World Views of the Western World-Opinions?

[SusanAR]

Throughout this year, my 9th grade ds has come to the place where he really WANTS to discuss issues. I have been waiting for this season of our homeschooling journey for years!
I would love opinions of WVWW I- it looks like if might be a good fit for next year.
Thanks,
SusanAR

[CynthiaOK]

Here's a link to a recent previous discussion. If you have any further questions that aren't answered in that link, let me know.
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17978&highlight=WVWW

[Cathy]

Susan,

I have a background in humanities--studied it for two years in secular college instead of the general ed stuff. Our older girl did a Great Books tutorial so I've kept up a bit with ancients but it will be a new perspective to do WVWW!

We will begin WVWW this fall with our 14.5 yob, hopefully with a group discussion time. We are currently doing Omnibus I with our 12.5 yog and 14.5 yob. Omnibus just covers Bible, lit, and history and isn't as comprehensive. I chose it now because my kids were too young for WVWW and it had the Narnia books and game. Since both kids already read the Narnia series, though, they aren't interested in doing the Omnibus questions and game!

We don't do Spielvogel's book for the chronological history; too much $$ and modernized. Instead, I found a fascinating GINN book called "Man's Great Adventure" by Pahlow (1933 edition) which includes maps, charts, manners and customs, chapter terms to know, and is written in a conversational tone with an organization which is illuminating! It has a Judeo-Christian "Western Civ" perspective so we read through sections of it as we go along.

Omnibus 1 is "heavy" on Bible--which is fine with us--but it is way too much all at once! The children are to read the whole book of Isaiah in just one week! Same with Genesis, Exodus, and Isaiah. This is great if you want to slam through it all for an overview (and they are proud that they read a whole Bible book!) but lousy if you want to have deeper discussions of key passages. For the Bible parts, we wanted to go slower, so we're doing the Bible portions at a pace of about 3-6 chapters each day. We'll get it done when we get it done!

I have Omnibus 2 and the Bible portion is much slimmer. Not sure about Omnibus 3.

Herodotus is good but tedious; we're reading some of it aloud. It is fascinating, though, to see how the book of Daniel plays in with Herodotus' "hollywood gossip" style of history! The Omnibus book does have a chart comparing Bible with Herodotus so you can read just his accounts of true history and not the whole 500+ pages (without chasing all those rabbits!)

We will continue the Omnibus series with our 12yog. It does do a smidgeon of art. It is written for dialectic thinkers. While we've enjoyed some of the connections the writers have made, I've come up with much of my own, too. It doesn't cover music at all, nor much art appreciation, economics, government (except Code of Hammurabi) at a thorough level which WVWW does do. (For modern gov't, we did Land of Fair Play.)

Omnibus has a CD with multiple cummulative tests and quizzes. Frankly, they aren't much help except as "open book" because there is too much information for the children to process. The whole program goes at a fast pace. What THEY got out of a selection is not necessarily what they remember from the Omnibus book section--intro, setting, worldview--which is often the parts featured on the tests.

So I am using the quizzes as extra written assignments. We may not do the tests except as an elective to see how much they remember. If you don't do the whole program as written, you'll have to skip several questions because they include compare/contrast between books or writers which you may not have covered. You'd have to skip questions about books the kids didn't do.

You have to print about 400+ pages of "answer key"--I wish it was separate. In fact, many of the answer pages have full-color artwork so printing them takes a lot of ink! So I didn't print those few questions and answers from those pages. I just put them all in a binder with labeled separations so we can turn to the books we're currently studying. It is huge!

It is tedious to boot up the system, wait for the disk to upload, and get to the correct page of answers that I'd need right when we're ready for discussion time (and they can see the answers over my shoulder!) If you have a laptop, that'd be better. The CD has different pagination than the student Omnibus book so you have to translate which part of the questions in the student book you'd want to find answers for on the CD.

Overall, I like Omnibus but do believe it is too much. I'm currently trying to find a way to get through Plutarch Lives Vol. 1 (they sell Vol. 2 but it is not required) without having to read every word.

Cornerstone Curriculum's Worldviews of the Western World, however, and covers art, music, history, literature, writing, theology, philosophy, American gov't and economics, and science history, so it is more comprehensive than the Omnibus series. It presupposes that a student knows a basic history chronology and other factual basics and teaches at a rhetoric / thinking level. This is what my son needs but is premature for our daughter (so she'll stay with Omnibus)

I think that is why there isn't an "answer key." You are supposed to keep up with the student readings and have your own Biblical perspective. I think if you have a broad Bible background already, and use cliff notes, you can get the gist of most things, but the student will have the best results from interactive discussion with a knowledgeable mentor (which is you!)

We're planning to do the readings individually. I'm also considering assigning a "book" for another parent to prepare for so I'm not having to read and prepare for all the discussions. Not sure if this is workable, though (I'd still have to play back-up in case the parent didn't prepare).

WVWW isn't heavily marketed and likely doesn't appeal to most homeschoolers due to to its Biblical perspective, and comprehensive overview. I have known a few people who have done it and ALL have said it's a lot of work but well worth doing!

I do think it's a "step of faith" to do it, and that we'll get out of it what we put in. Isn't that how any curriculum goes, though? My own philosophy is that I need to be equipped, for my children and my grandchildren, and for baic interactions with society--so this is good for me, too. I don't want a packaged program that has all the suggested answers, covers all the bases, and spits out a non-thinking person.

Since so many Christian kids are leaving their faith in college, and since ours will likely have to go to a secular school (and will be in the workforce), and since so much of our culture's values and ideology needs to be addressed corporately and individually, having the Quines and Schaeffers hold my hand while we learn how to affect our culture is a blessing!

Cathy

[Cathy]

I checked the yahoo group called "worldviews" but it is apparently not moderated and full of awful spam.

[CynthiaOK]

The link to the yahoo group in the linked post is an old link. That site is no longer active for the WVWW group (it's been overrun with spam). The new link is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WVWW1/. It is a moderated group and tends to be more active in late spring and early fall.

[SusanAR]

I appreciate the detailed replies.
Can you effectually teach WVWW with only one student?
How does it compare to TOG?
Cynthia, do you plan to use it with your other dc?


Susan

[CynthiaOK]

I think you can teach it to one child. But remember that discussion is probably the most valuable part of this program. And to have adequate discussion, mom must keep up with the readings, too.

The parents of the kids I taught would not have done this program by themselves because of the "mom time" required.

And, yes, I do plan to teach this to my other kids. In fact, the parents of many of my first students have asked me to teach it again to their younger kids so I'm working on that for the fall. I will be doing it a bit differently and tweaking the program to fit our needs.

Best wishes