The Teaching Company

One of my favorite pastimes is enjoying Teaching Company videos. My current indulgence is From Plato to Post-modernism. Literary Criticism is one of my new interests, and I'm getting the max out of this short-cut. I think I'm going to start with Hegel, because of all the ground Professor Markos and I have covered so far Hegel's ideas have captured my imagination. I'm sure the rest will be equally interesting, but this is what I want to learn now.
As a homeschooling parent, I've found the Teaching Company invaluable. We began with their course Understanding the Human Body, because I wanted a good foundation for a science class. Using the outline provided, I was able to cover all the systems of the body and construct a very fun and informative class. Every year since we've returned to the Teaching Company to provide us with a structure for science. Physics in Your Life was a lot of fun, but not as easy to use as a guide to curriculum. I ended up meshing another resource in with what Professor Wolfson was teaching in order to more systematically cover the material. This year we fell in love with two different courses. Dr. Renton's Nature of Earth had my kids looking at the world around them in new ways. I began to understand what the big deal is with water conservation, and we all had a good time. We're still finishing the extensive Understanding the Universe course. My kids love Professor Fillipenko and his crazy t-shirts. He's even inspired them to read Douglas Adams. Next year, we're tackling Chemistry. I'm planning on using a children's course I've found on-line, but we've purchased the High-school level class to stretch all of us as I'm very uncomfortable with Chemistry.
Rigorous inquiry into the world and the nature of life is an important value in our homeschool. I was looking for tough coursework in history and literature and I made an uneasy compromise with Veritas Press. Their rather virulent perspective is often repugnant to me, but they were the only homeschooling curriculum with any chops. My oldest and I worked through their Omnibus I, but by the end of the year I was dropping the book's assignments in favor of a commonplace book approach. This year, I'm going with the Teaching Company. I had purchased their Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition to offset some of the ideology in the Omnibus, this year I'm going to let those gracious professors be our guide to selecting the literary works we'll read. Since we're going to be in the medieval period, I just picked up Reason and Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages. I think this will beef up the philosophy portion of our studies where I feel less than qualified. I haven't decided how I will approach the history portion that was so much a part of our pleasure last year, though we will of course continue using The Story of the World with the younger children. Perhaps our friend Dr. Bell will give us a list of good medieval historians.
In any case, I've grown right along with the children. Areas of learning that seemed overwhelmingly complex have lost much of their intimidating glamor as the Teaching Company's professors have given me some good traction to get going. If you homeschool, I highly recommend their products.