Category: Homeschool Graduates

During the 2018/2019 academic year, I had a physics student named Talon Smith. He was excellent (A’s on all the assignments), but he frequently missed class. His mother would warn me ahead of time, saying that Talon had a piano concert or recital at which he had to perform. Since he was clearly learning the material, I didn’t worry about him missing class so much. Well…several years later I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and saw a post from Talon Smith Music (I try to play the piano, so I get random piano-related posts). The post linked to an incredible video of a pianist playing four Chopin pieces at the 18th Chopin competition in Warsaw, Poland. The name rang a bell, but I thought, “That can’t be the student I had, can it?” Well, I looked up my old records, found his email address, and matched it to the Facebook page that made the post. I suddenly realized that he missed my physics classes so that he could perform at world-class music events!

I was able to catch up with Talon in the New Year, and our discussion was fascinating. He started taking piano lessons when he was 5 years old. He says his very first teacher was the perfect fit, because he did not confine Talon to a regimented way of teaching. Instead, he taught Talon as an individual, which nurtured Talon’s love for music. When Talon moved on to another teacher (at the age of 9), the new teacher noticed his obvious talent (and love for the music), so the teacher entered him into a competition. He started doing more competitions, and at the ripe old age of 13, his big break occurred. His teacher at that time encouraged him to enter The Gina Bachauer piano competition, which is international. He was hesitant, but he practiced for the audition for six weeks, and based on that audition, he was accepted into the competition (in the age 11-14 category). By the time the actual competition came around, he was 14, and he won his age category. He says that he was very surprised to have won, but decided that he was very grateful for the process, from which he learned a great deal.

He has continued to perform in concerts and competitions around the world, and has continued to receive accolades for his work. You can find several videos of his amazing performances by searching his name on YouTube. My favorite comes from the 17th Arthur Rubinstein Competition, where he plays 24 pieces of his own composition. I have purchased the sheet music for those pieces, because I think I might be able to play two or three of them (with a lot of practice).

Here is how he sums up his piano career so far:

There are a lot of pianists who probably work harder than me, but so many things have gone right for me. Not because I deserve it, or because of my efforts, but God has given me some great opportunities and great people in my life. My mom manages me and is the single most important person for me accomplishing what I have accomplished.

God willing, he is looking for a long and successful career in music. However, he primarily sees what he is doing as a way to enjoy music while glorifying God. He makes it clear that he doesn’t think he needs to be playing sacred music to glorify God. He says:

The Bible says to do whatever you do for God’s glory. So music doesn’t necessarily have to be sacred to glorify Him. What glorifies God most is excellence – trying to reflect the excellence of God’s character and His nature in what you do. That can speak louder than what is actually being done.

I wholeheartedly agree. Whether you are playing a Beethoven sonata or doing a physics experiment, you glorify God by doing it in an excellent way!

So why does he say that his mother is “the single most important person” for his accomplishments? First, she helped to developed a love for music in him by playing classical music in the house, even while he was still in the womb. Second, she provided him with a balanced homeschool education. Throughout his K-12 homeschooling experience, he took all the standard courses that students take, as well as more difficult courses (like physics) that some students avoid. Nevertheless, by homeschooling him, she gave him the flexibility he needed. He could concentrate on the academically rigorous courses at times when he wasn’t consumed with practicing for a competition or concert. In the end, he doesn’t think he would be as accomplished a pianist if he hadn’t been homeschooled.

I want to end this with one of the most important things Talon said, at least from a musical perspective. He said that when he started out doing competitions and concerts, he was focused on not making any mistakes. However, as he matured, he began to agree with a quote that is often attributed to Beethoven:

To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.

While Beethoven probably never said that particular phrase, one of his pupils indicates that he would agree with the sentiment. Talon said that when he doesn’t focus on mistakes and instead just focuses on enjoying the music, he likes his own playing much better. For someone like me (who often plays like he is wearing mittens) that’s a comforting thing to consider.

It has been a while since I updated this part of my blog, but I really want to add some more material, since I have had the privilege of meeting many incredible homeschooled students over the years. One such student is Annie Lee Keller, who was in two of my online courses (honors chemistry and honors physics).

Because she was one of my online students, she sent me her graduation announcement at the end of the 2022 school year, and I was intrigued to learn that she was earning two degrees at the same time: her high school degree and her associate degree in digital media from Marantha Baptist University. She uses the talents she developed while earning that degree to produce unique gifts that she sells at her online store. Her work is so impressive that the printing service she uses to produce her gifts selected her as one of three people to travel to Riga, Latvia (all expenses paid) to attend their largest trade show!

How did she manage to earn two degrees at once and be so successful with her online store? She has been homeschooled since the very beginning of her education, and when she reached high school, her mother suggested that she work toward a post-high-school degree in addition to her high school degree. Since she already did photography for her parents’ business (Taekwondo instruction) and her church, she decided to study digital media. She took her classes online, and homeschooling allowed her to flex her schedule so that she could easily fit the demands of those classes into the rest of her education. After earning her associate degree, she is currently working on a bachelor’s degree in business (online once again) and hopes to get a master’s in creation apologetics. She is also the ministry assistant at her local church.

