AMDG. So far this season we’ve met instructors and parents, directors and alumni, but today we meet three current Kolbe students. Aidan, Jameson, and Peter are sophomores in high school. After surmounting the learning curve of freshman year, they’re well on their way to building habits of truth, wisdom, and virtue. In the episode, they discuss learning how to manage theirContinue Reading
Category: Kolbecast
AMDG. In this episode we visit with Nicole O’Connor, veteran Kolbe Academy online instructor of classical subjects, about her experience teaching logic and rhetoric. While the term “rhetoric” can have an untrustworthy connotation in common parlance, Nicole deftly describes how it is a powerful and positive thing when rightly ordered. Similarly, logic is an integral area for both formation of the individual and participation in society—all the way from coherent discussion to computer coding. As twoContinue Reading
AMDG. Today’s episode is about life and life in abundance, from the molecular to the cross-county road trip. Science chair Elizabeth Hoxie joins Bonnie and Hope to discuss the foundational needs to live a healthy life—physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual—and how Kolbe’s science curriculum teaches students the Ignatian concept of cura personalis or care of the whole person. Topics alsoContinue Reading
AMDG. Today’s episode is a crossover between Homecoming and curriculum deep-dives as Kolbe teacher and alumna Rebecca DeVendra describes how she’s lived out the idea that, if you’re challenged by something, it’s probably worth buckling down and learning the self-discipline to pursue. From writing “I hate Latin” in her high school textbook to earning a classics degree and from learning how to properly sharpen a pencil to herContinue Reading
AMDG. Take heart, those with fractious high schoolers! It’s okay to not be okay sometimes. Today, we talk to Fr. Paul Hedman—the Diocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’s current youngest ordained priest—and his mom Sharon, who used Kolbe to educate Fr. Paul and his three siblings. They describe Fr. Hedman’s early days serving and playing Mass while homeschooled, the friction between parent and child in hisContinue Reading
AMDG. Alumnus Charlie Mihaliak, a current University of Dallas junior, joins us today to discuss how he relies on his Kolbe education in pursuing the pragmatic and the creative, the athletic and the artistic, the collective human experience and the unique individual self. Charlie reminisces with Jordan about the powerful experience of meeting friends in person after relationships developed through online classes without physicalContinue Reading
AMDG. Homecoming season continues with alumna and classical violinist Sarah Thomas. On this episode, she visits with Bonnie and Hope about her experience of timelessness in homeschooling, her state’s requirement for homeschooled students of yearly evaluations with a state-certified teacher, and the skill of developing friendships with people of all ages. Sarah discusses how the security she felt being homeschooled was a foundation for her collegiateContinue Reading
AMDG. In this episode, Jordan interviews Magdalen College sophomore and former Kolbe student Sophia Harne. They discuss language acquisition in general and how a strong background in Latin can help one learn any language more easily. As she indicates in the conversation, Sophia has been learning Latin since the time she learned to read English. Now,Continue Reading
AMDG. Taking another deep dive into the Kolbe curriculum, we visit with Therese Prudlo, who teaches history and homeroom for Kolbe’s Online Academy. She describes how, by orienting our study of history from the Incarnation, we see evidence of God’s guidance of the universe in its “state of journeying (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, toContinue Reading
Jenni Mammola has been teaching French for nearly 14 years. She holds a B.A. in French and Journalism from Baylor University and an M.A. in French from San Francisco State University. Jenni first fell in love with the French language in junior high, and then knew it was her calling to pursue a lifelong studyContinue Reading