Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Dollar Homeschool ~ Eclectic Education Series


As a member of the TOS Crew, I was given the entire Eclectic Education Series in downloadable format to use and share my review with you. The Eclectic Education Series is available through a company called Dollar Homeschool in CD-Rom format for $159.00 and shipping is free.

The Eclectic Education Series is described in this way at Dollar Homeschool's website:

The Eclectic Education Series (EES) is a set of textbooks which from roughly 1865 to 1915 WAS education in the United States, almost exclusively. They were the standard textbooks in many states and were chosen independently by over 10,000 school boards as their standard textbooks.

The EES covered every topic. Some of the series are still household names almost a hundred years after they ceased being used. These include McGuffey's Readers and Ray's Arithmetics. There were many other extraordinary series in the EES such as Pinneo'sGrammars,Thalheimer's Histories and Norton's Sciences that were used by countless students.

An entire list of the books included in the Eclectic Education series can be found at the Dollar Homeschool's website, by clicking HERE. The list is very long so please take a thorough look. My review in no way is going to touch on every single resource available through the purchase of this product.

All of these books are in the public domain. Which means that anyone can access them online at any time and print or use in any way they'd like. Dollar Homeschool has compiled the entire EES for you, and you do not have to search online finding every resource, because they've done all the work for you. Their service to you is compiling all these resources, scanning them, and creating PDF documents of the textbooks, and then burning them onto a CD for you to use in your homeschool. This is a huge time saver for busy homeschooling families.

Very soon, I will begin an extensive research project on the history of education in the United States. After reading about the Eclectic Education Series at the Dollar Homeschool website, and after sampling some of the products such as the McGuffy readers, Ray's Intellectual Math, and Harvey's Elementary Grammar I have been impressed at the deep, critical thinking skills required in this curriculum. At the time in our nation's history when these textbooks were used, children did not go to school for 13 years for their elementary and secondary education like they do today. Their education was focused, intense, challenging, and thorough. After reading through some of the teacher's manuals, books, and curriculum, it is clear how our nation has truly "dumbed down" our children's education.

I enjoyed receiving the Eclectic Education Series from Dollar Homeschool. I also understand it will not be appreciated by every homeschooling family. I think you either love or hate electronic format materials. Some may be swayed away from this product because it truly is old-fashioned, right down to the font and type setting of the pages. Also, scanned documents are often poor quality and some books with illustrations indeed leave a bit to be desired. So, in my opinion, this is by no means a perfect product. I understand that I would not recommend this to everyone, because it all comes down to your personal educational philosophy. Dollar Homeschool does offer a 30 day money back guarantee. So, if this is something you think you might be interested in previewing there is no risk involved in giving it a try.

To read more reviews on the Eclectic Education Series, please visit the TOS Crew blog, by clicking HERE. Some TOS crew members reviewed the entire series, while others reviewed only Ray's Arithmetic.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm seriously considering homeschooling. Sounds like a worth-while program you're reviewing.

Nikki said...

The concept behind this curriculum is great, but it may turn off some b/c it is "old fashioned." I have learned a lot from it, and it has been interesting and challenging.