It’s here!

Epi Kardia’s brand new British Literature course is now available! This seismic 113 page high school curriculum incorporates the best of British Literature, with a special emphasis on the Victorian Age.  The classic works utilized in this curriculum include:

–Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney (epic poetry)

–Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (historical play)

–A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (short story)

–The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (short stories)

–Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (novel)

–Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (novel)

–Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (novel)

–Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (novel)

–The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (play)

–Selected poetry printed in the curriculum appendices.

As well as many of the traditional elements of literature such as theme, characterization, plot, irony, symbolism and poetic style, this course emphasizes excellent essay writing skills, literature analysis and the discovery of the unique characteristics of British writing through the study of exceptional models, allowing British Literature: a Study of British Writers to serve as an excellent precursor to further college level studies.  Written assignments and projects employing non-traditional learning modes engage students and help them encounter these works and their authors, as well as the time period during which they lived.

Features of Epi Kardia’s High School Courses

As is true of all Epi Kardia high school courses:

• Assignments are written directly to students, with special sections and appendices written for the benefit of the teacher.

• Evaluation tips and individual grading rubrics for all major assignments are included, allowing you to have full confidence both in communicating to your student what is expected and in fairly evaluating course work.

• This course may be utilized at either college preparatory or honors level.

We recommend that your student be familiar with the common essays encountered in high school writing before taking this course.  If your student has never taken a high school composition class, we recommend Epi Kardia’s Essay Styles for High School, which may be taken concurrently with this course.

Special Price on all Orders Containing British Lit!

We are so excited about British Literature: a Study of British Writers, we would like to offer you 20% off your ENTIRE order if it includes the purchase of British Literature.  For one week only, from 9/24/09 to 10/1/09, you may take advantage of this special offer when ordering from Epi Kardia’s online catalog. Remember, British Literature has to be included in your purchase.  Note: After you place the order and BEFORE your credit card is charged, we will manually reduce your order by 20%.

Please feel free to share this with anyone you feel would benefit.

Coming soon:  a pre-announcement of two more Epi Kardia literature based high school classes:  American History I (from Early Colonies through the Civil War) and American History II (Immigration through Modern).

In His Service,

Using Habits in Personal Training

The importance of good habits is an often repeated refrain with Charlotte Mason, who believed whole-heartedly that parents were  to instill good habits in their children from early childhood.

“The habits of the child produce the character of the man . . .every day, every hour, the parents are either passively or actively forming those habits in their children upon which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct depend.”

First of all, Ms. Mason thought children were to be raised with the idea that they are not their own.  In other words, children, just as their

parents, hold their lives in a sacred trust from the Creator.  They were created for God’s purposes, and it is their job to develop  healthy bodies and minds in order to be ready to fulfill that special purpose for which they were created.  In other words, children are to be taught from the beginning that they are living under a greater Authority than themselves. What a contrast to the child-centered culture in which we live!

One of the many byproducts of good habits is that they make behavior automatic.  If you regularly perform a certain task, such as getting up and immediately making your bed, over and over again, it becomes automatic.  If you get up and do it ten times, you probably still are thinking about it every morning. But if you do it one hundred times, or a thousand times, you do it ‘on automatic pilot’  without thinking about it at all.  It is a simple task that takes absolutely no thought and not much more effort.  However, if it is not a habit, one has to decide every day to do it. Thoughts like this creep in: Do I feel like doing it?  Do I have time to do it?  If I don’t do it, maybe my mom will do it for me.  Or, my personal favorite, I will come back later and do it, I promise.  

Carrying one’s own dishes to the kitchen counter, putting away ones’ own clothes, shoes, toys, etc., brushing one’s teeth after eating, feeding a pet, and making a bed can all be accomplished by the youngest of children with loving, consistent training beginning well before they are ’school-aged.’

Without this training,  we would be constantly struggling with our children and there would be no time left to get anything done, let alone schoolwork, with us fussing and/or following our children around all the time enforcing the completion of these relentless tasks. A harmonious household was Charlotte Mason’s goal for families, and this can not be the case without constant, reliable training of good habits.

