Kolbecast

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 ...

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...

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 b...

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, her linguistic focus is on Greek, a language tha...

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, to which God has destined it.” (...

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 i...

AMDG. In this episode, we kick off Homecoming season with Kolbe 2010 graduate Alex and his wife Alex, herself a Catholic homeschool graduate (and, no, we didn’t have a typo there—they're both named Alex). Mr. Alex discusses his experience as a chemistry major, law student, and Wisconsin Supreme Court judicial clerk, and Mrs. Alex discusses her experience as a pre-nursing student, massage therapist...

AMDG. Learning disadvantages and special needs are the topics of the day as Dean of Students Celeste Cuellar joins us.  Her background includes teaching every age between preschool and college as well as mental health and career counseling, and she serves Kolbe families by finding ways to meet students’ individual needs. Along the way, Jordan discusses the college professor side of working with st...

AMDG. Everett Buyarski, Kolbe’s Director of Academic Services, joins the crew this episode to discuss Kolbe’s history, mission, and philosophy. He discusses what “classical in content,” “Ignatian in method,” and “principle of subsidiarity” mean in the context of a Kolbe education; describes how the University of Paris in the 1500s and the University of Kansas in the 1970s both directly influence K...

AMDG. Feeling the shine (or enormity) of a new school year wearing off and a sense of "why haven’t we figured this out yet?” setting in? You’re not alone. On Episode 10 of the Kolbecast, Jordan, Bonnie, and Hope talk about how getting into a routine can be elusive but how building the habit of finishing strong is always on the curriculum around here, the concept and execution of mastery as opposed...

AMDG.  In Episode 9, we visit with 2019 Kolbe alumna Monnica Prudlo. She regales us with her recollection of writing her  student graduation address for the 2019 Kolbe graduation ceremony  and reminisces about her Kolbe experience, including how she cultivated friendships by participating in the  clubs and talent show , and how her Kolbe formation has helped prepare her for her university studies....

AMDG. Homeschooling is often a magnifying glass for the intersection between our expectations and reality. On today’s episode, award-winning author, journalist, and former presidential speechwriter Colleen Carroll Campbell visits with Bonnie and Hope about spiritual perfectionism and white-knuckling it through what you think you need to do to be holy; the benefits of incorporating the Ignatian exa...

AMDG. Although we met Bonnie and Hope in our first episode of the relaunched Kolbecast, we didn’t get to hear much from Jordan, who is himself a homeschool alumnus, a homeschooling dad, and a teacher of homeschoolers via Kolbe Academy’s Online Academy.  In this episode, we get to know Jordan a little better.  Links:   Jordan’s talk at the 2020 Virtual Homeschool Conference    Replay of Jordan’s ta...

AMDG. As the school year kicks into gear, the day-to-day of homeschooling is the topic of the day. Bonnie and Hope offer a range of suggestions free for the taking or leaving about daily rhythms or practices, walking through school days, navigating when someone hits a figurative wall, regrouping when the wheels fall off an entire day, managing sick days, reframing the sometimes-daunting idea of be...

AMDG. Developing a family and homeschool calendar can be daunting, but Bonnie and Hope break it down this episode of the Kolbecast. They talk about the pros and cons of paper planners and online calendars, the Schoology online platform’s various options, keeping family members up to date on meal plans and commitments, and how fostering use of a planner can be a prayerful act of both responsibility...

AMDG. Developing a workspace for homeschooling is one of those things that is specific and personal, and yet it’s almost impossible to get a foothold without knowing what works for other people. In this episode, Bonnie and Hope discuss their own homeschooling workspaces, things that worked and didn’t work for them in putting those workspaces together, how paperwork organization fits into their spa...

AMDG. The dramatic arts are a profound combination of the spoken word and the human person, where actors embody fundamental ideas of creation along with significant literary and production components. In this episode, Kolbe Online teacher (and alumna!) Dolores Ann Mihaliak visits with Bonnie and Hope about these ideas and Kolbe’s new Drama Portfolio and Advanced Dramatic Arts classes, including ho...

AMDG. Kolbe Academy was founded by three families in 1980, named for a 20th Century Polish Franciscan priest on his way to sainthood, and built upon the foundation of the Ignatian method of education. The feast days of these saints are just a few weeks apart: St. Maximilian Kolbe’s is celebrated on August 14th, while that of St. Ignatius Loyola is on July 31st. In this bonus episode of the Kolbeca...

In this episode, Jordan, Bonnie and Hope talk about their experiences with Kolbe Academy and give a preview of future episodes. Bonnie and her family are starting their fourth year of homeschooling with Kolbe. She's a liturgical musician, podcast fanatic, and heavy library user, as well as a Kolbe Parent Ambassador. Hope studied communication theory and philosophy in college, then went to law scho...