Kolbecast

AMDG.  Today’s episode demystifies the self-paced program and describes upcoming changes that will streamline and improve Kolbe’s asynchronous course offerings. Chrissy Almanzar, Bonnie, and Steven discuss how self-paced classes fit into Kolbe’s three ways to educate; weaknesses in the older versions of self-paced courses that Kolbe is currently revising; and ways the upcoming changes support parental autonomy, accountability, and practicality for families. 

Check out the webinar about the asynchronous program for more details.  

Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant: 

• 118 Odysseys in Catholicism 

We’d be grateful for your feedback! Please share your thoughts with us via this Kolbecast survey! 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes or a story of your own experience that you’d like to share? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG. Brothers Bobby and Dan Angel visit with Bonnie and Steven today about how the human soul is meant to be challenged toward greatness.  Through a discussion ranging from video games to running marathons, they touch on ideas such as the fact that we’ll never grasp the fullness of truth in this life; the call the humans feel toward adventure, fellowship, and community; and the importance of anchoring ourselves in body and soul reality.  

For more information: 

• Bobby’s book Gaming and the Heroic Life 

Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant: 

• 146 Stepping into the Arena: Bobby Angel on the Universal Call to Holiness 

We’d be grateful for your feedback! Please share your thoughts with us via this Kolbecast survey! 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes or a story of your own experience that you’d like to share? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG. This episode is all about the accessibility of art history. Friend of the Kolbecast Therese Prudlo and co-host of the Catholic Art History Podcast Amanda Shepard (also the vice president of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art) visit with Bonnie and Steven about experiencing art and introducing it to children. Topics along the way include the sacramentality of creativity, the conversation modern art engages in with its predecessors, ways to approach sensitive subject matter, and Kolbe’s new art history course offering. 

Links mentioned & relevant: 

Books: 

• Beauty in the Light of the Redemption – Dietrich von Hildebrand 

Art 

• Lamentation over the Dead Christ (various versions on this theme) 
  

Not mentioned in the podcast: 

All-ages, visually rich painting to ponder any time: 

• The Finding of the Savior in the Temple: 
  

Museums: 

• Detroit Museum of Arts 

Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant: 

• 20 Head, Heart, and Hands 

• 111 What Treasures Remain 

Find the Catholic Art History Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms. 

We’d be grateful for your feedback! Please share your thoughts with us via this Kolbecast survey! 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes or a story of your own experience that you’d like to share? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG. We cover a trifecta of topics today that homeschooling parents tend to fret about: STEM, state schools, and sibling dynamics. Kolbe alumni Erin and Michael O’Donnell visit with Bonnie and Steven about their experience with Kolbe and how they transitioned to college, the tradeoffs that come with various kinds of college settings, and how the adjustments for a homeschooled college freshman overlap with those for a brick-and-mortar-schooled freshman. They also talk about the shift in workload from Kolbe to college, how they practice and explain their faith in a setting where Catholics are a minority, and what they would say to homeschooling parents. 

Erin and Michael make reference to Chi Rho, Raider Catholic’s service fraternity. 

Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant: 

• 189 Fit Mind, Fit Body 

We’d be grateful for your feedback! Please share your thoughts with us via this Kolbecast survey! 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG.  Creativity and frugality, experimentation and reflection, community and solitude, fasting and feasting...the kitchen is a place for all of these pairings and more.  Today’s episode invites Kolbe online instructors Neva Hernandez and Chelsea Plesko into conversation with Bonnie and Steven about feeding family.  With voices representing multiple stages of parenthood, from toddlers waving in shopping carts to teenagers readying to fly the nest, the group’s discussion reflects the liturgical year and the practicalities of daily living. 

Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant: 

• 182 Festive Holidays Ahead: Preparing, Adapting, Delighting  

We’d be grateful for your feedback! Please share your thoughts with us via this Kolbecast survey! 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG. Mike Aquilina—vice president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, author of more than 50 books, homeschool father, and expert in Church history—joins Bonnie, Steven, and Jordan today for a discussion about the pre- and post-Incarnation world. The conversation includes lessons to be drawn from the apostolic fathers, the Church’s indispensable role in the development of charitable institutions, and the idea that to learn history is to cease to be a protestant. Along the way, Mike’s references and connections range from the philosopher Nietzsche to the rock and roll hall of famer Dion. 

Links: 

• Mike Aquilina’s website 

Two of Mike’s many books mentioned during the conversation: 

• A History of the Church in 100 Objects 

Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant: 

• 184 Hope & Wonder with Katie Bogner & Shari Van Vranken 

We’d be grateful for your feedback! Please share your thoughts with us via this Kolbecast survey! 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG. Today’s guest speaks from fourteen years of homeschool experience raising eight boys. Tricia Kavanagh joins the Kolbecast from Ontario, Canada, to share her approach, insights, and outlook on both work and rest. She, Bonnie, and Steven discuss homeschooling in times of both acute and chronic illness as well as the learning and formation that parents develop alongside their homeschooled children. They explore the idea of balancing parents being the primary educators of their children with outsourcing—or in Steven’s phrase, subcontracting—to enrich children’s education in areas where parents feel they have weaknesses. And they share a few comebacks to comments like “I would homeschool, but...” or “You must be so patient.” 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes: 

• 111 What Treasures Remain 

The Kolbecast inaugural survey awaits your feedback! Please share your thoughts with us using this link.  

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG. St. John Paul the Great had a great love for the integration of physical activities and virtues. That passion is built into Kolbe’s approach to and curriculum for physical education. In this episode, Chris Bates and Christina Davin visit with Bonnie and Steven about how physical movement can be a daily source of joy for homeschooling families. From getting the wiggles out during class to staying active in times of year when the weather isn’t hospitable, the group discusses the importance of intentionality and opportunities to build fitness, find satisfying activities, and occasionally inconveniencing ourselves for the betterment of the whole. They also touch on how movement and activity can provide quiet time for introverts, the importance of nutrition, and the dynamics of physical limitations and adaptations. 

Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant: 

• 182 Festive Holidays Ahead with Christina Davin and Laura Roselli Insall 

Other relevant links: 

• Kolbe high school graduation requirements  

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG. In this episode, Dr. Kevin Majeres, Catholic psychiatrist and co-founder of Optimal Work (among many other things), brings words of wisdom for the start of a new calendar year.  

Dr. Majeres explains that many truths in psychiatry and neuroscience are in line with our Catholic faith, in particular how some of the concepts of reframing, mindfulness, and challenge are important steps in our lives of walking with Christ. These ideas can be applied to the many facets of daily life to help us accept and meet challenges, grow in holiness and virtue, and help ourselves and each other along the way. 

Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant: 

• 26 Truth in Person and 166 A Legendary Occasion with Kolbe alumna Aviva Lund 

For more information about Dr. Majeres and his offerings, visit  

• the Optimal Work website. Find his podcast of the same name in any podcast app. 

The Kolbecast inaugural survey awaits your feedback! Please share your thoughts with us using this link.  

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG. Tune in to this episode for our hosts’ yearly Between the Years conversation—part retrospective, part preview of what’s to come. Bonnie, Steven, and Jordan talk about the apocalyptic side of Advent, share favorite Christmas and New Years family traditions, and talk about some of the things they’re looking forward to on the horizon of 2024. 

Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant: 

• 34 A Beauty-Linked Life with Dr. Carol Reynolds 

Previous Between the Years episodes: 

• 25 Backstage 

Episodes mentioning Jordan’s forthcoming book on Fr. Franz Reinisch:  

• 135 Hidden Holiness Made Known 

The Kolbecast inaugural survey awaits your feedback! Please share your thoughts with us using this link.  

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey.