Hanna Rosin, author of God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission To Save America is interviewed on Buzz Flash.

Hanna Rosin Finds the Next Generation of the GOP Political Army for Christ at a Small College in Virginia
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 11/05/2007 – 6:13am

Mark Karlin: Interviewer and admirer of Ms. Rosin

Listening to Rosin in our interview, we were admiring of how hard she worked to try to understand the mindset and religious fervor of the young people preparing to use the political world to advance their vision of a Christian nation.These are for the most-part, according to Rosln, home-schooled (by parents who wanted to give them a Fundamentalist education), very bright and highly motivated youth.

Interesting quote from Ms. Rosin right off the bat:

Home schooling was also popular in left-wing circles for a long time, but lately it’s been primarily associated with Evangelical Christians. It went through a great boom in the Nineties, partly through the influence of Michael Farris. As a constitutional lawyer, he fought for the right for families to home school their children. There are about a million home schooling families now.

Here’s another one:

Hanna Rosin: Diversity of thought is not that common when you come from a home-schooling culture.

Really? All of that is true, ay? Then again, she doesn’t homeschool and doesn’t get that either. I can appreciate her focus on Patrick Henry College, but it appears that she didn’t do enough research to be making blanket statements about homeschoolers in this particular interview.

HEM NewsComm archives:
Political Fundamentals
Homeschooling, The New Yorker and The Daily Show

Posted by Susan Ryan

This article, like one of the comments in it concerning transcripts from homeschooled college applicants, is “here, there and everywhere.” While the article does not demean homeschooled applicants, the conclusions reflect ‘what everyone knows’ when that knowledge is a view through school-colored glasses rather than a realistic look at the everyday children who learn outside of school.

Home Schooled Students Rise in Supply and Demand, 7 October 2007, The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required).

The case for home-school: family, 26 September 2007, Channel 4 News, London, UK

When our first child Christopher came along in 1985 we started off by learning through fun and games. Chris learned about maths by counting the studs on the Lego he built, by measuring out dinosaurs, baking dinosaur biscuits, weighing and measuring ingredients, and working out the volume of cake tins needed instead of writing out dry maths problems in a book.

…

Meredith who was born in 1995 has also been educated at home, following her interests, which are completely different from her brother’s.

She spends much of her time meeting with her friends for drama, swimming, skating and other activities. She is sociable and confident with people of all ages, recently meeting a Japanese lady at a car boot sale and persuading her to come once per week for a conversational Japanese lesson.

…

We have a wonderful time, living our lives together and learning together.

We have learned at least as much as the children and being together so much has given us all a very close bond. Our kids have grown up knowledgeable, successful, supremely happy and confident – what more could we ever have wanted for them?

posted by Valerie

The movie, Moot Courting (working title), has been filmed and is now in post-production.

Caleb, a recent transfer to Patrick Henry College, teams up with Rachel to lead the college to the National Moot Court Championship. Along the way, he is caught in a moral tug-of-war between his parents—a newly Christian father, and a feminist Supreme Court attorney mother.

Michael Farris is featured in the film (scroll down for photos).

The background of the production company producing the film is at:

Ex-Discovery and AOL Executive Announces Creation of New Christian Film Group, 6 September 2007, Christian News Wire, Washington, D.C.

Intending to groom a new generation of Christian filmmakers, high-tech video innovator George Escobar has launched Advent Film Group, LLC (AFG) to train students who will one day direct big-budget films with moral integrity. Expecting this new film production and distribution corporation to carve inroads into Hollywood, Escobar announced the completion of principal photography on AFG’s first film, Moot Courting (working title), at Patrick Henry College (PHC) in Purcellville, Virginia.

Film’s blog: There and Back Again

posted by Valerie

Young adult homeschoolers form club, 5 August 2007, Daily Herald, Provo, Utah This group feels like they’ve known each other forever — and they’re not psychic.They’re members of LDS Homeschooled Singles, a group of young people from the Provo-Orem area.Julianna Hopkins formed the group earlier this year. It’s for any Latter-day Saint single adult who has been home schooled. The group meets periodically to have parties, play games, discuss books and hike.

…

The home-schooled students didn’t say their transition to college life was too hard. Smith said she had been through lots of different types of schooling so she was used to adjusting to new learning styles. McNair said he had a harder time.

One of his challenges was learning to glean information in an allotted time frame. He wanted to soak up as much information as possible before moving on.