Charlotte Mason’s Suggested Physical Habits

• Self-Restraint:  using one’s time wisely and  productively rather than being lazy or self-indulgent

• Self-Control: Staying focused and on task, rather than being upset by minor annoyances.  Cultivating a tolerant, pleasant, patient attitude rather than being quick to whine or complain when conditions aren’t exactly as we would like them.

• Self-Discipline:  Teaching children to be consistently clean, neat and orderly, no matter where they are—at home, at a friend’s or at Grandma’s.

• Alertness: Teaching children to actively seek ways to serve others.  Opening doors, carrying something for mother or a younger sibling, completing a task that needs to be done rather than waiting for someone else to do it, or helping Dad with something without being asked are all benefits of teaching your child to be alert.

• Fortitude:  Given the right inspiration, most children’s natural heroic tendencies become activated and can produce an astounding amount of perseverance and tenacity.  Reading about the physical heroism of the Spartans or the knight’s Code of Chivalry can help promote this idea in your young ones.

• Service:  This is another habit that is promoted by delightful examples of selfless service in excellent children’s literature such as The Box-Car Children. Boxcar. series for younger elementary or Amos Fortune, Free Man (Newbery Library, Puffin), for older elementary children.

• Courage: Again, by reading fine literature as well as emulating examples around them, children learn courage, as opposed to recklessness.

• Caution:  Another word for discernment, Ms. Mason describes caution as preserving our health and ability to serve God and others by acting thoughtfully rather than hastily and possibly harming ourselves or perhaps our siblings or friends.
  

• Purity: The last of the physical habits, the need for purity is best summed up by  1 Corinthians 6:19: Do you not know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit, Whom you have received from God?  Ms. Mason believed that if children are raised with this concept when they are young, they will have a reverence for their body that will be supported by their actions.

As parents, we are wise when we realize the value of instilling these habits into our children beginning at an early age.  Our daily, often hour by hour training using inspiring examples from our literature and stories as well as gentle, loving correction will produce children who are ready and able to manage their own bodies and accept the responsibilities laid upon them by their parents as they continue to grow and mature.

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.  Galatians 6:9

Let us encourage one another in our high calling,

Next:  Forming Intellectual Habits

You can register your student today for any of my online courses listed below. Classes begin September 9th and are taught using a secure online forum. For the literature and history courses, students not only receive assignments and evaluations online, but they also participate in discussions twice a week to evaluate comprehension of material. Best of all, Epi Kardia curriculum and materials are used for these courses! Please note that there are a limited number of spots available for each course.

Detailed course descriptions are available at www.epikardia.com. Classes for the 2009-2010 school year (all courses are full year):

· High School Writing Prep (7th – 8th grade) – based on my years of teaching Essay Styles, the first year high school course, I discovered that many high school students are still making the same errors in writing repeatedly. This course troubleshoots those specific areas allowing students to enter high school courses with a distinct advantage in writing skills!

· Essay Styles (high school) – our recommended first year course for high school students covering the five basic essays.

· British Literature (high school) – discover great British authors and poets from the Middle Ages to Modern.

· American History I (high school) – whole books, timelines, research projects and more are incorporated to discover American history from Colonization through the Civil War.

· American History II (high school) – covers Immigration and Modern historical time periods.

Other important details:

Tuition for online courses: $320 per year with a monthly payment plan option of $40 per course, per student, for a total of 8 months. Parents are committed to pay for the entire course except in extreme cases of job loss or serious illness.

Tuition discount: For families with more than one student and/or students taking more than one course, the second student’s courses or any courses for the same student beyond one cost $280 per year or $35 monthly.

Curriculum: Students will need to purchase the appropriate Epi Kardia curriculum but will receive a 25% discount.

Registration:  Students may be registered by email (send to beth@epikardia.com) by submitting the following information.

