What do you mean when you say "providential" view of history?

[Aiden]

When you say that a curriculum takes a "providential" view of history, do you mean ...

 

(1) It takes the view that God ordained everything in history to happen, and it all happened in accordance with His will--He was there, actively causing things to happen exactly as they did? (I.e., there's no problem with--or the accompanying problems are glossed over--the white people being cruel to the Native Americans, because it was their Manifest Destiny to expand westward whatever it took?)

 

(2) It takes the view that God is present at all points of history, and He knew ahead of time what would happen/what people would choose to do and worked within the situation, even though it wasn't what He wanted (people chose sinfully)--the curriculum acknowledges His presence and worknig behind the scenes but doesn't necessarily imply His endorsement of everything that happened? (I.e., it was wrong for the white people to treat the Native Americans so awfully, even though God allowed it to happen?)

 

(3) Something else entirely?

 

I've seen the word applied to Sonlight and Tapestry of Grace, usually as a negative descriptor, and am just wondering what is meant by it. I'm currently using Sonlight for my daughter's preschool and will start using it soon for PreK. I'm almost certainly going to switch to something else for K and beyond, but haven't decided what yet--TOG is a possibility, though. I'm ok with the second option above but not the first, so if TOG falls into the first category, I should cross it off the list now.

[Crimson Wife]

#1 and going beyond that, to say that God has specially blessed America as the New Israel. The Puritans may have believed that, but they were only ONE of the founding groups of the 13 colonies.

[Aiden]

#1 and going beyond that, to say that God has specially blessed America as the New Israel. The Puritans may have believed that, but they were only ONE of the founding groups of the 13 colonies.

 

Would you mind telling me which curriculum you believe does that--and does the curriculum itself imply that that's true, or just acknowledge that the Puritans thought that? I haven't seen any of SL's history curriculum at all (it's not in the preschool/PreK levels), and I've only seen the free 3-week sample of Year 1 from TOG.

 

Thank you!

[Hunter]

You might like A Guide to American Christian Education.

http://www.amazon.com/Guide-American-Christian-education-school/dp/0961620110/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1G8436V87C798C9S538R

 

If nothing else I love love love the section on arithmetic.

 

And it teaches some ideas for notebooking that are applicable to any worldview.

 

This was a preY2K must read, but has fallen out of favor.

 

Beautiful Feet curriculum is Providential, some of the volumes more than others.

[Crimson Wife]

Beautiful Feet curriculum is Providential, some of the volumes more than others.

BF is precisely the first program that comes to mind, and why I've passsed on getting the guides I've looked through at the HS bookstore.

I haven't seen SL or TOG because they are far too expensive for my budget.

[KrissiK]

I'm not too familiar with the particulars, but the problem I have with your #1 is that I don't think most people who take the Providential view of history believe that the things that were done against the Native Americans, etc. were right and ok. I think most people acknowledge that these were black spots in our history. From what I have gathered is that some who take a Providential view of history believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and that the Founding Fathers were all Christians and that God has blessed our country because we are a Christian nation. I know that A Beka has this view.

[Hunter]

To me hiSTORY is a STORY. I use books written by authors of all worldviews and just present them as a work of the author like any piece of literature.

Providential histories are interesting, as well as more liberal ones. And from all curricula, I learn general teaching ideas.

[scootiepie]

deleted.  hacked by husband.

[Ellie]

Foundation for American Christian Education is the group that really promoted the Principle Approach, which is where the idea of "providential history" came from. Rea Berg's Beautiful Feet Books is based on Principle Approach. The Noah Plan is a complete program that uses the Principle Approach.

[Aiden]

I'm not too familiar with the particulars, but the problem I have with your #1 is that I don't think most people who take the Providential view of history believe that the things that were done against the Native Americans, etc. were right and ok. I think most people acknowledge that these were black spots in our history. From what I have gathered is that some who take a Providential view of history believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and that the Founding Fathers were all Christians and that God has blessed our country because we are a Christian nation. I know that A Beka has this view.

 

This is what I'm asking--not just with regard to Native American treatment specifically, but in American--or world--history in general. I am a Christian, and I am a patriotic American who believes that America is something special (but who recognizes that citizens of other countries believe that their countries are something special, too, and have no issue with that), but my own history education was sadly lacking. I don't know whether America was founded as a Christian nation, though I'm confident that it was founded as a nation where religion is neither prescribed nor proscribed.

 

With regard to westward expansion and Manifest Destiny--I'm perfectly ok with curriculum teaching the facts, including the fact that people of the time believed they had a God-given right and duty to take the land, and I'm ok with curriculum implying (maybe even teaching explicitly) that however it happened, God worked in the situation even though people behaved badly. It just seems that in some posts where the term "providential view of history" has been used (and I wish I could find them again and ask the posters directly but haven't been able to), it seems that people use it so scathingly and in such a highly derogatory manner than it's caused me to wonder if the curriculum in question wasn't teaching that the people of that time absolutely were right and that whatever they did in service of that goal was ok--which is something I'd not be ok with.

