Kolbecast

AMDG. Personality encompasses both nature and nurture, from biological traits and education to family of origin and cultural background.  Temperament is one important piece of personality.  In this episode, Art and Laraine Bennett describe the four classical temperaments, their long Catholic tradition, and their pragmatic applications for homeschooling families.  Working from the foundation that temperament is God’s way of kickstarting a personality without putting anyone in a box, Art and Laraine explain how understanding temperaments helps homeschooling parents understand what doors will be easier to open and what doors will take more work when educating their children.  They also touch on managing reactions, learning styles, mental illness, and appropriate discussions about temperament for various ages of children. 

Relevant links: 

• Check out the Bennetts’ websitefor more information about their books, the Know Thyself game, and their other offerings.  

Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant: 

• 167 Sanity & Sanctity with Johanna Seagren of Interior Kingdom 

Kolbecast episodes cover a range of topics relating to school at home, the life of faith, and Catholic education. Using the filters on our website, you can sort the episodes to find just what you're looking for. If you listen to the Kolbecast via a podcast app/player, we'd be so grateful to you for leaving a rating and review. That helps us reach more listeners. However you listen, please 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.  University of Dallas president Dr. Jonathan Sanford joins Bonnie, Steven, and Chief Academic Officer Megan Lengyel in this episode to discuss how students flourish at UD, particularly when they have a Kolbe foundation. Dr. Sanford describes how the school is a thoroughly Catholic university with a bigger set of offerings than most and how multiple charisms present on campus help preserve and further UD's Catholic identity.  He also shares insights on scholarships and standardized test strategies; distinguishes the humanities from the broader liberal arts; and highlights preparation for med school, law school, and market-relevant business opportunities. With a kind of fatherly care, Dr. Sanford illustrates how UD serves the idea that the best education for the best student is the best education for every student. 

Links to topics of discussion: 

• Use this link to sign up for Kolbe’s special Odyssey Days II. 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes  

• 158 The Gift of a Mind, the commencement speeches (including Dr. Sanford’s) at Kolbe Academy’s 2023 commencement ceremony 

• 127 Forging a Path with CLT’s Kimberly Farley 

Kolbecast episodes cover a range of topics relating to school at home, the life of faith, and Catholic education. Using the filters on our website, you can sort the episodes to find just what you're looking for. If you listen to the Kolbecast via a podcast app/player, we'd be so grateful to you for leaving a rating and review. That helps us reach more listeners. However you listen, please 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.  Our patron St. Maximilian Kolbe is known for the heroism of his final days, but those acts were the culmination of the virtuous life he lived before his internment at Auschwitz.  In this episode, visitor to the Kolbecast Anthony D’Ambrosio shares his special perspective on St. Max, which is based on his work developing the film Kolbe’s Passion and the intimate connection he forged with the saint during his own time of crisis.  Anthony, Bonnie, and Steven discuss the relationship between suffering and faith, the grappling with despair and disillusionment that is inescapable in modern life, and the creative considerations involved in adapting St. Max’s story to a cinematographic format.  And in case that virtuous life of St. Max’s we mentioned sounds dry, we have two words for you: fire truck.  

Head to the Kolbe’s Passion website to watch the proof-of-concept film and find out how to support the production of the full-length film. 

Alas, this recording was plagued by some technical foibles which make the audio difficult to understand at times. We’ve tried to mitigate those as best we can, so we hope you’ll stick with it through the rough spots. The message of love is loud and clear. 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes: 

• 100 In the Beginning with Mrs. Dianne Muth 

Other relevant links: 

• Anthony’s father, Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio, aka “Dr. Italy” 

Kolbecast episodes cover a range of topics relating to school at home, the life of faith, and Catholic education. Using the filters on our website, you can sort the episodes to find just what you're looking for. If you listen to the Kolbecast via a podcast app/player, we'd be so grateful to you for leaving a rating and review. That helps us reach more listeners. However you listen, please 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.  Good Catholic priests come from good Catholic men, and many good Catholic men begin as little boys with lots of energy.  Kolbe alumni Fr. Ambrose Dobrozsi and Dcn. Charles Ohotnicky visit with Bonnie and Steven in this episode about their Kolbe educations and their vocations.  From standout memories of their Kolbe years to the current lives they lead, today’s guests share their insights on men laying down their lives for the love of God and His Church.  They also offer thoughts on the complementarity between parochial schools and homeschooling families along with pragmatic advice on how to encourage vocations without demanding them. 

Kolbecast episodes mentioned & relevant: 

• 170 A Spiraled Art featuring Fr. Ambrose’s mother Mrs. Beth Dobroszi 

Kolbecast episodes cover a range of topics relating to school at home, the life of faith, and Catholic education. Using the filters on our website, you can sort the episodes to find just what you're looking for. If you listen to the Kolbecast via a podcast app/player, we'd be so grateful to you for leaving a rating and review. That helps us reach more listeners. However you listen, please 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.  Keeping young minds wondering, active, and curious can sometimes feel like a struggle.  With pop culture always debuting new ways to capture attention, strewing our homes with examples of the good, the beautiful, and the true is one of the best ways to raise well-rounded young adults who are in the world without being of it.  In this episode, writer Philip Kosloski—often found on Aleteia.org or in his series The Voyage Comics—visits with Bonnie, Steven, and Josh about discerning our charisms, the specific gifts God calls us to, subtle parallels to Catholicism in pop culture, and his work bringing inspiration from the saints into modern media. 

