I was paid a wee bit to write this review, but just like with all things from The WOLFe Pack, what you will find here is an honest opinion from a seasoned homeschool mom with a Master’s Degree in Education and a decade of experience in the classroom…who also happens to be a mom with way too much to do, not enough sleep, and only 18 months left on her homeschool clock {which is to say that I do not waste my time on bad curriculum, pointless resources or dubious suggestions nor will I waste your time either!}
This post also includes affiliate links.
Please read our Disclaimer for details.
The Nomadic Professor’s Online Homeschool History Courses
I first encountered The Nomadic Professor in 2022 while working a series of homeschool conventions in Alaska. I was there as the Customer Connection Manager for Nicole the Math Lady and, as always, while answering questions about Saxon Math, I was keeping my eyes peeled for potential curriculum options for my own homeschool. From across each expo hall, I could tell from The Nomadic Professor’s banner that they offered history curriculum which was something my rising 11th Grader would need. But, it was not until the fourth and final Alaska convention that I finally had the the time to approach their booth.
And what did I find there?
As expected, I found a history curriculum.
But, I did not find just a history curriculum.
What else did I find?
I found a unicorn.
I found an unbiased history curriculum.
I found an unbiased history curriculum designed to train students how to think for themselves.
I found an unbiased history curriculum designed to train students how to think for themselves that required very little work from me.
And, to me, that made it a unicorn.
Ya see…our history curriculum experience over the 10+ years we had been homeschooling had been lacking. Not that we did not do history, of course. It was lacking in the sense that everything we had tried lacked something. Whether it was lacking perspective, rigor, neutrality, honesty, accuracy or thoroughness depended on the curriculum we tried. At some point, I gave up trying to buy something and, instead, created an elaborate timeline with hundreds of events. I then found at least two, usually more, resources to explain the facts surrounding each event on the timeline. Some events we studied more thoroughly than others. Some events we discussed in depth. Some events took weeks to cover on their own. The entire process to cover the history of the United States at the elementary level took years to get through. And, now we were faced with a need to do U.S. history again in High School. But, after my experience of failing to find a suitable American history option for elementary, I had little hope of finding something for High School.
And, then, I found The Nomadic Professor.
Read on for a full review!
WHAT IS The Nomadic Professor, the COMPANY?
Directly from their website, “In 2016, Dr. Jackson was on a trip to the United Arab Emirates, Nepal, and Iceland when he began filming on-location, historical ‘mini-lectures.’ He subsequently posted them on YouTube. Several years and tens of thousands of subscribers later, he determined to incorporate those video lectures into the best history courses for the online environment ever made. But he’d need a skilled educator who could make his rigorous content (hundreds of videos, thousands of pages of text, scores of hours of audio) accessible to a wide variety of learners. Enter high school teacher and writer Nate Noorlander–who had accompanied the Professor on that original 2016 trip! Little could they have known that their initial brainstorming in the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, across high Himalayan passes, and along erstwhile Viking coasts would produce an entirely unique sort of online education.”
WHO IS The Nomadic Professor, the TEAM?
While “The Nomadic Professor” really refers to one person, there are two people who make up The Nomadic Professor Team.
William Jackson is responsible for the text and on-location videos in each of our courses. He has degrees from Penn State (MA Humanities) and Syracuse (PhD History.) He has lived on five continents, learned five languages, traveled with his young family across 30+ countries and taught hundreds of college-level courses.
Nate Noorlander is responsible for the scaffolding and guidance in each course. He creates the handouts, guided notes, quizzes and document lessons for each and every class. Nate has taught history and English at both the middle and high school levels. He has also taught IB History, AS History, IGCSE History and Global Perspectives, IB English, and Theory of Knowledge. Nate is also the person I met while at the aforementioned Alaskan homeschool convention in 2022 and with whom I spent lots of time chatting during the same series of Alaskan homeschool conventions in 2023. He also safely lead a bunch of us on {what I considered} a very long hike in Juneau and spent considerable time conversing with my teenage son on a variety of topics.
WHAT ARE The Nomadic Professor’s Online Homeschool History Courses?
The Nomadic Professor promotes their courses as
- Guided
- Flexible
- Transparent
- Content-rich
HOW ARE The Nomadic Professor’s Online Homeschool History Courses FORMATTED?
All of The Nomadic Professor courses are fully online, hosted on their smooth site and feature the same formatting.
Every course has 10 Units divided into several sessions.
Sessions offer a variety of features including:
- Videos filmed on-location
- Reading passages
- Vocabulary work
- Quizzes
- Guided notes
- Audio clips
- Text analysis
- Clear objectives
- Forming a hypothesis
- Writing a research paper
- and more!
