Has Anyone Tried Teaching History in Reverse?

[MeyerWire]

My daughter is 5yo and in Kindergarten at a public school, but we'll be starting homeschool for 1st grade. I was all set to buy Story of the World Volume 1 when my husband suggested teaching history backwards. He thinks the kids might learn with more enthusiasm if I start with more recent history first because it's more relatable. I would then progress with older and older events/civilizations.

 

I don't mind doing extra work in terms of having to set up lesson plans if it appears that the kids would be more interested in history, but I just feel a little lost in how I would choose what comes next in this anachronological method. I thought that maybe I should do it chronologically during the Grammar stage when I'm just exposing them to history in general. Then when I get to the Logic stage, I might try teaching history in reverse.

 

Has anyone every tried it? Was it successful or not?

 

Help! :confused:

[Pen]

Go in order. 1) SOTW is set up to be more accessible to younger children in order. 2) When I was in school there were not enough books for all classes to get the beginning of a history sequence at beginning of year, so I was in a group that started with a book that covered most modern period and then we went back to the beginning when the earlier books of the series became available. It was awful. The kids who got it in order did way better.

[Joshin]

I also vote for going in order. So many more recent events make more sense when given in the context of the entire scope of history, because the past has had a direct influence on them. It would be complicated teaching middle ages and Renaissance history, with its frequent mentions of Roman and Greek philosophers, governments, etc, without first having learned about that context.

 

Plus, for many kids ancient history is more interesting. You have mummies and all sorts of cool stuff!

[boscopup]

Ancient history is a lot of fun. I think many first graders would be bored with the Cold War and more recent topics like that.

 

Now US History can also be a lot of fun, if your kid isn't interested in ancients.

[Laura Corin]

One of the reasons that starting with ancient history is a good idea is that it's less frightening. Most children can cope with wars, invasions etc. if they are in the distant past. Talking about, for example, concentration camps, napalm or the slaughter of the WWI trenches brings it too close and makes it very frightening. Certainly in my family the bombing of civilians in WWII is in living memory; it wasn't something that I addressed when the children were small.

 

I third the suggestion of starting with SOTW 1.

 

I remember hearing a scientist replying to the question of why young children like dinosaurs, 'They're big, scary and very, very dead.'

 

Laura

[EMS83]

I remember hearing a scientist replying to the question of why young children like dinosaurs, 'They're big, scary and very, very dead.'

 

rofl. Love this. I've learned so much through our own study and I've become fascinated with history whereas I hated it in school. Another reason I like chronological order is that it is not self-centric. The relatable angle may make sense and there may be something there, but to my mind, it makes the individual the center of the study instead of showing them where they fit into the big picture. Plus the ancients did some really awesome things that I think need to be presented and appreciated as soon as possible so we don't end up with chronological snobbery. Just my opinion, though, and everyone has one!

 

ETA: If your husband feels strongly, I'm not one to advise making a big deal out of it unless you also feel strongly in the opposite direction. Then you can discuss that. But if he doesn't really care, then do what you think is best!

[Hwin]

I doubt you can do SOTW 4 with a five year old, although it sounds interesting. But there are LOTS of fun subjects in Volume 1. Greek and Roman mythology, the Pyramids... and tons of picture books to bring them to life. If really you want it to be fun, I would go through it slowly and spend time on the things she finds interesting. If I could do last year over, I would have done that :)

[Greenmama2]

I don't see a problem with it although I wouldn't use the SOTW resources in that case as they are designed to be appropriate for older and older children as they progress. Personally if I did that I would start in our local area. For instance when were most of the buildings in our town built? Why? Was it when it was founded or later. If it was later, when was our town founded & why? Where did those people come from? Who was here before them? What did their lives look like? Etc

[weederberries]

SOTW definitely progresses in age from books 1-4. I have multiple ages and we're in book 3. My 6 year old needs more modification than he would if we were in book 1.

 

Since we have multiple ages, we're jumping in where we are, so I don't have to teach two different eras at the same time. So in essence, my 6 year old is starting in the middle and will loop back around, though he was lingering around while we discussed the ancients and picked up some of it. It can be done, but for your sake, with the ease of starting from the beginning in the lowest level book, I'd definitely take that route. Creation and mummies and olympics, etc are fairly relatable to the young ones. It reads more like a fairy tale, "A long, long time ago..."

 

Also, I think it might be too abstract for a young child to think in terms of going backward. We try to think of history as a progression with cause and effect. That might get lost if you're always stepping back.

 

But, hey, maybe you're on to something. Let us know if you choose to do it and how it works for you.

[MeyerWire]

Thanks, everyone, for your responses! I forget that the world can be scary to kids and that an event's being remote can be comforting.

I was already hesitant on going backwards, but your insights have sealed the deal to go chronologically.

[Shmead]

One thing to think about: going chronologically is a bigger problem in the later years, when you want the kids to be reading more and more primary sources. If someone were committed to the whole 3-cycle process, I think you could usefully do the last pass through backwards: do the moderns in 9th grade, when there are lots of things like newspaper articles and letters and even photographs and films from the time period, and then get to the ancients when they are seniors and really ready to tackle heavy philosophy (and if Latin is still a focus, they will be more ready to read stuff past Cesar). This could work if the first two chronological sequences gave them a solid spine and a sense of the connections between eras.

