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In case you haven't noticed,
History has been replaced by "Social Studies" in modern schools.
This is because modern educators have imbibed a philosophical idea
known as "mechanism" which holds that there is no divine purpose in the world. Things are merely mechanical and everything that happens has a physical or chemical explanation.
Thus, as there is no purpose, there can be no beginning, center or end.
Everything is equally important, or to be more precise, equally
unimportant.
Obviously this is inconsistent
not only with Christianity but with sound philosophy. Life is not
mechanistic, but is deterministic, with the wisdom and power of
God directing all things. This is the source of all meaning and
value in the universe--and the key to world history. The understanding
of this concept, ultimately, is Wisdom.
Classical academies did not
study the subjects schools do today. "History" referred to a style of
writing rather than an organized study of the past and was taken up in
Humanities. If historical trivia was
studied, it was done in Humanities as a relief from the rigors of language study. Yes, learning history
was mental recess in classical schools.
Therefore, there is no
such thing as a "classical" history program. Schools or study
programs that pretend that kids in the old days studied lots of history
prove themselves ignorant of it and
are mistakenly thinking about the early public schools (1800s) which had already wandered off
course.
HOW IT WORKS
Information is cheap in the
21st century. There is no reason why students should be spending
hours learning historical trivia from textbooks rather than the skills they need for advanced
learning: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, etc... No child should be spending years
gathering information that can be "Googled" whenever needed or
learned through leisure reading.
This may have made sense 100 years ago, but not today.
In our world chronology
program (which parents have really loved!) students learn an outline of world history that may be
visualized for use throughout life. Students begin with the four
ages of world history, then study history in layers, moving deeper and
deeper while maintaining the big picture at all times.
In the end, students are able to locate just about any person or event in world history by the
use of reason, working upon the memorized chronology. This is
history with a purpose. |
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View
Sample Student Narrative |
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THE RIGHT USE OF HISTORY
Most history courses start
with the proposition, "History repeats itself." and then argue all of
history's uses from there. This, however, is a generalization and
oversimplification which really isn't true. Rarely does history
ever repeat itself any more than human beings act the same way in
similar circumstances.
The first and most important
reason for studying history is to discover the context of things we
read. We have to know when the Psalms were written, who was king
when Shakespeare wrote, whether St. Paul was familiar with anything
Aristotle had said or not, and so on. To understand context, which is at the
heart of all interpretation, is the primary reason why wise people need
to know history.
The second reason is for
Christian living. History preaches a clear message to us,
encouraging us to imitate the faith of the saints. When times look
cold and dark, history provides a light to help us see what God has done
in the past and what He can
do again for us.
Study
the generations long past and understand; has anyone hoped in the LORD
and been disappointed? Has anyone persevered in his fear and been
forsaken? has anyone called upon him and been rebuffed?
Sirach 2:10
Third, if we would be leaders
in our generation and raise leaders for the next generation, we must
understand where things around us have come from, where they are now and
in what direction they are heading. This is only possible through
a chronological knowledge of history and is the idea behind
Cicero's famous words, which explain why few modern students ever "grow
up":
To
not know what happened before you were born is to remain forever a
child.
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