anyone use the teaching company courses?

[Kim in SouthGa]

I like for history and science to be taught from a Chrisitan worldview, and was wondering if these would conflict. Are there any blatantly anti-Chrisitian views expresses? We would probably just be watching the videos at this point but may consider the whole course in a couple of years.

thanks

[Miss Marple]

The Understanding the Human Body: An Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology assumes an evolutionary standpoint and makes reference to it often. However, we found it to be a fantastic course.

[SkateLeft]

Do you have a specific course you're considering? It really depends on the course.

 

The Teaching Company courses are secular college level courses, and although I've never seen anything that I'd specifically consider blatantly anti-Christian in the ones I've viewed, there is content in some courses that you might consider objectionable if you are sensitive to it, as the previous poster noted.

[Academy of Jedi Arts]

These are secular courses.

 

Our opinion of everything we have seen from them?

 

:hurray::hurray::hurray::hurray::hurray:

 

They offer high school and college courses taught by very entertaining and knowledgeable teachers. I especially recommend the "Joy Of" courses.

[5Youngs]

I have checked a few out from the library.

One was Great battles of the ancient world.

It is VERY interesting and packed full of tidbits about cultures that was new to me.

I wasn't offended by anything.

I would think that you could tell a lot by the subject taught.

[pianoplayer]

We have completed or are in the process of completing several Teaching Company courses. We have mostly gone through the courses as a family, and they have made wonderful opportunities for teaching and delving further into interesting subjects. We have definitely become Teaching Company fans! :001_smile:

 

We are in the process of going through Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy, 2nd Edition. While it does contain evolution, there has not been anything that we could not address in family discussion. The course has been wonderfully informative. It's almost worth it just for the incredible photography of things in our solar system.

 

We completed the course on the history of Egypt. It was wonderful, and I highly recommend it. Of course, any discussion of ancient Egypt is going to include discussions about their gods/goddesses, mythology, etc., but again there has not been anything that we could not address in family discussion.

 

Great Battles of the Ancient World was fantastic. We are also thoroughly enjoying The Joy of Math with Professor Benjamin. We will be starting the course on the Great Books this Fall, so I can't comment on that yet, although I have heard very good things about Professor Vandiver's instruction on this board.

 

As several have noted, these courses (except for those specifically marked "high school") are college level. However, they have held the interest of our 11 and 14 year olds wonderfully. I have yet to see anything that I could not highly recommend.

[Alphabetika]

My dd and I are currently going through History of the English Language, and it's excellent. Nothing blatantly offensive, unless you count the way the professor misprounces the Latin for 100! (grin....sort of......) The outlines and study questions provided have been very helpful in discussion and note-taking. We are doing this one on video, but we have others on CD that we plan to use in the next few years.

[Debbie in OR]

We have about seven of them: CS Lewis and His Writings; The History of the English Language; The Joy of Thinking; Shakepeare's Comedies, Tragedies and Histories; The History of European Art; The Dutch Masters; and How to Listen to And Enjoy Great Music.

 

We haven't bought any yet that would necessarily have alot of non-Christian content but honestly, I don't mind if they do. We love being able to go through these with our kids and then discuss, discuss, discuss all the worldview that comes out of them. I'd rather we look at all sides of the issues while we are together so these offer a terrific avenue for those discussions. And besides, they are very well done. Really excellent.

[Kim in SouthGa]

I found several at our library and I think we'll give them a try.

[Plaid Dad]

Nothing blatantly offensive, unless you count the way the professor misprounces the Latin for 100!

 

Now I'm curious: how is he pronouncing it? There just aren't too many ways to go wrong with that word! :confused:

[Alphabetika]

Plaid Dad,

 

We learned to prounounce it "chen-toom" or "chain-toom." He says "kent-um." I can roll with the punches but my 14 yo, well, let's just say that steam comes out of her ears every time. I think part of the reason she gets so incensed is that it appeared that he was basing part of language theory (a group of words that came from the Latin for one hundred) on incorrect phonics. I explained to her that he did not invent this theory, but was just reporting on it, basically, and that linguists of the past would have been able to pronounce this correctly. But later I felt sort of lame for saying that. Because, after all, he is supposed to be an expert in Indo-European and Germanic languages, and centum is a mighty basic word to know.

 

So, am I wrong in my pronounciation? Is there more than one way to say centum? "Kentum" just sounds so, well, silly to us, but maybe we're the silly ones.......

[hypermusicmom]

teaching textbooks threads on general and high school as well

[Plaid Dad]

We learned to prounounce it "chen-toom" or "chain-toom." He says "kent-um."

 

He's using classical pronunciation; you're using ecclesiastical. Both are acceptable pronunciations, but most scholars use the classical pronunciation unless they are working exclusively with ecclesiastical texts or addressing a Catholic audience. So he's not at all in error here. :)