 

And I'm just using westward expansion, Manifest Destiny, and treatment of Native Americans as an example--it's the worldview that I'm interested in, and this was the first and easiest example that came to mind where a curriculum could present history in different ways that fit with the worldviews I'm trying to express.

 

Thank you all for your responses!

[mom@shiloh]

Unfortunately, I think this word has come to mean option #1. My opinion has always been option #2, however I've come to understand that in homeschool circles, it is understood to be option #1.  

 

I would not use a curriculum that supported the first option, and maybe I missed something, but I didn't come across it in either SL or TOG.

[Aiden]

Unfortunately, I think this word has come to mean option #1. My opinion has always been option #2, however I've come to understand that in homeschool circles, it is understood to be option #1.  

 

I would not use a curriculum that supported the first option, and maybe I missed something, but I didn't come across it in either SL or TOG.

 

Thank you--you answered both the specific question I asked and the one that I maybe didn't ask outright, but definitely wanted the answer to!
 

[scootiepie]

I do not see an MP3 to go along with this (yet?) but here are the slides from the section "What is History" from the recent WTM conference:  welltrainedmind.com/workshops-handouts/

Providential history was classified into a type of Progressive History, which, in a nutshell, suggests as history moves forward chronologically, we are moving from being less civilized to more mature.  Progressive history is the most popular.  

(I am looking at my notes here.)    

 

For the younger elementary/grammar stage kids, she (SWB) suggests more of a biographical (When, Who, Where?) approach, with chronology.

 

As long as you are able to recognize the historian's point of view and the argument they are making, (and the drawbacks), you can make a good informed decision.   You will probably find both #1 and #2 in Providential histories.    It is just an argument/interpretation from a particular historians point of view.

 

I really hope she puts this lecture on a MP3.   It was very helpful to me.

[boscopup]

Beautiful Feet is a good example of #1. They specifically say, "God used Columbus to discover America." My own opinion is that it's possible he used Columbus, but we really don't know because the last revelation was the New Testament written in the first century. So beyond that, I can't say for sure what God had his hand in and what he just allowed people to do. He did give us free will.

Sonlight has added some books to cores D and E that are very much #1, and they added a ton of notes to counteract those beliefs, but I think the books shouldn't have been used at all if they required more notes than the actual text read.

TOG has some providential ideas in the dialectic student questions, but I'm ok with that, because at that age (middle school), my student should be able to answer in a different way than the notes, and that's ok. They are discussion questions, after all. I haven't seen any providential books in year 4 history. I haven't done year 2 yet, where some of that is likely located (I saw some questions in the samples and knew I could work with it).

[Aiden]

I do not see an MP3 to go along with this (yet?) but here are the slides from the section "What is History" from the recent WTM conference:  welltrainedmind.com/workshops-handouts/

Providential history was classified into a type of Progressive History, which, in a nutshell, suggests as history moves forward chronologically, we are moving from being less civilized to more mature.  Progressive history is the most popular.  

(I am looking at my notes here.)    

 

For the younger elementary/grammar stage kids, she (SWB) suggests more of a biographical (When, Who, Where?) approach, with chronology.

 

As long as you are able to recognize the historian's point of view and the argument they are making, (and the drawbacks), you can make a good informed decision.   You will probably find both #1 and #2 in Providential histories.    It is just an argument/interpretation from a particular historians point of view.

 

I really hope she puts this lecture on a MP3.   It was very helpful to me.

 

Thanks! I'm going to take a look at those slides.

[Aiden]

Beautiful Feet is a good example of #1. They specifically say, "God used Columbus to discover America." My own opinion is that it's possible he used Columbus, but we really don't know because the last revelation was the New Testament written in the first century. So beyond that, I can't say for sure what God had his hand in and what he just allowed people to do. He did give us free will.

Sonlight has added some books to cores D and E that are very much #1, and they added a ton of notes to counteract those beliefs, but I think the books shouldn't have been used at all if they required more notes than the actual text read.

TOG has some providential ideas in the dialectic student questions, but I'm ok with that, because at that age (middle school), my student should be able to answer in a different way than the notes, and that's ok. They are discussion questions, after all. I haven't seen any providential books in year 4 history. I haven't done year 2 yet, where some of that is likely located (I saw some questions in the samples and knew I could work with it).

 

Thanks--good information there!

[mom2scouts]

I've use SL from Core A to Core E and never had a problem with it.  The latest redesign did have a book used for Core E Day 5 that I felt was #1.  It had so many notes in the Instructor's Guide contradicting the book, that I decided not to use the five day schedule for that book at all.  The notes tell the teacher to cross out huge sections of the book, so I didn't see any reason to even bother with it.