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Home-Schooled Student Has Cured Any Eye-Rolling

Posted on: Tuesday, 17 January 2006, 12:00 CST

By Mike Cassidy, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Jan. 17--Sure, I was an eye-roller.

I mean, we all know about home-schooling, right? Wacky families on the political fringes. Protective parents sheltering their kids from reality. Hopeless nerds who break out in hives at the thought of a school dance.

Then Julie Boiko hit me right between the eyes. OK, she didn't punch me. She's too cool. Too collected. Too practiced at smacking down the questions about being 17 and home-schooled since kindergarten.

"Truthfully, I've never felt I had to prove myself," she says, "or disprove any stereotypes."

No matter. She's done both.

Sitting in her living room, Julie is confident and outgoing. She wears her blond hair over her shoulders and she wears her smile constantly.

Prize patrol arrives

Yes, she's jazzed about her latest achievement. The day before, a team from Intel arrived at her Almaden Valley house looking like the Publishers Clearinghouse prize patrol. An oversize check, signed by chairman Craig Barrett, for a grand. Balloons. Hoots. Hollers. And the news that Julie is one of 300 kids named as semifinalists in the chip-maker's nationwide science talent search.

"Looking back, when we started home-schooling," says Denise Boiko, Julie's mother, teacher, principal and guidance counselor, "we could never have imagined being here."

It's not every kid who can spell Allogeneic Antibodies Develop from Donor Hematopoietic Stem Cells, let alone write a research paper explaining why they matter.

True, it's not like Julie cured cancer -- she's still working on that. However, her research into the idea that transplanted stem cells sometimes attack themselves is a step in that direction. At least the Intel judges thought so.

Julie and her mother weren't out to make a statement about home-schooling, but Julie is proof the do-it-yourself method does work. She's already been accepted at Stanford University and she's waiting to hear from Harvard and Yale, among others. Later this month, she'll find out whether she'll be among 40 Intel finalists who will travel to Washington, D.C., to compete for a $100,000 scholarship.

Denise says that like many home schoolers, the family's Christian faith played a role in the decision to home-school Julie and her 14-year-old brother, Steve. Denise wanted to start the school day with a prayer and integrate discussions of God into her kids' curriculum. But she also wanted her children to learn at their own pace and in their own way.

Denise, a biologist by training, took courses to master the advanced placement courses Julie wanted to take. And Julie began supplementing at-home classes with courses at West Valley College and a laboratory internship at Stanford.

Not in the kitchen

"Chemistry would be dangerous in the kitchen," Julie says. "There is no way you could do a cadaver dissection at home."

Cadaver dissection? Joking, right?

Not joking.

Julie's science work and the recognition of it is especially encouraging given the national push to draw young people and young women in particular to the sciences.

Julie's example is likely to encourage other young women to give science a try, says Roberta Berlani, Julie's West Valley biology instructor. And it will undoubtedly change the way some see home-schooling.

"I think we need to broaden our perspective," Berlani says. "Everybody has their own path."

Julie's path led to a place neither Denise nor Julie dreamed of when the mother became the teacher.

"We are so proud of her," Denise says.

And me? I'll stop with the eye-rolling now.

Contact Mike Cassidy at mcassidy@mercurynews.com or call (408) 920-5536.

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Copyright (c) 2006, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

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Source: San Jose Mercury News

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