What does she want to do with all this experience and education? She thinks she might work in the graphic design department at an apologetics ministry. However, she also has a black belt in Taekwondo and is an instructor. In fact, there is a charter school near her where Taekwondo is a part of the curriculum, and she teaches (along with her parents) in some of those classes. Thus, she could also continue in the family business. The point is that homeschooling has given her lots of options, a lot more than she would have had if she’d been a public- or private-school student. She says:

Homeschooling gave me the ability to learn and grow in the areas that I am passionate about, and I got to do it in my own style.

That is, of course, one of the most important strengths of homeschooling. Students are not given a “one-size fits all” education. Instead, their education can be tailored to them so that they can, indeed, learn in their own style.

What’s an example of learning in her own style? Sometimes, she would stack all her homeschooling work for the week into a couple of days so that she could spend the rest of the week concentrating on her digital media work or spending time with her friends. In fact, she thinks homeschooling allowed her to have more of a social life than she would have otherwise had, partly because of its flexibility, and partly because she didn’t have to worry about completing busy work.

I asked her what she would say to students who are being homeschooled, and if you knew Annie, you would understand that this statement really encapsulates her approach to life:

Treat each day as unique, because every day you learn something new and something different…each day is special.

She then hastened to add this wise tidbit:

Don’t leave God out of the equation. He needs to be the first variable. He needs to be the first thing you think about when you get out of bed. He needs to be first.

I couldn’t agree more.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about an anti-homeschooling summit that was being held at Harvard Law School. Well, over the weekend, I got several emails and Facebook contacts that contained an article written about one of the summit’s organizers, Professor Elizabeth Bartholet. The article discusses a paper she recently wrote in the Arizona Law Review. That paper

…calls for a radical transformation in the homeschooling regime and a related rethinking of child rights. It recommends a presumptive ban on homeschooling, with the burden on parents to demonstrate justification for permission to homeschool.

Once I read the article and the abstract from Dr. Bartholet’s paper, I started planning the rebuttal piece that I was going to write. After all, my first exposure to homeschooling was having homeschool graduates in my Ball State University chemistry and physics courses. They impressed me so much that I started researching home education and eventually started working with homeschoolers. Today, I am a strong advocate of homeschooling specifically because I have come to the conclusion that it is the best model of education available to parents in the United States.

Fortunately, there is no need for me to write that rebuttal article, because an excellent one has already been written by Melba Pearson,
a homeschool graduate who also graduated from Harvard. I encourage you to read the article in its entirety, as well as one of the articles (published in The Harvard Crimson) that she links to. However, I must leave you with the closing paragraph of her article, which succinctly explains why Dr. Bartholet’s idea is not only absurd, but profoundly anti-education:

I excelled at Harvard because I was homeschooled, and of that I am proud. It is deeply disappointing that Harvard is choosing and promoting an intellectual totalitarian path that calls for a ban of the liberties that helped me and countless others succeed, for it is those liberties and ideals that have made America the great nation it is today.

The universe is inherently mathematical. Many scientists have come to this realization, but one of the first was Galileo Galilei. In his book, The Assayer, he wrote:

[The universe] cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.

I have always been intrigued by people who dedicate themselves to learning this language, and I had the privilege of interviewing one such person last week: Mathematics Ph.D. student Bethel McGrew.

Bethel was homeschooled K-12, and her experience produced a lifelong love of learning, whether the topic was literature, science, music, or chess (she has been a competitive tournament player but can now proudly say she is no longer the highest-rated among her siblings!) She didn’t do much with co-ops or group activities, and in some ways, I would say that her experience was that of a “classic” homeschooler. Her family used curriculum when it fit their needs, and when it didn’t, they found some other way to get the job done. For example, she said that her family couldn’t find a good course for geometry, so she just read Euclid.

In case you don’t know who that is, he’s the father of geometry. His treatise, Elements, was written around 300 BC and is considered one of the most important works of mathematics to this day. That was her primary reference for learning high school geometry! This was common in her homeschooling, perhaps because her parents (each has a Ph.D.) were so academically inclined. She read many primary sources as a part of her secondary education. For example, she read the works of Josephus (a first-century Jewish historian) to learn more about the history of New Testament times.

While her homeschooling experience was quite classic, her higher education was more modern. She started with distance-learning courses from Christian universities like Patrick Henry College and Bryan College. She then transferred to Western Michigan University in her home town of Kalamazoo and continued living at home while she finished her undergraduate degree. She originally thought she would pursue a career in philosophy (the field of her father’s Ph.D. and her mother’s main professional research focus) but decided to double major in philosophy and mathematics, discovering an unexpected love for the latter when some professors helped her see the beauty of math. She was offered and accepted a teaching assistantship to pursue a Ph.D. there. As a TA, she has taught everything from algebra to applied calculus, adding occasional long-distance tutoring work on the side with Asian ESL (English as a second language) students. She has earned her master’s degree en route and is currently beginning work on her dissertation in graph theory.

