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 Even by the standards of very accomplished homeschoolers, Sky Choi is remarkable.
At age 12, Sky is the youngest student (ever!) to attend Florida International University, located in Miami, Florida. He’s double majoring in physics and mathematics with a minor in astronomy. He hopes to graduate with his bachelor’s degrees when he turns 17. Since he’s participating in a dual-enrollment program, he will finish the high school component of his education this spring.
When he’s not solving Calculus II problems, mastering Chinese, and maintaining his 3.83 GPA, Sky teaches martial arts to younger children and works at a charity he created which assists refugee children from Iraq. Sky, who is fluent in Korean, began taking college classes when he was ten years old to supplement his home education. His parents, Dana and Byung Sam Choi terminated his conventional schooling days at age eight when they decided to find other ways to accommodate Sky’s insatiable drive to learn complex information.
George Walker, a theoretical physicist and a dean at Florida International University, told the Miami Herald that in his fifty years in the field he has encountered many talented young scholars. “But,” stated Walker, “I have not seen any that would exceed the promise and the interest that Sky has at this stage.”
Sky is not shy, either, about challenging his older classmates to a game of pool or table tennis. He may be a high IQ nerd, but he’s no social dud. In fact, Sky’s something of a BMOC (Big Man on Campus), described as a “pretty popular” student by one of his lab partners.
One has to grimace at what this gifted tween’s fate would have been if these educational alternatives weren’t available, or if his parents would have been unwilling to find creative ways to cultivate his gifts. Sky would be a bored, frustrated middle schooler, forced to squander his adolescence in one of those unstimulating age-appropriate classrooms where conformity to groupthink is all the rage and every minute of his school day would be micromanaged by government regulations.
Thankfully, he’s been set free from all that nonsense.
Sky’s the limit, so to speak!
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean and deep in rural England is where “Deborah 13: Servant of God” was filmed.
The one-hour BBC documentary stars Deborah Drapper, a 13-year-old, who, like Sky Choi, leads an unconventional life. The young teenager is an outspoken evangelical Christian who learns at home and resides with her family in a farmhouse in picturesque Dorset. When quizzed by the BBC interviewer, Deborah, who has a computer but no access to television, admits to not knowing who Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham or Britney Spears is. Nor is she interested in fashion fads or partying with other teenagers. Conversely, she can recite the Ten Commandments, thinks that evolution is a fairy tale for grownups, and loves to learn: everything from speech to West African agriculture captivates her. She also participates in that most modern of pastimes – blogging.
The film’s creators tried a little too hard to make Deborah look like everybody’s favorite stereotype of a holy-roller homeschooler – brainwashed, sheltered, and God-crazed. But it’s the products of all that carefree liberal parenting — the young Brits whom Deborah is shown evangelizing — that come across as boorish, hedonistic, and boring. Deborah, in contrast, appears poised, principled, and daring.
Deborah told JBS.org that footage of her interacting with her friends (“having fun cooking over a camp fire and crawling through streams”), was not shown. She also adds, “I am not happy that they have edited out the positive side of the gospel – God’s love and grace … They (the filmmakers) kept asking me about Hell and sin, making it difficult to answer questions in a positive way, and they kept asking me not to smile.”
The down-to-earth Drapper parents also appear in the documentary. They are shown studying the Bible with their children, eating meals with them, and dispensing socially-incorrect opinions. Mum, Ruth, states that she and her husband have allowed “God to give us as many children as He wants to give us” (current number of Drapper offspring: 11). Dad, Andrew, a true visionary, says that he is training his brood for “eternity.”
What makes Deborah’s faith-based lifestyle a riveting watch, at least to those on the front lines of the culture wars, is that she lives in a time when the otherworldly heroes of England have indeed been replaced by pagan high priests and priestesses, like the David and Victoria Beckhams. Christianity’s influence in England once impacted the world. Today, secularism and radical Islam are on the rise in the United Kingdom. Last year, outspoken Anglican bishop Michael Nazir-Ali received death threats for stating that there are enclaves in England that are “no-go areas” for non-Muslims.
Whether one lives in Europe or America, these are dark times for the West. But there are still opportunities to achieve intellectually and spiritually. That a ‘little child’ can lead the way and show what those opportunities are, is an encouraging sign.
Isabel Lyman holds a doctorate in social science and is the author of The Homeschooling Revolution (2000).
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