· Student name

· Parent name

· Grade/age

· Course(s)

· Email addresses (parent and student)

· Physical mailing address

· Contact phone number (parent) – this number is only for extreme cases when a parent or student is not responding to email

Important note: Email registration is considered a commitment for completing the course.

Please contact me personally at Beth@epikardia.com if you have any questions or would like to register your student. I’m looking forward to a year immersed in wonderful literature and fruitful discussions!

God bless your school year!

Beth

Have you heard the term project-based learning lately and wondered what all the buzz is about?  Project-based or project-led learning is a term coined to describe the learning that results when students are working to solve real world problems and challenges.  It is doing something with a purpose, and it absolutely engages students.  We said in our earlier series concerning teaching middle schoolers that middle school is not the time to discount activity-based learning, and that especially applies to those wiggly boys you have!

Does this mean there are no more books?  Absolutely not!  It just means designing activities to illustrate and demonstrate what students are learning-and if the project has usefulness beyond ’school,’ the more valuable and long-lasting the learning tends to be.  This is also a fantastic way to expose your students to different types of activities-sometimes the very best way to discover the types of activities that inspire your student.  Let’s look at some examples.

What kinds of projects?

• Let’s say your student has shown a little interest (or you have the interest) in woodworking.  This would be a great project to tie into a study of Colonial History or the Westward Expansion period, when many people made their own homes and furniture.  How about building a chair that can actually be used by your student or someone else?  Or perhaps a workbench that could be used by the family or a little brother or sister, depending upon the scale?  Of course, the student would be involved in researching how to accomplish this task (language arts), figuring how much of what materials would be needed (math), perhaps observing others involved in this endeavor (social skills, field trips), reading about how others in history built their own furniture (language arts, history), learning how to use building tools (science and technology), journaling his or her building progress (writing, photography).  Perhaps this activity is enjoyed so much it turns into a side business!  (Then MANY other things can be learned!)

• Another project suggested during our Middle Ages unit is to study gardening and create a garden, as herbs were used during that time for everything from perfume to medicine.  Growing herbs to be used in the family’s cooking or to sell to the neighbors or at a farmer’s market would be a wonderful project and involve reading, writing, planning, logical thinking and more, not to mention the regular discipline the maintenance of a garden would require.

• Making corn husk dolls, hand-dipped candles or rag rugs also fits nicely into a Colonial unit and have obvious uses as Christmas or birthday gifts.

• Learning how to take care of a car fits nicely into the Immigration unit and could involve studying the history of cars, the technology involved in their production and maintenance, and the costs involved in car ownership.  Very practical stuff!

Let’s take advantage of the time and freedom we have homeschooling and give our students the opportunity to do some real world learning.  When your student’s time and attention is captured by an activity he truly enjoys,  you will be amazed at what learning takes place!

We would love to hear what kind of projects your kids have enjoyed while you have been homeschooling!

Blessings on your home school,

“Our motto is,–’Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.’ When we say that education is an atmosphere we do not mean that a child should be isolated in what may be called a ‘child environment’ specially adapted and prepared, but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere both as regards persons and things and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the ‘child’s’ level.”

We don’t often talk directly about Charlotte Mason in our curriculum, but most of Epi Kardia curriculum, as well as our homeschooling philosophies as expressed on our blog, are inspired by her teachings.  Volume 6 of her works is my favorite, as it was written about forty years after her first volume. (In other words, after her teaching practices were, well, finely tuned by experience.)

“We all know the natural conditions under which a child should live; how he shares household ways with his mother, romps with his father, is teased by his brothers and petted by his sisters; is taught by his tumbles; learns self-denial by the baby’s needs, the delightfulness of furniture by playing at battle and siege with sofa and table; learns veneration for the old by the visits of his great-grandmother; how to live with his equals by the chums he gathers round him; learns intimacy with animals from his dog and cat; delight in the fields where the buttercups grow and greater delight in the blackberry hedges.”