[UrbanSue]

I agree with going in order for all the reasons mentioned above. My daughter didn't really take to SOTW at the start of first grade so I put it on the shelf for a bit but we're still doing ancients with lots of picture books, bible stories, greek myths, etc. I think we'll read through SOTW 1 this summer together now that she's more in the swing of things with regard to school.

 

All that to say, even if SOTW isn't a good fit for your dc, I still think the basic order is a good one.

[redsquirrel]

SOTW1 is written for young children. And young children don't have a great sense of time. I doubt that something that happened 50 years ago (modern history) is any more or less 'relate-able' than something that happened 5000 years ago. I don't think she will relate more easily to the Holocaust and World War 2 than, say, the Egyptians.

 

What is happening right now is not history, that is modern events. It isn't history until we can fully understand the repercussions and long term effects of what happened. So its not like she would start with studying what is happening in the world right now. Starting with, let's say, the Nixon administration, isn't going to make it more accessible.

[EppieJ]

I agree with going chronologically. As for SOTW, I might recommend holding off on that for a year. When ds was K age, I used Evan-Moor's Ancient Civilizations History Pockets. It was the perfect seguey into SOTW for First Grade and gave ds a chance to mature a little before tackling a bigger chunk of history. And, FWIW, we loved the SOTW audio books! Ds would listen to them for hours at a time, while playing with his legos.

 

*oops! Just reread your post and noticed you were talking about 1st, not K, so feel free to ignore what I just said! :tongue_smilie:

[nash_mom]

We did SOTW 1 last year with a 1st, K, and Pre-K. This year we are using Simply Charlotte Mason covering the same time period but we are also adding in a US History. I really like the combo. partly because we have been able to visit Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown a couple of times this year (we live about 6 hours away and got year long passes) I do think the kids have a different understanding of things that happened here. The US history for us has been completely living books that look good to me in a chronological order. I have not been very worried about what I cover or do not cover because I know in a few years we will cover it with a curriculum.

[AimeeM]

Not to hijack, but can we take this question and apply it to a logic stage child who will be, next year (grade 7) starting the world history sequence again? She would like to start with modern history; I'm wondering if there's a valid reason not to?

[redsquirrel]

Not to hijack, but can we take this question and apply it to a logic stage child who will be, next year (grade 7) starting the world history sequence again? She would like to start with modern history; I'm wondering if there's a valid reason not to?

 

I think it would make more sense to start that as its own thread, no? Any reason not to?

 

You could also try it in the Logic stage forum.

[pitterpatter]

I haven't read all of the posts, but I just want to say that my DD who is five (six in May) adores ancient history. She looooooooooooooooooves it. No joke. We just finished studying Theseus and the Minotaur, and the Trojan Horse. She won't shut up about them. She wants to read the stories over and over, and watch the stories on the DVDs over and over. She pretend plays the stories and everything. She's been doing this since the beginning of the year when we first studied archaeology and ancient cave dwellers. She even wanted to be a cave girl this past Halloween.

 

I too was worried about the death and gore involved, but she's taken it in stride. (I even started a thread about it way back when...http://forums.welltr...ts#entry3562200.)

 

Here's what we've done this year so far...http://bluehousescho...Ancient History.

[JennyCook]

We did SOTW 1 last year with a 1st, K, and Pre-K. This year we are using Simply Charlotte Mason covering the same time period but we are also adding in a US History. I really like the combo. partly because we have been able to visit Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown a couple of times this year (we live about 6 hours away and got year long passes) I do think the kids have a different understanding of things that happened here. The US history for us has been completely living books that look good to me in a chronological order. I have not been very worried about what I cover or do not cover because I know in a few years we will cover it with a curriculum.

 

Will you explain to me what living books are? I keep reading that and I'm not getting it. It's probably super logical, but....hey, I went to public school and didn't learn that. ;)

 

[Laura Corin]

Will you explain to me what living books are? I keep reading that and I'm not getting it. It's probably super logical, but....hey, I went to public school and didn't learn that. ;)

 

 

The definition of this tends to vary. At a most basic level, it means 'not text books'. So reading 'Pankration' (a young adult historical novel based in Ancient Greece) would be using living books. A subset of 'living books' is 'original/contemporary/classical works': reading Aesop's Fables when studying Ancient Greece would fall into this category.

 

I'm sure there are other definitions. Most people here tend to use some kind of spine for a subject (Story of the World, for example) then add in living books.

 

Laura

[MeyerWire]

Not to hijack, but can we take this question and apply it to a logic stage child who will be, next year (grade 7) starting the world history sequence again? She would like to start with modern history; I'm wondering if there's a valid reason not to?

 

 

AimeeM, let us know if and where you start a different thread for history with older kids. I'm interested to know if by the time the kids have a basis on history that they might want to go in reverse later on.