Find Philip and his work on the Voyage Comics website and at Aleteia.org. 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes: 

• 71 A Sight for Sore Eyes with Chris Lewis of Baritus Catholic Illustration 

Kolbecast episodes cover a range of topics relating to school at home, the life of faith, and Catholic education. Using the filters on our website, you can sort the episodes to find just what you're looking for. If you listen to the Kolbecast via a podcast app/player, we'd be so grateful to you for leaving a rating and review. That helps us reach more listeners. However you listen, please 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.  Many of us aren’t familiar with what the Catholic Church teaches on money, finances, and possessions.  We think of missionaries as being poor, but that isn’t always the case—from hair shirts to heiresses, the saints have had a wide range of financial situations and gifts.  In this episode, Jonathan and Amanda Teixeira of WalletWin join the Kolbecast crew to discuss handling money virtuously.  From discerning how we can best use our resources and give them back to God with increase to the idea of “maximum fruitfulness,” the Teixeiras share how helping young people say yes to God’s call in their lives includes financial literacy. 

Episodes of The Catholic Money Show mentioned in the conversation: 

• 3 More Saints for Financial Help 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes: 

• 92 Protect, Guide, Prepare, Empower 

Kolbecast episodes cover a range of topics relating to school at home, the life of faith, and Catholic education. Using the filters on our website, including the “Life after Kolbe” tag, you can sort the episodes to find just what you're looking for. If you listen to the Kolbecast via a podcast app/player, we'd be so grateful to you for leaving a rating and review. That helps us reach more listeners. However you listen, please 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.  Thinking well is important.  Communicating those thoughts well is too.  As the school year kicks off, English and Literature department teachers Kim Crawford, Amanda Hayes, and Beth Dobrozsi share insights and tips for helping students learn to put thoughts to paper.  They describe the progression of writing approaches and skills throughout various grade levels, challenges for students with ADD or ADHD, and the importance of physicality in writing.  Their encouragement and tricks, coupled with the Kolbe support options they describe, are a launch pad for developing nuance, style, and clarity. 

Related Kolbecast episodes: 

• 61 Middle Ground with Amanda Hayes and Alex Pischke 

• 160 A Legendary Occasion, highlights from Kolbe Academy’s in-person 2023 commencement  

Writing resources recommended by our guests: 

• Kolbe Academy’s new Writing and Style Guide is now available! 

• Purdue OWL   

• Grammarly 

Kolbecast episodes cover a range of topics relating to school at home, the life of faith, and Catholic education. Using the filters on our website, you can sort the episodes to find just what you're looking for. If you listen to the Kolbecast via a podcast app/player, we'd be so grateful to you for leaving a rating and review. That helps us reach more listeners. However you listen, please 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.  Kolbe teachers educate their students, sure, but their bigger role is to help their students’ formation.  Today mathematics chair Wes Stratman and theology teacher Brendan Murphy share their own roads to Kolbe and how those roads prepared them to help their students explore for themselves rather than check boxes in class.  Along with their teaching philosophies and a few favorite stories, Wes and Brendan also share tips for getting the school year off to a good start. 

Relevant links: 

• Kolbecast episode 132 Monday Morning Assembly featuring Wes Stratman and others affiliated with Kolbe’s Monday morning schoolwide gatherings 

Kolbecast episodes cover a range of topics relating to school at home, the life of faith, and Catholic education. Using the filters on our website, you can sort the episodes to find just what you're looking for. If you listen to the Kolbecast via a podcast app/player, we'd be so grateful to you for leaving a rating and review. That helps us reach more listeners. However you listen, please 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.  If the saints have ever felt inaccessible or unrelatable to your family members, hearing their stories in a different format may help them come alive.  In this episode, Melissa Dee—homeschool graduate, mother, and producer of the Saints Alive podcast—joins the Kolbecast to share how she, her husband Alex, and their team produce episodes that she describes as watching a movie in your mind.  Melissa highlights the heart of each saint’s mission and explains how learning about the holy individuals who came before us is a way to learn about virtue played out and real-life role models.   

This episode includes a brief reference to self-harm in the context of challenges current teenagers face.

Visit the Saints Alive website for resources corresponding to each episode and ways to get involved with the Saints Alive mission.  

Kolbecast episodes relating to St. Maximilian Kolbe: 

• 100 In the Beginning with Kolbe Academy co-founder Mrs. Dianne Muth 

• 134 For Tinkerers of All Ages 

Kolbecast episodes cover a range of topics relating to school at home, the life of faith, and Catholic education. Using the filters on our website, you can sort the episodes to find just what you're looking for. If you listen to the Kolbecast via a podcast app/player, we'd be so grateful to you for leaving a rating and review. That helps us reach more listeners. However you listen, please 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. How we respond to meltdowns and dysregulation is as crucial to family life as praying together, eating together, and extracurriculars. Catholic licensed professional counselor Johanna Seagren visits the Kolbecast on this episode to describe the importance of emotions and the Interior Kingdom program that she developed to co-regulate emotions in parents and children. The conversation highlights how God created emotions, how the morality of emotions is not in the feelings themselves but in the actions growing out of them, and how happiness is not our goal—peace within ourselves based in the peace of Christ is. Johanna also offers practical tips on fight/flight/freeze mode, addressing test anxiety, and developing both playfulness and safety. 

Use coupon code Kolbe15 through August 31, 2023, for 15% off the Interior Kingdom program.  

Related Kolbecast episodes: 

• 45 Grace Perfects Nature 

Kolbecast episodes cover a range of topics relating to school at home, the life of faith, and Catholic education. Using the filters on our website, you can sort the episodes to find just what you're looking for. If you listen to the Kolbecast via a podcast app/player, we'd be so grateful to you for leaving a rating and review. That helps us reach more listeners. However you listen, please 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.