History Cycles for Teaching

[Josephine87]

If this should go in the Family Life section because it regards homeschooling, I understand if it needs to be moved.   

For those of you who teach history, how do you like to teach in regards to cycles or "streams"?  For instance, do you stick to one period of history each school year?  Do you like to do two or three streams or start with one and add more as your student(s) get older?  Just curious how you all like to do things 

I only have a second grader, and we started with only one history stream (Roman/early medieval Britain in the first year and now medieval Britain/European in this second year).

I've been considering in 4th grade adding another "stream" since we'll start studying Plutarch's Lives in that year and continue it into the next.  Maybe I would add a history resource for the 9th century B.C. to the Birth of Christ, centering around Greece and Rome with some Near East, greater Mediterranean and Egypt. 

I worry about overloading though or not being able to get to everything.  I'll be adding a new student (a first grader) in that year I would start a new stream. 

[drummerboy]

I think you're doing fine as you are. The only drawback I forsee is that topics will get neglected.  For example, you won't be able to teach British history very indepth at 2nd grade, so you'll have to be sure to cover it again as grades progress.  Also, as the student matures, make sure you start showing the relationship between the different eras and regions you are teaching.  So for a simple example you would teach how events in the Roman Empire on the continent affected Britain, et al. Or how some camel driver in Arabia having epileptic seizures started a massive worldwide religion that Europe suddey found itself in a life and death struggle with.

During high school you should introduce, briefly, different theories of history so the student is familiar with them, but this need not be extensive, they're not going for a BA in history after all.  This is important to counter the all-pervasive Marxist theory of history.  Familiarize yourself with Dr. Warren Carroll, who puts forth the Catholic view if history, that the Incarnation is the most important event in history, and history teaching should reflect that.

One more thing I recall from my own history education (I'm not a teacher but have a BA in history): examine how societies react and respond to events as they unfold.  What changes and what remains the same?

In a nutshell, history consists of learning lots of history.  It'd their bread and butter.  Who's ever heard of a history professor who knows all the theories of history but little facts?  That would be a dumb professor! Just make sure the facts fit into the bug picture of things, and not just cramming random facts into some poor student's head.

P.S. Just to make things fun, I would suggest getting some basic world history books at the library (being careful for inappropriate content of course).  Take note if your child seems really interested in a particular Era or place, and include that in your history as well, even if it's only a comparative timeline.  And throw in some biographies and historical fiction too. 

Hope I made some sense and wasn't too wordy!

[Josephine87]

Thank you very much for your advice!  I should have said in my original post that the first history cycle I'm doing will repeat starting in 6th or 7th grade so the student(s) will learn each era they learned (in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) in depth. 

During high school you should introduce, briefly, different theories of history so the student is familiar with them, but this need not be extensive, they're not going for a BA in history after all.  This is important to counter the all-pervasive Marxist theory of history.  Familiarize yourself with Dr. Warren Carroll, who puts forth the Catholic view if history, that the Incarnation is the most important event in history, and history teaching should reflect that.

This is very helpful!

[drummerboy]

Happy to help!

[CatholicStudyAttempt]

  One can have history as 3 or 4 parts- ancient, Middle ages, Modern or Ancient, Middle Ages, Early Modern, Modern (french Revolution forward).
  I'm partial to the idea of history as 600 year periods. 3000-2400 BC Sumer and Egypt, early pyramids and Pyramid text, 2400- 1800 BC The development from Pyramid text to Coffin Text to Book of the dead. 1800-1200 Early Indo-European invasions, Moses and early Vedic period. 1200-600 Greek Dark age, Assyrians, etc 600-0 Buddha, Classical Greece, Chinese philosophy like Confucius, Roman Republic. 0-600 Roman empire, early Christianity to Benedict's rules 600-1200 Islam founded to the major crusades, University of Paris, etc 1200-1800 Scholasticism to Enlightenment (Aquinas and Voltaire both university of Paris) 1800-2400 Modern political philosophy like left and right, obviously into the future.