Continue reading “Bethel McGrew, Homeschool Graduate and Mathematics Ph.D. Student”

Back in July of last year, I wrote about what might be one of the most important genetic studies of the decade. It treated an organism’s genome like a large computer program that was put together using specific groups of genes as programming “modules.” The study showed that this view of the genome made more sense of the genetic similarities between certain animals than an evolutionary view. When I read the study and blogged about it, I did not recognize the author’s name and had no idea who he was. Later on, he contacted me and thanked me for blogging about his study. He also informed me that he is a homeschool graduate and used my courses in his education. I recently contacted him to see if he would be willing to be a part of my homeschool graduate project, and he graciously agreed.

Dr. Ewert was homeschooled K-12, as were his four siblings. Like many homeschoolers, his parents’ primary motivation was to school their children using a Christian worldview. However, unlike most of the homeschool graduates I have talked with and written about, he was homeschooled in British Columbia, Canada. This actually made access to university a bit more difficult for him. Most British Columbia universities weren’t “homeschool friendly” like U.S. universities, so when he graduated from homeschooling, he started his higher education at Kwantlen University College, which was pretty much the Canadian equivalent of a community college. After two semesters, he transferred to Trinity Western University to finish his degree.

He said he had developed a computer obsession by the age of 10, so he knew he wanted to study computers. At Kwantlen, he started studying computer information systems. He transferred to Trinity when he realized he should be studying computer science instead. Had he started out in computer science at Trinity, this would have made graduating in four years a bit easier. That’s the only real negative aspect he could think of regarding his homeschooling.

Continue reading “Dr. Winston Ewert, Homeschool Graduate and Software Engineer”

I recently wrote about Hayley Bower, a homeschool graduate who earned a degree in Engineering Physics. When I interviewed her for that article, I also interviewed her boyfriend, Robert Rowlett. He is just as impressive as Hayley, but in a completely different way. He was homeschooled for thirteen years, kindergarten through 12th grade, and he had a very traditional experience. Unlike most homeschooled students, he didn’t get together every week with other homeschoolers in a co-op setting. Instead, he learned on his own and was entirely taught at home. His only co-op experience was teaching a co-op class.

By the time he was in high school, his parents noticed that he took after his grandfather, who had been a chancery court judge in Tennessee for 25 years. As a result, they signed him up for a homeschool speech and debate team. Initially, he found the public speaking experience nerve-wracking, but he got over that pretty quickly. As he told me:

It didn’t take six months of competing [in debate tournaments] and it became my entire high school…It’s what I loved doing, and I did it all the time.

Not surprisingly, the class he taught at co-op was a speech and debate class.

As you would expect from someone who loves speech and debate, he wanted to be an attorney. He decided to major in biology at Anderson University and then go to law school. As time went on, however, he found that the biology program was largely focused on preparing students for the medical profession, so he switched majors to political science. He ended up graduating in three and a half years magna cum laude as a member of the AU Honors Program. His B.A. is in political science with a minor in biology.

The semester before Robert graduated, an AU chemistry professor asked him to speak to a group of six incoming freshman who were recent homeschool graduates. The professor wanted Robert to share his thoughts on the transition from homeschooling to university. Guess who was one of those incoming freshmen? Hayley Bower! That’s how they met. So you could say that homeschooling is what brought them together.

Continue reading “Robert Rowlett, Homeschool Graduate and Deputy Attorney General”

I have been interviewing homeschool graduates to learn what they are doing these days, how homeschooling helped or harmed them in their post-high-school endeavors, and what advice they might give to homeschooling parents and students. As part of that project, I was happy to interview a former student of mine, Hayley Bower. At the same time, I interviewed her boyfriend who is also a homeschool graduate, and I will write about him in a separate article.

I met Hayley in 2014 when she was a student in the general chemistry course I taught at Anderson University. A faculty member had informed me that she was a homeschool graduate and had used my biology, chemistry, and physics courses in high school, but I probably would have guessed it anyway. As is typical for homeschool graduates, she was in the honors program, actively engaged in class, and confident with the material. In addition, she always had a wonderful smile on her face when she spoke with me.

Hayley graduated from Anderson University four years later with a degree in engineering physics. She earned the Outstanding Student of the Year award in the School of Physical Sciences and Engineering for the 2015-2016 school year. When that was announced publicly, I joked with my colleagues that since she was my student as a freshman, I was taking all the credit for her earning the award. Honestly, however, I had nothing to do with it. She was an outstanding student from the moment she walked into my class.

Continue reading “Hayley Bower, Homeschool Graduate and Engineer”