children finish their work on 15 consecutive school days, they get a day off.
The curriculum includes crafts, with demonstrable results. Hannah, Abigail, Joshua and Sarah all won prizes at the Gwinnett County Fair this year. Abigail, overall winner for the youth division in 2004, even has her own business breeding angora rabbits and spinning the wool to knit apparel.
Singer names many success stories involving Lawrenceville’s home-schooled students. Sally Shaul, a former joint enrollment student of the year, was home-schooled. David Boyle, also home-schooled, was names a Regent Scholar.
“What stands out about the Davis kids and home-schooled students in general is they are able to work independently without much oversight,” he says. “They have a good work ethic.”
Holly Isserstedt, adjunct professor in the Lawrenceville humanities department says that Joshua and Abigail David both did very well in her English class. “They exhibited an enthusiasm for learning and an intrinsic motivation not unlike other GPC students, but unusual in that they are both much younger,” she says.
This is not to say home-schooled students skate through college. For example, Cleaves recalls that Joshua and Abigail worked to adjust to his pollical science class this fall, as many students to “This is not the typical high school civics class – it’s more analytical and challenging It requires a different set of skills, he says.
Isserstedt notes that Joshua and Abigail needed to gain a “content maturity” in writing, but she adds that they “worked very hard to improve the richness and depth of their writing and showed marked progress by the end of term.”
As for career aspirations, Abigail wants to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing and enter the field of labor and delivery. Joshua plans to pursue a degree in industrial engineering, join the Air Fore, let that pay for law school, practice law in the Air Force and perhaps become a flight nurse on a civilian helicopter. Asked for advice to peers, she replied, “Work hard and realize that you might not be too young to attain your goals.”