Rather than sitting all day in an artificially contrived environment, Charlotte believed that children should experience life directly.  They should interact with nature; they should have relationships with their parents, siblings, and neighbors next door, the grocery store clerks and the pharmacist.  They should be exposed to some of the realities of life, helping make a meal for the friend who just had surgery or take care of the yard work for an elderly neighbor.

It is no wonder that the homeschooling movement has whole-heartedly adopted Ms. Mason’s philosophies!  It certainly sounds like homeschooling to me!

Thankful for this precious time with my kids,

Next:  Education is a Discipline

I have recently noticed how often God speaks to me in my car. Or rather, should I say, how much I hear God in my car? I am sure God speaks to me more often that I hear, but car conversations seem to work because they are one of the few opportunities when I am actually alone! Recently, God shared a beautiful message with me in the car. It is a message of blessings and hope. I hope it encourages you as much as it does me!

God brought to mind many of the trials and tribulations that I have been through in this life. He did not bring them to mind for me to lament over or even to examine in detail, but moreso, He put them on my mind because they all had something in common. Actually two things: through all of them I never lost faith in God and through all of them I was home schooling! Now, the faith aspect is a subject for another day. Probably one that you cover in church regularly. But the home schooling idea surprised me. God revealed me to that day what a blessing home schooling has been in my life. It has been a constant when so many other things were failing around me. If you’ll bear with me, I’d like to share just a few examples:

1. While my beloved mother battled cancer – I was able to travel with my children from my home in Texas to her home in Florida. We used her tiny hometown library and spent most days schooling as I also tended to her. At the time, Ally was only 11 and John Paul was 5. The days were not always easy, but continuing to home school at my mom’s brought not only a measure of routine for the children and myself through a trying time, it also brought joy to my mom to watch her grandchildren grow in wisdom. I hold onto those times as some of my worst because my mother was one of the world’s true saints and as some of my best because if I had not home schooled, imagine what we would’ve missed out on during those days?

2. While living in hotels – My children’s father was a hotel manager for many years and we followed him from state to state often living in hotels for months at a time. Home schooling again brought the continuity that we needed to feel normal in abnormal surroundings.

3. While writing Epi Kardia – now please don’t think that I consider writing Epi Kardia a trial (okay…maybe occasionally. LOL). However, I know that many home school families begin a business while home schooling. Needless to say, there have been days when I felt that I had to choose between the two, but being reminded of the whole reason I started Epi Kardia (I wanted a certain curriculum for my own children!) grounds me when I get too sidetracked.

There are so many more times I could mention, but I think you have the idea. I know many moms who homeschool when it’s amazing that they just get up in the morning. I specifically know those who have lost children, lost spouses, lost all income and I praise God that in all of those cases, they never lost faith! I am not trying to romanticize home schooling or even promote it as any sort of saving grace. But God has used it my life and in my children’s life to allow us to grow closer to one another and to Him, even in life’s worst times.

I’d love to hear from you about a time that you have home schooled through a challenge. If you live in the South, you’ve probably homeschooled through hurricanes! If you live in the North, maybe the snowstorms are your adventure. May you always see your homeschool experience overall as a blessing and not a burden.

God bless each of you as you homeschool through all times, as you have committed yourself to the Godly training of your children and as you continue to seek His face in the process.

In Him,

Greetings!

Let me preface this post by saying that we don’t feel you are evil, lost, derelict parents if you have put one or more of your children into public school.  There are many reasons why parents choose to do this and although we have made other decisions for our families, we do not have the right to make that decision for YOUR  kids.  However, we are concerned, as you are, about the gay agenda that is promoted these days in many public schools.  Hence we thought this might be helpful and welcome information for some of you—or if not for you, perhaps for a concerned neighbor or  relative.  Please forward as you see fit!

As many Christian students are beginning public school this week, we came across a timely video that might be helpful to some parents, grandparents or others who care about them and are concerned about promotion of the gay agenda in public schools.

