The Sociable Homeschooler

With me today to help further dispel the stereotype of homeschoolers is Dr. Terri Fites who realized that she could not serve two masters, medicine and family. She made the right choice and left her beloved medical career behind (sort of) to become a most loved full-time, stay-at-home, homeschooling mom.

Married for 17 years to her high school sweetheart, also a physician, who fully respects and encourages her decision (since he knew he wasn’t up to the task), Terri educates their three daughters. She graduated first with her pharmacy degree from St. Louis College of Pharmacy, then with her medical degree from Indiana University School of Medicine and spent her resident years training in family medicine in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Through the shedding of multiple, minor ailments and over a dozen prescription medicines in her family, she has become convinced of the remarkable role of nutrition and environment in health and shares what she has learned on her very humble blog, The Homeschooling Doctor (The HSD).

Terri firmly believes that when she made the choice to have children, she made the choice to do what it takes to bring them up emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, and physically healthy, and although she left a medical career behind, God granted her a new outlet to serve and help others, including her family.

Bring your tea and join us this Friday when we will be talking about Dr. Terri Fites' career and how homeschooling has changed her view of medicine.

This week my oldest and youngest children are joining me to talk about how they managed to live together and make it work…really well!

They are both graduates of Wild Flower Academy and Collin College in Plano, Texas.

Ian wanted me to do college with him but ended up going to the College of Santa Fe for two years to complete his BA in Film Production. He has worked as a free lance assistant editor at Reel FX which is a post production house, he has been an editor at Tocroc and the Dailies Assistant at Dallas that aired on TNT. He is Executive Producer for his own company, McCook Media. Ian specializes in story and narrative film/video editing, Live Event editing and story and narrative screenwriting. The best place to find him on-line is LinkedIn.

Malia spent a year in London at a Performing Arts School then danced on a cruise ship for three months before returning to Dallas last year, homeless because we’d sold the family homestead. She moved in with her oldest brother, Ian, and together they lived the perfect Ross and Monica life as the brother and sister roommates from their favourite show, Friends! The best place to find her on-line is Facebook.

Bring your tea and tune in this Friday, July 4th at 12noon CT to hear how siblings really can live together as Bro-Mates!

I'll also be engaging you with the latest and greatest from the household of the McNenys where we are half way through our house sitting assignment in Florida, have septic tank problems, power outages that change our schedules, writing that works...sometimes and avocados galore! Are you ready?

My guest this week is renowned concert pianist, Calvin Jones. Calvin is also a homeschooling Dad, composer, orchestrator and producer. This is the final show in my short series about careers and I know you’ll be as delighted as I am with this remarkable artist. In the words of one critic, "If brilliant piano performance could be likened to a painting, Calvin Jones routinely executes a 'musical Mona Lisa.'" Aggressively contemplative, Calvin is quite a performer. Highly accessible, Calvin's music incorporates classical and popular themes and his performances seem to strip away the action of the piano, caressing the strings. Known for his hit "Whitewater Chopped Sticks" which propelled Teresa Scanlan to win the 2011 Miss America crown and his subsequent soundtrack for "2016: Obama's America", the 2nd highest grossing documentary in history, Calvin has enjoyed a varied musical career. His five releases "Through High Places" (1987), "Coming Home" (1990), "Uncharted Waters" (1993), "Acoustic Passion" (2005) and "Dueling Pianos" (2012) released on Sony Records have won him international acclaim. We spoke from Ukraine where Calvin is currently touring Eurasia performing with Philharmonics to delighted audiences everywhere while continuing to produce soundtracks and prepare his new orchestral release. Join us this Friday with a cup of tea and I will include a sampling of his music.

Let me engage you with the latest and greatest from the household of the McNenys where we are thoroughly enjoying pastoral life, windy days every day, and still homeschooling! Are you ready?

Joining me this week is self described, lifelong unschooler Peter Kowalke.

Peter has been on my show several times and we have talked about his passion for unschooling and how much it has influenced his life. His highly praised documentary “Grown Without Schooling” followed ten unschooled graduates into the world and recorded how they fared in their individual life choices.

Peter lives in New York City and has consulted as a homeschool expert for media outlets such as the BBC, the New York Times and The Times of India.

The last time we spoke, two years ago, he had just returned from a six month spiritual sojourn in Asia.

This Friday afternoon we are going to be catching up and talking about how Unschooling led him along the pathway of philosophical exploration which eventually brought him to Vedanta.

Get yourself a cup of something delicious to drink and come and be mentally provoked into living your life a different way! 12 noon Central!

I am welcoming Dawn Franks, to my show this week to talk about her unusual and very entrepreneurial career. I was introduced to Dawn through my husband who met with her while we were in East Texas, about one of his projects. Dawn is President of Your Philanthropy, a coaching and consulting firm and works with the philanthropic donor and nonprofit community. During our conversation you will learn exactly what that means! She has 33 years of experience in nonprofit and philanthropy work in the Tyler community. She is also Executive Director of the Ben and Maytee Fisch Foundation and serves on boards for the East Texas Communities Foundation, Leadership Tyler, Bullard Economic Development Council and the Tyler Chamber of Commerce. She is past president of South Tyler Rotary Club, a member of Tyler Executive Women’s Network and a graduate of the University of Texas at Tyler. Dawn is married to Eddy Franks. Oin us on Friday with your tea and learn some amazing things about grants and non-profits that may surprise you!