“It really bit me hard as far as grades went. I wasn’t really willing to surrender the learning for the grade,” McNair said.

…

Hopkins said there are about 40 singles in the group, but membership is growing.

posted by Valerie with hat tip to Daryl

Sometimes the obvious isn’t always ‘the way it is.’

The Virginia Tech Tragedy: A Wake up Call to Every Parent’s Nightmare, 17 July 2007, Dr. Donna’s College Insider View

How does a parent handle this [insecurity]? Obviously, home schooling your child through graduate school is not an option and we can’t control every situation our kids will find themselves in.

For most of us (my family included), ‘homeschooling college’ isn’t the path the kids choose. But ‘homeschooling college’ past the teen years (or even during the teen years) isn’t an impossibility. One of the first books about homeschooling that I read was by Alexandra Swann.

• No Regrets: How Home Schooling Earned Me a Master’s Degree at Age 16 (1989)

Our family didn’t follow the same homeschooling path as the Swann family, but Alexandra’s book about her education was helpful.

I’m not encouraging (or discouraging) people from following Ms. Swann’s example, only ‘reacting’ to the item above that caught my eye in a Google alert.

Other articles about Alexandra Swann are:

• Joyce Swann’s Homeschool Tips, 1994
• Not home alone – success of homeschooling movement, National Review, Sept 14, 1998
• The socialization question, enterstageright.com, October 30, 2000
• I Was an Accelerated Child (use Ctrl+F to search for “Swann”)

College-at-home articles are at:

• Homeschooling College, too?

Other college articles are:

• The Homeschooler In College – The Big Project
• An Early Dip into College Life

posted by Valerie

Ludlow skater lands star role, 1 July 2007, Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati, Ohio Jordan Brauninger was only looking for a job, but he landed the role of a lifetime.

Brauninger mailed an audition tape to Feld Entertainment, hoping to end a series of local odd jobs. He wound up being one of 18 world-class skaters cast in “Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour.”

The 20-year-old home-school graduate won a lead role as Troy Bolton in one of three tours inspired by the Disney Channel original movie “High School Musical.”

…

Brauninger is eager to skate, act and lip-synch to the role of East High’s jock. Troy, the basketball team captain, leaves his clique to try out for the high school musical.

“I like the (role of Troy) because I can kind of relate to being able to send out the message to be yourself,” Brauninger said. “It’s nice to portray someone who’s good.”

posted by Valerie

Home-schooled student headed to Military Academy, 17 June 2007, North County Times, Escondido, California

Joe Lambert has a driving force in his life, he wants to keep his country free.

With that as his goal, Lambert will soon be headed to West Point, N.Y., where he has been accepted into the United States Military Academy.

…

Before being accepted to West Point, Lambert went through a process that included a nomination by an elected official —- in his case, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa —- interviews and meeting the academy’s standards in academics, health and physical fitness.

He said the process began more than two years ago and he found out he was accepted in April. He will be one of about 1,200 freshmen accepted from an applicant pool of around 20,000.

posted by Valerie

Homeschoolers head into world, 11 June 2007, Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan

Scott’s ceremony, though small, was just like those at local high schools, with spectators straining to see the graduates marching in, earnest speeches, popping cameras and, of course, diplomas. The only real difference was that there was no valedictorian. Instead, the parents spoke about their children.

And there were plenty of teary eyes as the words “proud,” “character,” “hard-working” and, since this was a church-sponsored ceremony, “God” were uttered over and over when beaming parents handed shiny blue-jacketed diplomas to grinning grads.

…

The number of homeschool graduations has led Jostens, the venerable supplier of class rings and caps and gowns to millions, to start a line of graduation items for homeschooled students.

“It’s a small portion of our sales, but we’ve seen nice growth over the last four or five years,” said Rich Stoebe, director of communications.

posted by Valerie

Natalie Richards didn’t waste any time when she started homeschooling.

Her biography on PRNewswire for her new venture says this:

About Natalie Richards
QuinceClub.com was founded by Natalie Richards, a bilingual, bicultural young Latina with an impressive knowledge of Hispanic marketing and advertising. Born in the U.S. and raised by Colombian parents Natalie began her career when she was only 15 years old at El Latino, San Diego’s largest Hispanic Newspaper, after she decided to be home schooled saying ‘high school is not challenging enough’. Natalie quickly rose in rank breaking sales records at the company until she was named Commercial Director, overseeing seven departments and managing 22 employees by the time she was 21.

Posted by Susan Ryan