This video clearly shows how their courses are formatted while also giving a quick overview of American History Part 1.
ARE The Nomadic Professor’s Online Homeschool History Courses RELIGIOUS or SECULAR?
All of The Nomadic Professor’s courses are secular.
DO The Nomadic Professor’s Online Homeschool History Courses LEAN to the LEFT or to the RIGHT?
Neither. That’s what makes them a unicorn in my book.
From their website, “The short answer is that Nomadic Courses actively avoid ideology and dogma. While we can’t (and don’t want to) escape the narrative we find most convincing, we are forthright with the students: we constantly remind them that they are reading an argument, not an authoritative, voiceless textbook, posing as The Final Answer. Further, we actively and rigorously train them in how to identify evidence and challenge conclusions, even our own evidence and conclusions, while avoiding the unnecessary headache of pretending that ‘all answers are equally valid.’ If you’re interested in a longer answer, you can read our full blog post on this question.”
From Cathy Duffy, “Jackson and Noorlander often teach by presenting opposing viewpoints on a topic without revealing their own biases.”
From me…I don’t want a history curriculum taught from one side or the other. Yes, my family leans one way. But, we do not want to just present everything to him through a skewed lenses of others. We want to present him the facts and allow him to assess what that means to the world as a whole and to him as an individual. And that cannot happen with a history curriculum with an agenda. But, it can happen with The Nomadic Professor.
WHAT COURSES Does The Nomadic Professor OFFER?
The Nomadic Professor offers a four-part American History series.
In addition to the American History series, The Nomadic Professor also offers Media Literacy and a FREE class on The History of Free Speech.
And, courses in World History, Western Civilizations and Asian History are scheduled to be created as well.
Be on the lookout for a specific review on their Media Literacy Course in early 2024. My son will be taking it this fall and I’m super excited to report back on how it was!
For WHICH GRADE LEVELS Were The Nomadic Professor Courses Designed?
The courses were designed for Grades 9th-12th.
Do The Nomadic Professor Courses QUALIFY for HIGH SCHOOL CREDIT?
Yes. Each course from The Nomadic Professor earns a student .5 history credits. When a set of courses is paired (e.g., US1-2, US3-4, etc.), students earn a full history credit as well as elective credits. The elective credits include .5 credits in subjects like historical methods, college writing, American literature, rhetoric and logic, and more.
Are The Nomadic Professor Courses COMMON CORE ALIGNED?
The answer to that depends on what you mean by “Common Core aligned.” If you mean, were The Nomadic Professor Courses created with a specific spin in hopes of being adopted in American schools after the Common Core movement? No. Not in the slightest.
However, if you are wondering if you can match up the topics taught through The Nomadic Professor courses with Common Core standards, yes, you can. But before you get all offended at the mere mention of CCS, please let me briefly explain what that means. Being “aligned” with Common Core has nothing to do with how things are taught. It just means that the curriculum clearly covers specific topics identified as important on a list of standards {whether that be the federal Common Core Standards, aka: CCS, or a specific state’s standards.} So, if you were to print off a copy of said standards in hopes of feeling confident that The Nomadic Professor covered the recommended topics, you would be able to go through the The Nomadic Professor course and find that those topics are indeed taught.
HOW MUCH DO The Nomadic Professor Courses COST?
The Nomadic Professor offers different pricing options which vary from lifetime access for one course to an all access pass for a monthly fee. You can read all about their prices here.
How Can You TRY OUT The Nomadic Professor Courses Before Buying?
If you sign up here, The Nomadic Professor will email you a free preview from one of the American history courses. Additionally, you can access The History of Free Speech for free which would certainly give you an idea of how the courses function.
How Can You CONTACT The Nomadic Professor Team with QUESTIONS or for EXTRA HELP?
On their website is a form where you can submit a question, ask for help or even request a meeting!
And, if you do purchase a course, you and your teen can join the Nomad Nation, an optional online community that acts as a valuable supplement to their courses, by allowing parents, teachers, and students to communicate with other parents, teachers, and students. Note: Nomad Nation is optional and is not a required/necessary aspect of any of their courses.
What SETS The Nomadic Professor Courses APART?
What If All of That Is TOO RIGOROUS for My Student?
If all of this seems too rigorous for your student but you are still intrigued by their concept, no worries. The Nomadic Professor has cleverly designed three different tracks as options: Basic, Standard and Advanced. They have also laid out each track’s schedule so you can easily decide which track is best for your student based on the amount of work scheduled.
