.

If you're not familiar with the cards, each one has a list of resources on the reverse side that can be used for that person/event.

About using VP seculary -- in theory you can, because you can just choose which resources you want to read from each card. However, the Med/Ren year has so much church history in it, that it might not be a good fit for you, unless you want to study these. It is true that the church played a huge role in the shaping of medieval culture, so you wouldn't want to ignore it, it's just that, for example, many Renaissance figures/events are left out in order to put in things like "The Council of Nicea" and "Jerome Completes the Vulgate."

If you use the Teacher's Manual itself, you may have a harder time "secularizing it." If you use only the cards, it will be easier.

HTH,

[cajun.classical]

1. Does VP Med/RenRef schedule FMoM and FMoRR to coordinate? Or do you have to figure out which cards go with which chapters by yourself?

2. Are the songs classical, rock, or . . . ? Are they catchy? Painfully slow?

3. Am I kidding myself to think I could use VP secularly?

1. The Famous Men Chapters are scheduled on the cards. They line up really nicely. I was just looking at this last night.
2. The songs...well. hard to describe. They generally try to match their lyrics with other recognizable folk songs, like the AMerican song uses Yankee Doodle Dandy among others. The songs change tunes a lot within the song. We like using the songs for memory work. That said, the one for MARR is just awful. I can't bring myself to sing it. It's just sooo high. I'm thinking of asking a friend of mine to write a new tune for the lyrics. It's that bad that it's worth the extra trouble to me.
3. VP seculalry. VP does not offer any type of commentary one way or the other on their cards. They just list the facts of an event. The who, what, when, where type information. The MA/RR cards do have a focus on church history. If that doesn't suit you it's not difficult to skip them or group them all together under "Reformation" and then spend more time on other topics like Renaissance, flush that out more with living books on Shakespeare for example. The program is really quite flexible and it's main focus is on getting down the timeline/chronology of history. Just so you know, I'm a Christian and I have to add the Christian perspective. So I don't think it would be difficult to use secularly, other than the fact that you may not want such a strong emphasis on Church History. The other sets of cards are really pretty standard as far as the events they selected.

[Excelsior! Academy]

We will be doing Ref - Ren next year. From my experience with VP, I think it would be difficut to use secularly. While early church history is in fact history, you may not choose to spend the amount of time that they devote to it. I love VP, but I would not suggest it for you. Pick another program that is much easier to tailor to secularism like SOTW.

As far as the songs are concerned many don't care for them. We happen to like them. They are great memory tools. I would not classify them as rock. Maybe classical? They basically set the cards in order to a tune by singing them. If you are wishing to use the cards secularly, then just use the ones you like and make up your own tune.

[dragons in the flower bed]

That said, the one for MARR is just awful. I can't bring myself to sing it. It's just sooo high. I'm thinking of asking a friend of mine to write a new tune for the lyrics. It's that bad that it's worth the extra trouble to me.

Yikes. Maybe I should just write something to the tune of a folk song. The major reason I'm looking at VP is for this aspect.

[dragons in the flower bed]

While early church history is in fact history, you may not choose to spend the amount of time that they devote to it. I love VP, but I would not suggest it for you. Pick another program that is much easier to tailor to secularism like SOTW.

Well, I want my kids learn church history, but not at the expense of the rest of the world's history. Does it leave out Shakespeare in favor of Menno Simons, or something like that? If they're both represented equally, that is, if history in general doesn't get downplayed -- in the memory song -- then I could still use it.

[Julie in GA]

Go for it! (The song-writing, I mean.) I definitely wouldn't use VP for the songs. I think the cards are their strength. To me, a music major, (so maybe I'm a snob), the songs are too contrived. Lyrics don't fit the tunes as well as they should.

[cajun.classical]

Well, I want my kids learn church history, but not at the expense of the rest of the world's history. Does it leave out Shakespeare in favor of Menno Simons, or something like that? If they're both represented equally, that is, if history in general doesn't get downplayed -- in the memory song -- then I could still use it.

Yeah, that's sort of what happens. Shakespeare gets lumped into the card for Renaissance. I can't remember if he's mentioned in the song or not. He may be. I would say that they do still cover most of what you'd expect, but no Shakespeare was a blow to me. He deserves his own card! But I do understand why they did it and I appreciate the Church History that is presented. Of all the VP History years, most people find this one the most difficult. Get a good spine like Famous Men MA/RR to flush it out. It can still be fun and I enjoyed teaching MARR in a school.

[readwithem]

Go for it! (The song-writing, I mean.) I definitely wouldn't use VP for the songs. I think the cards are their strength. To me, a music major, (so maybe I'm a snob), the songs are too contrived. Lyrics don't fit the tunes as well as they should.

well I'm NOT a music major and I found the songs contrived. I definitely wouldn't get VP for the songs :)