This week my show is the second in a short series of careers advice where I bring on guests from interesting walks of life that may be of help to young people searching for possible career opportunities.

Andrei Constantinescu has always loved film and television. His mom says he loved television even when he was very little and that around two or three years of age he was quoting lines from shows and recognizing actors. One of Andrei’s earliest memories is entertaining his extended family with stories and jokes and wondering what else he could do or say to make them laugh. For as long as he can remember he has known he wanted to be an actor or work in the film industry. Andrei graduated from Louisiana Tech University with an MA in Theater and started work as an extra on several films, loving every minute of it! He worked for Glorioso Casting, assisting and coordinating the extras for several projects; he also cast the Principal Roles for some non-union short films and worked as an actor, including a role in “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.” In the fall of 2009 he moved to New Orleans to cast with Coulon Casting; his experiences there gave him another view of extras casting and paved the way for his future move to Dallas, Texas where he worked for Cast-O-Matic on the FOX TV show, “Lone Star” in 2010.

In the spring of 2011, Andrei was hired to cast the extras for the “Dallas” pilot on TNT and Legacy Casting was officially born. Now he and the Legacy Casting team work on projects in Texas and Louisiana. His goal is to use Legacy Casting to find and showcase new rising talent and to give other actors a start in the industry he loves. Come and listen to him speak on my show about his interesting career and how to make show business work for you. Friday at 12 noon Central.

This week my guest Stephanie Langford is returning to tell us all about how her 54 weeks of world travel has impacted her family’s lifestyle, marriage and view of the world. She describes herself as the blessed wife to Ryan. She is also Mum and homeschooler to her four favorite little people, and the grateful recipient of undeserved mercy and love from her Heavenly Father. Stephanie and her husband have spent the last year travelling and hack-schooling on a monumental journey around the world to almost 30 countries in 12 months. While on the road Stephanie kept up her blog Keeper of the Home, inspiring and educating women on the topics of nutrition, natural homemaking, "greener" lifestyle choices, and frugal, simple living... all from a distinctively Christian worldview. Also her medicine kit while she was on the road can be found here! http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2013/10/my-travel-medicine-kit.html She is the author of three books, Healthy Homemaking: One Step at a Time, Real Food on a Real Budget: How to Eat Healthy for Less, and Plan It, Don’t Panic: A Complete Meal Planning Resource and is working on a proposal for her family travel memoir. Stephanie is going to be sharing a few stories with us about life abroad, how they were limited in their possessions by their bags, how their marriage changed for the better, and how she coped with coming to the end of herself. Tune in on Friday with a cup of coffee or your favourite beverage and be inspired, if not to totally change your life at least to simplify some areas of it and not to be afraid to step outside your box if only for an hour!

This week I am welcoming to my show Katharine Grubb. Katharine was born in northeastern Oklahoma. She was raised in the Tulsa suburbs, attended the University of Oklahoma, taught school, wrote stories and then shocked everyone by moving to Boston, Massachusetts to be with a man she had been e-mailing for nine months. She married that man, and with him had five boisterous children ages 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16.

Nowadays, she still lives in Massachusetts, homeschools her children, bakes bread, does ridiculous amounts of laundry and sets her timer to write stories in ten minute increments. She loves homeschooling and just completed her 12th year.

Katharine blogs at www.10minutewriter.com and is on Twitter @10MinuteWriter where she talks about writing fiction and nonfiction. Join us on Friday with your tea and be prepared to laugh!!

This week I’m delighted to welcome back to my show, where I dispel many homeschooling stereotypes, Carol Topp who has joined me a couple of times to talk about co-oping and finances.

We are going to be talking about the 3 major careers in her life, besides Mum and homeschooling, so tune in to learn more!

Carol and her husband live in West Chester, Ohio and have two grown daughters, both homeschooled through high school who are now looking forward to their first careers. Carol worked from home throughout her homeschooling career and authored, Homeschool Co-Ops: How to Start Them, Run Them and Not Burn Out. She is also the author of the Micro Business for Teens series where she gives tips and advice to aspiring young entrepreneurs, as well as nine other books, a podcaster on the Ultimate Homeschool Radio Network, a host on the public television program, Starting a Micro Business, and winner of a Best Accounting blog award in 2012.

Carol's current project is creating a Career Exploration e-book for homeschool teenagers. She hopes to have it completed in the fall of 2014. You can find her at MicroBusinessForTeens.com. and on my radio show this Friday.

Join us for a cup of tea and hear all about this homeschooling Mum’s terrific careers.

Mike Donnelly, from the Home School Legal Defense Association, returns to my show this week wearing his legal and dad hats. When he’s not talking to me Mike serves as Staff Attorney and Director of International Relations for member affairs and is Adjunct Professor of Government at Patrick Henry College, in Virginia. Mike and his wife teach their seven children at home and he is a frequent speaker and writer on many home school related topics some of which he has shared with us over the years on my show.

Mike and his hard working colleagues at HSLDA defend both the American and International right to choose how we educate our children and their convictions ensure that homeschooling remains a parental choice for all of us. Today we are going to be hearing about some good news about the Romeike family and the recent court decision that will allow them to remain in America. Mike and I will also talk about some of the doubts parents may have when considering homeschooling. Peer preessure is not just for our children!

Pull up a chair and snag a cup of tea and listen in this Friday.