In ancient times, a lamp or torch was hung on a lamp stand so that
its light could reach farther. As we write, select, and sell the best
homeschooling products we can find, we seek to make your homeschooling
path brighter and easier to find.
Lampstand Press was officially founded in 1998, but its real start was
three years earlier, when a homeschool mother of six named
Marcia Somerville was led by her
husband, Scott, through the
process of writing a curriculum based on a four-year study of the
history of the world. Originally intended only for family use, soon
others began expressing interest in the curriculum. As its user base
grew, the plan was named
Tapestry of Grace, and Lampstand Press was founded as the
publisher of this award-winning curriculum.
Over the years, Lampstand Press has grown into far more than just a
single-product company. In 2006, we opened the Lampstand Press
Bookshelf, which provides carefully selected
products that we, as seasoned homeschoolers, can wholeheartedly
recommend. We also hosted Lampstand Live - a speaking tour by Marcia and
Scott Somerville, communicating their heart for the spiritual growth of
homeschooling parents. These sessions were recorded, and are available
on our Bookshelf, along with other teaching materials by outstanding
Christian authors.
In early 2007, we developed our second stand-alone product,
Writing Aids, as well as other new products that enhanced and
enriched the Tapestry experience, such as
Map Aids, Evaluations, and custom-designed lapbooks.
Today, Lampstand Press continues to expand, providing new products and
services to an ever-broadening homeschool audience, including a vibrant
online community and mom-to-mom phone counseling. By God's grace,
Lampstand Press will continue to provide encouragement, educational
services, and inspiration to thousands of Christian homeschool families
internationally.
At Lampstand Press, we are committed
to classical Christian education,
based on our commitment to God’s glory,
our understanding of child development,
and a deep appreciation for our
cultural heritage.
God’s Glory in The Purpose of History
We believe that God created time and
space for His own glory, and that He is unfolding history to
accomplish His perfect purposes for His people. Our passion for
learning is a direct expression of our passion for God, as we
seek to love Him with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and our
strength.
We believe that it honors God for us
to learn the truth that He has revealed in Scripture, in nature,
and in history, whether that truth fits into our preconceived
notions or not. Our reason for studying history is to learn from
the experiences of others more about God's character and more
about our own frailties and calling. We want God to receive the
glory He deserves for all His mighty acts in history.
Our intention in presenting
Tapestry of Grace and other educational products is to
remain accurate and biblically oriented.Tapestry's
Teacher's Notes and Student Activity Page questions emphasize
God's sovereignty in history, frequently noting specific
evidences of His work as we understand it. It is our belief that
children need to be led in "connecting the dots" of the events
of history with both Scripture and a sense of the loving, active
presence of God in world events. It is our aim to
strengthen in them a sense of both humility and destiny as they
view the sweeping majesty of God acting in HIS story.
All men and women sin; no expression
of the body of Christ or worldly community has been without sin.
God has called us to love sinners and tell them His good news,
not judge them for their lost condition. Our position is
that if children are taught to view the sins or errors of others
with compassion and a biblical interpretation, they will both be
warned of their own human tendency to sin, and become
compassionate, but accurate, historians. They will be
better prepared to glorify God by serving His purposes in their
own generation.
God’s Glory
in Church History
We believe Scripture and church
history each help us to understand God’s purposes and
priorities, so we seek to study the full scope of church history
at age-appropriate levels.
We do not know how to be truly
unbiased about something as important as our faith, but we think
we have been commanded to be honest about our own beliefs,
humble about our own wisdom, confident in God’s care, and
respectful of our brothers and sisters from different
persuasions.
We are Protestant, and are therefore
most aware of Protestant resources for Church History. Church
History readings are broken out in the Reading Assignment Charts
as separate entities, so that those who choose to study Church
History from a different theological position can easily
substitute resources written from their perspective. Tapestry
of Grace provides website space for Catholic and Eastern
Orthodox users to exchange resource ideas.1
Child Development through Classical Education
“Classical education” has two
different meanings for Christian home educators. It can
mean a “Great Books” curriculum, which hands on the heritage of
Western civilization, but it can also refer to a “grammar,
dialectic, rhetoric” model of child development and training.
We believe in “classical education” in both meanings of the
term.
Medieval educators taught students
to speak Latin, debate in Latin, and persuade in Latin before
they considered them ready for more advanced learning. The
three disciplines of "grammar," "dialectic," and "rhetoric"
composed the Trivium, which prepared scholars for the rest of
the seven “liberal arts.” Modern scientists have
discovered that these three modes of learning correspond to
specific stages of child development. Young children are
remarkably good at memorizing unrelated facts, children near the
age of puberty excel at making connections; while youths and
adults are best at analyzing and synthesizing.
Age-segregated classrooms have
trouble taking full advantage of modern science and of the
medieval model because they must serve all the children in the
room, whether they are best at memorizing, organizing, or
synthesizing information. We believe this is why
educational experts keep promoting “higher order thinking
skills” at ever-earlier grades. We would rather take
advantage of “lower-order” thinking skills while the child still
has them. Young children excel at absorbing stories,
songs, sounds, vocabulary words and other material at the
“grammar level.” When the child matures enough to develop
“higher order thinking skills,” we want him to first organize a
rich storehouse of previously-acquired information, and then
synthesize in useful and meaningful ways.
The “grammar,” “dialectic,” and
“rhetoric” learning levels are objectively real but have no
clear boundary lines, any more than “infancy” or “adulthood” do.
We therefore make it easy to select assignments from more than
one level at any time. A child may try some “hard”
material for a while and then decide to drop back for a bit.
We are not afraid that this will result in a lot of
malingering. When children play games, they don’t “coast” at the
easy level. Just as with this type of entertainment, with the
right mix of encouragement and opportunity, we expect children
to be eager to advance into more challenging work.
Cultural Heritage
The term “classical education” does
not just mean an emphasis on the learning levels of the Trivium.
It is also routinely used to mean an education in the Great
Books of Western civilization, sometimes known as the “Western
Canon.” Until recently, a “liberal arts education”
necessarily included broad and deep exposure to works by Plato,
Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and others. In the latter half of
the twentieth century, this approach has often been derided as
“works by dead white males.” Since the 1970s, most secular
universities have abandoned the goal of passing on any specific
cultural content.
While we appreciate the insights of
non-Western thinkers and want our students to be able to
communicate effectively with people from any culture, we do not
believe a “critical” or “multi-cultural” education is the best
way to achieve that goal. A child who has no culture of
his own is poorly prepared to truly understand a person who is
willing to die to preserve his faith or heritage. We
believe it is better to be a humble but patriotic citizen of
some country than a proud but cynical “citizen of the world.”
Because of this, we utilize and
recommend many of the Great Books of the Western Canon at the
high school level. We try to serve English-speaking
students in general and Americans in particular by helping them
study the threads of their own history.
Conclusion
Our goal is not to raise students
who are puffed up with knowledge, but to help students
understand themselves and the world around them clearly enough
to realize their individual and our collective need for a
Savior. Our sincere hope is that through these pages, we
can all grow in our understanding of Jesus Christ, the Lord of
history.
So, come, and magnify the Lord with
us, and let us exalt His name together!
1Because we are not able to devote
the time or expertise desirable to review these resources,
Lampstand Press declines any
responsibility for their accuracy or acceptability; the
recommendations made are posted in good faith, and we encourage
our Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic families to examine
materials for suitability before purchase.
