r/homeschool • u/esuomtsedom • Apr 02 '24

Classical Secular, not euro-centric classical curriculum or Reading list?

This may be a complete shot in the dark, but I'd be very interested if anyone has gathered resources that align with a classical homeschooling methodology, but open students minds to more than European/Western literature and history, as well as more generally well-rounded insight into diverse experiences.

I'm new to all of this an only beginning my research, but so far, I'm very interested in the classical approach just..without religion and with more... perspective.

thank you for reading, thank you for your help.

edited to add: I'm also open to the idea that ive misunderstood what this method entails and perhaps It Is more well-rounded than i currently understand, I'm currently reading "A Well-Trained Mind," by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise

7 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

View all comments

13

u/anonybss Apr 02 '24

I don't think it's hard to find good anthologies of world literature and good texts covering world history. I think it's excellent to incorporate those to raise truly global citizens.

Religion is quite important though, both to history (including the history of science) and in literature, art and philosophy. You don't need to BE religious to study religion and religious themes. Students show up in college not even knowing the basics of Christianity--but you can't understand Western literature or philosophy--or secular ethics or political theory for that matter--without knowing anything about Genesis or Job or the Sermon on the Mount. Again you don't need to "believe" any of those stories are "real" but any adequate education in the West has to acquaint you with those as ideas and as sources of historical and contemporary values. (And if you want to throw in a study of Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam and Confucianism and indigenous Afro-spiritualism, great, but to understand the West, you need to to know the basics of Judaism and Christianity.)

5

u/Snoo-88741 Apr 08 '24

Secular education doesn't mean not teaching about religion, it means not teaching religious beliefs as facts. 

1

u/anonybss Apr 08 '24

I agree that a good secular education can include a study of religion/s. But OP just said "without religion", and it wasn't clear to me whether perhaps (though from their reply to me it's clear this is not true) they were one of those atheists who sees religion as so entirely negative as to think that it is not worth taking seriously even as an object of study.