In this informative video, Education Analyst Candi Cushman gives  helpful advice to Stuart Shephard in this Focus Action Update sponsored by Focus on the Family. In it she describes several ways  to investigate special school programs, curriculum and even school libraries to evaluate whether or not they subtly (or not so subtly!) promote a gay agenda.  Candi exhorts us, not only as parents, but also as concerned citizens, to take the time to find out what possibly destructive agendas are promoted by our school system.

Additionally, she has  put together a website of materials created by Focus on the Family, Exodus International and the Allied Defense Fund called True Tolerance, based upon the legal right that we have as Christians to have our viewpoint aired as well as the liberal one in the public school setting.  This website provides downloadable packages containing legal information written to the school system.  All you have to do is download it and send it to the school(s) in your community.

If you have a child in public school, I exhort you to take the time to check out what he or she is ‘learning’ along with the three  “r’s!”

In His Grace,

Anyone who reads the paper or hears the news knows that home schooled students have excelled in terms of their public performance in the National Spelling and Geography Bees.  Yet school administrators, teachers and much of the general public seem to persist in feeling that these exemplary students are the exception rather than the rule.  We continue to hear and read* that homeschooling is a poor choice for students in terms of academic excellence and social education.  In order to negate those negative attitudes with up to date research, HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) commissioned Dr. Brian Ray, an imminent home school authority, to do a 2007-2008 study to piggyback upon prior results of 1998 research conducted by University of Maryland’s Dr. Lawrence Rudner.

And the results?  Surprise!!  Now that the homeschool movement has about 25 years of research behind it, home schooled students still consistently outperform public schooled students! What is especially fascinating is that factors such as the level of education of the parents, the amount of money spent annually on students’ education, the amount of government regulation of homeschooling and whether or not either parent were previously certified teachers did not significantly influence students’ performance on the three indicators used to assess students’ prowess: the Stanford Achievement Test, The Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the California Achievement Test.

Fascinatingly, the research also suggests that homeschooling narrows the gaps between the rich and the poor, between male and female students and from those with white and blue color backgrounds – something our public educational system just hasn’t been able to effectively accomplish.

So there you have it!  It works!  And at a minute fraction of the cost of public school.

Now I know I am preaching to the choir here, but if you are considering homeschooling or new to homeschooling, I want you to hear what I am saying:

You can do this.

Yes, there is a learning curve, and yes, you will feel more on top of things the longer you homeschool.  Look for help and support in a group of like-minded people and realize you will. never. learn. it. all. and that is OK! So be encouraged -  if you are worried that you are ruining your kids, you probably aren’t. LOL  Even if you always feel behind, compare your homeschool to others’ and always feel you are lacking, or are more unorganized than you would like, it appears that you have a pretty good chance of not only meeting, but perhaps even vastly exceeding the public school system.  Even if you are just an amateur.*

With hope in Him,

For more encouragement, please read this.

To read the complete study referred to above, read here.

To read the HSLDA article about the study, read here.

Hello All!

Just wanted to send you a quick note to thank those of you who prayed for my daughter’s mission trip!  She is now back safely from the Amazon.  We have been enthralled with her stories and pictures and are thrilled to have her home again for a few days, at least, until she leaves for college on Friday.

It was amazing that this student team was able to live and work beside a people who had only seen Americans one time  previous to this team’s arrival.  It was even more amazing that they ate the local food and swam in a river with piranhas with no illnesses or injuries!  If you would like to hear details about how God worked on her trip and see  more pictures please read her prayer blog.

Thank you again for your prayers!

In His Grace,

As many of us are beginning the new school year in the days and weeks to come, let us commit to being aware of our thoughts and to reframe them as necessary to help us be calm, patient and positive teacher-mentors to our kids.

Is the glass half empty or is it half full? It seems that everyone has a natural bent to view circumstances in life one way or the other. Although we don’t often take the time to think about it, we know that our thoughts influence our attitudes and our attitudes, our behavior. Those of us who have had difficult or even tragic circumstances during childhood have more baggage to deal with and often have more of a set predisposition toward the negative. Many times in these situations, psychological and spiritual intervention may be necessary to deal with the pain and move on to a more balanced outlook.

