The heroes and heroines of these stories are young people set in the dramatic events that have shaped Western Civiliaztion. "The settings, the customs and ideas of the people pictured here are as true to the period as long and careful study could make them. Whenever an historical figure does appear, like Vortigern or Charlemagne or Alfred, he is only doing what records tell us that he actually did do." -foreward These stories inspire courage, love, endurance, hope, industry and many other virtues. They are also one of the best tools AHSP has found to teach the general timeline of the Middle Ages to children from ages 10 - 13.

"Lucy Fischer-West knows the power of birthplace and of borders and rivers. Her memoir begins with the story of her parents, one reared in Germany, the other in Mexico, and how they found each other on the Texas-Mexico border. Fischer-West's own journeys take her from her birth in the Hudson River Valley; to her upbringing on both sides of the Rio Grande; across the Atlantic to Scotland and then France; and finally to India's River Ganges, halfway around the world from the El Paso barrio where she grew up. Hers is an ordinary life made extraordinary by its path and by the people who, having touched and enriched her life, stay with her, as nurturing to her spirit as the rivers that help her mark time."--BOOK JACKET.

Teach the Way the Brain Learns discusses organizing learning experiences under themes. Once the brain has stored basic concepts in the curriculum, the storing-by-association system of the brain attaches new information to those basic concepts, building new ones as students have learning experiences that involve them in integrated subject matter. Thematic teaching has been around for quite a while, stemming from John Dewey and 'learning by doing.' Teachers need to return to it in view of the effects of narrowed curricula resulting from nationwide emphasis on testing and on rating schools based on student achievement. This book provides ways for teachers to link subjects and areas of learning for various teaching situations and takes readers from simple correlation through using published thematic units now available and on to developing their own interdisciplinary themes or in team efforts with other colleagues.