Post by Charity on Nov 29, 2005 13:25:41 GMT -5
Going Places: Longmont teen moves ahead by 'looking back'
November 28, 2005
When Rachel Shafer was contemplating the Gettysburg Address, she was most impressed by the power of its brevity.
"I really admire how Abraham Lincoln put forward such profound ideas in such a simple way," she said.
Her personal reflection on the speech, an essay titled Looking Back on a Legacy of Liberty, won first place and $5,000 in the 2004 Idea of America essay contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
"Its brevity lends weight to every word, and it is not only brief, but simple, with a succession of ideas as powerful and inevitable as the cannon blasts that had echoed through Gettysburg four months before," wrote Shafer, 17, of Longmont.
Home-schooled, she is now a freshman at the University of Tulsa, where she participates in the Honors Program.
"It focuses on the great ideas of Western civilization. I'm studying ancient Greek philosophy, The Iliad and The Odyssey, the dramatists Euripedes and Sophocles, and finishing up with some of Plato's Socratic dialogues.
"It's a seminar. There's a lot of class discussions, and I've enjoyed hearing the opinions of other students. Our professor has been focusing on encouraging us to think critically about the questions the text brings up and to consider a range of possible answers," she said.
Her home-schooling, she said, prepared her well for such academic challenges: "I had to take responsibility for my own education, and I learned to study on my own. It encouraged me to love learning and be excited by ideas," she said.
She was active in the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association, a debate competition for home-schoolers, where her favorite event was extemporaneous speaking.
"You have 30 minutes to prepare a seven-minute speech that's a response to a question. I enjoy research, and participating in that gave me an opportunity to dig deeper and find out what was going on in the world," she said.
She won the state championship and advanced to the national semifinals of the American Legion Oratorical Contest: "I spoke about the duties of American citizens to ensure that the Constitution can succeed. We have a duty to be involved in order for the structure the Founding Fathers implemented and their vision to work."
She has studied piano and viola and plays viola for the church she attends at college. She also holds a black belt in tae kwon do.
Her college major will be economics.
"I think it's the most logical of the social sciences. Economics can be pretty abstract; it relies a lot on theory. That's something that appeals to me.
"However, I also like the more methodological work, and it combines the need to work with statistics, facts and figures. It's a wonderful compromise of my interests," she said.
Rachel Shafer
• Favorite Web site: www.rebelution.blogspot.com "It's a blog run by two really impressive home-school students."
• Favorite book: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• Hero: "One of my heroes would be my mother (Roberta), because she has been an example for me. She's very focused, she sets her eyes on a goal and achieves it, and she's helped me to do the same thing."
• Advice: "Take the long view."
• I really like to: "read and talk about what I read with my friends."
Do you know a young person, ages 8 to 18, who's going places? Fax the name, address and phone number and a brief summary of interests and accomplishments to Lifestyles, Going Places, 303-892-5407 or e-mail Spotlight@RockyMountainNews.com. Include your name and phone number.
www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/fami...4270915,00.html
November 28, 2005
When Rachel Shafer was contemplating the Gettysburg Address, she was most impressed by the power of its brevity.
"I really admire how Abraham Lincoln put forward such profound ideas in such a simple way," she said.
Her personal reflection on the speech, an essay titled Looking Back on a Legacy of Liberty, won first place and $5,000 in the 2004 Idea of America essay contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
"Its brevity lends weight to every word, and it is not only brief, but simple, with a succession of ideas as powerful and inevitable as the cannon blasts that had echoed through Gettysburg four months before," wrote Shafer, 17, of Longmont.
Home-schooled, she is now a freshman at the University of Tulsa, where she participates in the Honors Program.
"It focuses on the great ideas of Western civilization. I'm studying ancient Greek philosophy, The Iliad and The Odyssey, the dramatists Euripedes and Sophocles, and finishing up with some of Plato's Socratic dialogues.
"It's a seminar. There's a lot of class discussions, and I've enjoyed hearing the opinions of other students. Our professor has been focusing on encouraging us to think critically about the questions the text brings up and to consider a range of possible answers," she said.
Her home-schooling, she said, prepared her well for such academic challenges: "I had to take responsibility for my own education, and I learned to study on my own. It encouraged me to love learning and be excited by ideas," she said.
She was active in the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association, a debate competition for home-schoolers, where her favorite event was extemporaneous speaking.
"You have 30 minutes to prepare a seven-minute speech that's a response to a question. I enjoy research, and participating in that gave me an opportunity to dig deeper and find out what was going on in the world," she said.
She won the state championship and advanced to the national semifinals of the American Legion Oratorical Contest: "I spoke about the duties of American citizens to ensure that the Constitution can succeed. We have a duty to be involved in order for the structure the Founding Fathers implemented and their vision to work."
She has studied piano and viola and plays viola for the church she attends at college. She also holds a black belt in tae kwon do.
Her college major will be economics.
"I think it's the most logical of the social sciences. Economics can be pretty abstract; it relies a lot on theory. That's something that appeals to me.
"However, I also like the more methodological work, and it combines the need to work with statistics, facts and figures. It's a wonderful compromise of my interests," she said.
Rachel Shafer
• Favorite Web site: www.rebelution.blogspot.com "It's a blog run by two really impressive home-school students."
• Favorite book: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• Hero: "One of my heroes would be my mother (Roberta), because she has been an example for me. She's very focused, she sets her eyes on a goal and achieves it, and she's helped me to do the same thing."
• Advice: "Take the long view."
• I really like to: "read and talk about what I read with my friends."
Do you know a young person, ages 8 to 18, who's going places? Fax the name, address and phone number and a brief summary of interests and accomplishments to Lifestyles, Going Places, 303-892-5407 or e-mail Spotlight@RockyMountainNews.com. Include your name and phone number.
www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/fami...4270915,00.html