How Do I Know What to Teach?

A friend asked me how I know what to teach and how to find reliable resources. I decided to post my answer here in case others might find the information useful.

STANDARDS AREN'T EVIL (HIGH STAKES STANDARDIZED TESTS ARE)
Standards have been much maligned on homeschool blogs and I'm not sure the source of the acrimony. Are people confusing standards with standardized testing or are homeschoolers just rejecting standards because they associate them with traditional schools and therefore think they must be avoided?  Is it a rebellion against someone telling them what they should teach? I really don't know but I believe their rejection of standards is misguided. I am as concerned as other parents and teachers about the over reliance on high stakes standardized testing, but standards simply provide a guideline. They don't tell a teacher or school exactly what to teach, how to teach, or how to test for knowledge. They give a broad overview of knowledge and skills that are considered necessary in each grade level, and there is a reason they exist. A writer or publisher of any curriculum has made a decision about what should be included and excluded and what their product will teach your child, the question is how did they arrive at that decision? What kind of expertise do they have? How do they know what your child needs to learn? How do you know that product is what your child needs? That's what standards are for. We can use a resource published by people who may have no other experience, insight, or expertise than what they have gained from teaching their own kids (and there's a lot of it out there) or we can use something that meets state or national standards; something that a panel of teachers, scholars and professionals in that field have agreed are necessary skills and knowledge for that particular age or subject because they have brought their collective expertise to that decision making process. 

TEXTBOOKS AREN'T NECESSARILY EVIL (IT DEPENDS ON HOW YOU USE THEM)
When I first became a teacher I was handed a manual of state social studies standards that I was expected to cover. Unfortunately it only gave me outlines. It didn't give me much detail about WHAT or HOW. The textbook handles the WHAT for us. The publishers are aware of the standards (see above) because they want to sell textbooks, so the work of figuring out what to include has been done by experts in the field. I know, they're dry and boring, but they are very useful. They will keep you organized and on track and tell you everything you need to cover. It typically contains more information than a history encyclopedia and it's usually better organized. If you find a teacher's edition it will give you even more information. You'd be surprised what some middle and high school history teachers don't know. Publishers realize this so they print all kinds of helpful information in the sidebars. The textbook doesn't need to be your sole source and you have the freedom to use it as you please. You don't need to do what some traditional teachers do: "Read pages 55-67 and answer the questions at the back." There is no quicker way to make history boring. Just use it to help you know what's important and what to cover, but flesh it out with good stuff and interesting experiences. That brings us to HOW to teach when the textbook sucks all the fun out of it.

Back then there wasn't much emphasis on using primary source documents in the classroom as I felt there should be, so I developed my own lessons using the mediocre text only as a spine, a grounding mechanism to keep us moving along and covering the main points. I used it for organizational purposes, mostly, and I ditched the crappy worksheets and tests that came with it. My lessons involved primary sources that I found: speeches, letters, news reels, political cartoons, paintings, etc...and as many artifacts or replicas as I could find so they could touch them.(Civil War bullets, copies of paper currency, ANYTHING tangible). I appealed to as many senses as possible. We watched documentaries, we had feast days when we studied countries with great food, they listened to music. You get the idea. I tried to make it a full-on sensory experience. If I could figure out ways for them to act out stuff, I did. We held mock trials and staged talk shows with students playing various historical figures and the more they disagreed, the better. When we got far enough into the 20th century I found people who lived key events to come talk to my class about the Depression, World War II, being an immigrant, Vietnam, Civil Rights. When we were too far back in history for living people I sometimes dressed up as a character and played the part, telling them about myself and fielding their questions. I did this with the most colorful people-Pancho Villa, Teddy Roosevelt, Simon Bolivar, Patrick Henry-people who were memorable and fun to play. I was very thankful for my minor in theater. I had no idea how useful it would be in a history classroom. Homeschoolers have such an advantage over the classroom bound teacher, though. There is history all around us. Find what's in your area and use it. Here in Georgia we have rich, cultural opportunities for field trips. You can use good literature, games, hands-on projects, or whatever appeals to your kids to make the dry stuff on the page come alive for them. I say all this to show that the textbook is useful but it doesn't have to be the primary vehicle. We can do so much with the freedom that we have. The text is nothing more that the base you build on. It's only evil when that's all a student has to learn from.

CALIFORNIA TEXTBOOKS ARE GOOD; TEXAS TEXTBOOKS ARE BAD
The next question is how do you find reliable textbooks. Some are definitely better than others. Here's a rule of thumb. California and Texas are the biggest customers of textbooks so what they demand determines what students in other states learn. The Texas school board passed new amendments to push a more conservative political agenda in social studies to such a degree that what they wanted was far more like propaganda than a legitimate textbook. (For more information on what types of changes they made read this article.) California balked and passed a law to keep the Texas books out of their classrooms and to keep mainstream information in. So, look for a textbook that was produced for or used in California, the more recent the better. Or get a commonly used college history survey textbook and avoid the whole political quagmire altogether. You won't be able to find a teacher's edition with the handy sidebars but the quality will be much better.

USING PRIMARY SOURCES
The Reading Like a Historian site is a good place to start using primary sources. It is a document based curriculum that engages students in historical inquiry and includes lesson plans that can be used alone or as a supplement.

OTHER RESOURCES
Kenneth Davis' Don't Know Much About...series gives excellent coverage of American History and I highly recommend them. He's also got a book on geography, a few world history topics, and some science titles. Middle schoolers will likely not mind reading these themselves but they are great read-alouds. For world history you can have a look at J.M. Robert's magnum opus, A History of the World. It's drier and not as user friendly as the Ken Davis books but this one book will hit all the major stuff and it has recently been updated. It covers all of human history so you don't have to read the whole thing at once. Just work your way through it and it will give you a great bird's eye view. Don't torture your kids with it, though. For them have a look at Terry Deary's Horrible Histories series. It's humorous and pretty spot-on for middle schoolers. They likely won't mind reading these themselves.

Finding reliable online resources is a little trickier. Here is a helpful page on determining website credibility. I'm sure you already know all this but it's nice to have it all right there. I'm beginning to teach my kids about this and it's not always easy. Some site owners are very good at cultivating the appearance of credibility to persuade the not-so-savvy with their particular brand of nonsense. Still, this is the age we live in and our kids need to know how to navigate through the poop.

For various other resources use the same judgment you do when finding reliable websites. Where history is involved it's particularly important to make sure the information is up to date. Unless you are using primary sources or using an outdated secondary source as part of a lesson on how our understanding of history changes over time or how to detect bias in a source, then stick with the most current sources you can find. I can think of only a few exceptions to this rule. Make sure you know the author or publisher is known for producing things for the school market or for mainstream publication rather than one that caters to a specific group. It is time consuming to track down resources, which is one of the reasons why I decided to produce this blog. I'm already going to the trouble of finding these things for our use and I'm happy to share what I find with other homeschoolers. There is a lot out there and I can't possibly cover it all but hopefully it's helpful to those who need it.

SUGGESTIONS FOR HIGH SCHOOL
High school students might be able to take classes at the local university or community college. If you are in an equal access state your child might be able to take AP classes a la carte at the local high school. Some online schools offer AP classes. If these aren't good options you can look into AP test prep guides and either high school textbooks for teaching AP or college textbooks to use at home. Your child is not required to take AP classes in order to take the exam but they will have to sign up to take it when it is given. It's a proctored test with high security.

Pamoja Education offers online Diploma Programme courses in association with the International Baccalaureate. As of the writing of this post Pamoja is the only online education provider authorized to offer these courses.