For the rest of us, though, keeping a handle on our thoughts is, or should be, a daily discipline. The first step is often the awareness of what we are thinking and how it influences us. If you aren’t sure how this works, remember the last time a loved one came home after having a difficult day at work or elsewhere and chewed on you a little bit?

–What did you think?

• “He/she doesn’t have the right to treat me that way!”
• “If I was a better wife/mother, she wouldn’t talk to me like that!”
• “He/she doesn’t love me!”

–What did you do? Get depressed? Chew back? Cry? Kick the dog? Swallow your words but then find yourself being overly critical with your kids or others?

Frequently we don’t even need an antagonist to hijack our attitudes – we do it all by ourselves! For example, perhaps you can remember a time, especially when you were beginning homeschooling, when you thought something like; “I don’t know what I am doing.” If you dwelt on that thought, it was probably followed by,

• “I am not going to be a very good teacher.”
• “My relatives/in-laws/neighbors/friends are right, I have no business trying to home school.”
• “My kids are not going to learn anything.”

You know what I mean. If left to our own devices, those thoughts tend to spiral downward, and so do our attitudes and behavior! 

Maybe this year you are starting to feel a little overwhelmed at school beginning. It would be a great time to get out of the house, perhaps with your spouse, and talk through what worked last year and what didn’t work. For the things that didn’t work so well, brainstorm ways to approach things differently. Try to take areas one at a time. Maybe more than one session of this nature is necessary. Don’t rush back into school until you are ready.

When negative thoughts occur, stop and think through to what the root is of the thought is instead of allowing the ‘downward spiral.’ Alternatively, try to reframe the thought into a positive action.

For example:

Instead of thinking: I have so much to do planning six subjects!

Reframe that thought into: How can I break this planning up into smaller pieces? I think I will spend a few hours a day on one class/subject at a time.

Instead of dwelling on: Once school starts I’m going to be so overwhelmed!

Reframe that thought into: How can I be better this year with taking regular time for myself? I could get up 15 minutes earlier to have a quiet time. I could trade off child watching with a neighbor and take an afternoon walk a few times a week. I could plan in a quarterly teacher work-day and get someone to watch the kids elsewhere so I can stay home and get organized. I can meet a friend for breakfast Saturday mornings when my husband can watch the kids.

Instead of dwelling on: I get so mad at my student when s/he doesn’t finish his work! I dread battling over writing again this year!

Reframe that thought into: It is normal to loose my temper sometimes, but what can I do to keep in control? I could walk away until I calmed down. I can sit down when I am not angry and calmly but firmly talk over the situation with my child. Instead of fighting over writing, I’m going to ask my friend Sally to teach my son writing and maybe I can teach hers math.

You get the idea.

A familiar Biblical example of reframing our thinking is found in the book of James. In verse two of chapter one, James exhorts us to ²Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. ⁴Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James is saying that even though our natural reaction to trials is to be upset, worried, fearful, etc., he wants us to choose to be joyful. If we can focus on the thought that trials will be of benefit to us, it is easier to walk through them with a better attitude.

One verse that I find very helpful with stopping negative thinking is I Corinthians 10:5: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Start out this school year with a positive frame of mind; take time to recognize and identify negative thoughts, disappointments, and discouragements from last year. Ask yourself:  What can be done differently or how can I approach this situation from a different mental viewpoint? Am I practicing applying a biblical perspective to this situation or circumstance? Do not settle for mentally wrestling about the same anxieties of last year. If you need help, call upon your husband or a trusted friend.

May God bless you as He continues to conform you to His image!

P.S.  If you are from South Carolina, don’t forget that this is Sales Tax Exempt weekend and we are offering SC residents an extra 15% off all purchases over $25!  For this special pricing contact us directly at dana@epikardia.com!