Home schooling is the place to bee: home-schooled 14-year-old James Williams captures the coveted top spot in the 2003 National Geographic Bee. (Education).

Madagascar, Mumbai, Myanmar, Martinique ... sound like the itinerary of an exotic round-the-world trip? Not exactly. But it is a sample of the correct answers to questions posed in the National Geographic Bee finals, held in Washington, D.C., on May 21st. And while James Williams, the 14-year-old winner of the bee, has never visited any of these faraway places, he does know a lot about them, and many other aspects of world geography.

How does an eighth-grader from Vancouver, Washington, know so much about distant destinations? "I studied every day, for several hours," James told THE NEW AMERICAN. "I've always thought that geography was really cool." James and his five siblings are home schooled by their parents, Ann and Craig. James said he finds the flexibility of the home-school environment conducive to concentrating on his specific interests, such as geography and science.

"We wanted to make learning a lifestyle rather than something you have to do," said Ann. Certainly learning takes center stage in the Williams family household. James is a weekly regular at the local library, checking out as many as a dozen books each visit. And he doesn't concentrate solely on geography. His interests are wide-ranging, encompassing spiders, weather, mountains, and many other topics. Instead of being tied to the standard public school schedule, the Williams family incorporates learning in all parts of their day-to-day existence -- taking many field trips, and participating in a variety of home-school activities.

Ann and Craig decided to home school their children even before the first baby arrived. "We saw the advantages of being able to tailor education to each child's learning style and interests," stated Ann. Plus, she added, "we wanted to ensure our values were the ones they were most familiar with." Home-schooled children, like James, have done exceptionally well in both the National Geographic Bee and the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in recent years, winning the geographic bee in 1999 and 2002, and the spelling bee in 1997 and 2000. Mike Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, credits the individualized instruction home-schooled children receive -- the same "one-on-one, tutorial type of teaching that was the foundation of our early founding fathers." Smith pointed out that "Thomas Jefferson and the early presidents and the intellectuals of those days [and] the people who wrote our Constitution -- most of them were tutored or taught by their parents." As further evidence of the ben efits of home schooling, this marks the second year in a row that a home-schooled student has won the geographic bee.

Busy as a Bee

While some people might worry that home-schooled children lead sheltered lives and don't receive a well-rounded education, James is living proof that "it ain't so." Although his primary love is geography, he finds that to excel at the National Geographic Bee, he had to study a variety of other subjects. James listed geology, weather, economics, cultural studies, history, and chart interpretation as all useful topics.

In addition to studying for the geographic bee this spring, James also qualified, along with the rest of his local team, for the National Science Olympiad, held in Ohio just days before the geographic bee. In the Olympiad, James' concentration areas included metric estimation, life sciences, process lab, and experimental design. Although his team finished in the middle of the 55 participating teams, James said the competition was fun. In the team environment, he said, "sometimes it's hard to work with the rest of the team," but he finds that less nerve-wracking than individual competition (like the geographic bee), which "is more stressful -- one question and you're out!"

With his siblings receiving the same quality home education he is, James can't afford to rest on his laurels. His 13-year-old sister, Kirsten, also competed in the Olympiad, and came very close to edging James out at the local level of the geographic bee, missing victory by only one question. "She gave him a run for his money," laughed Ann. All four sisters also play the piano, "and are getting better than me," complained James with a smile.

Ann and Craig are both longtime members of the John Birch Society, and they hope to pass the freedom-fight torch on to James. "Joining the Birch Society is one of the best things I ever did," said Craig. In August, he hopes to send James to the Washington State Robert Welch University Summer Camp. Meanwhile, James will compete in the National Science Bowl in June. And if that weren't a busy enough summer, James also has high hopes of being chosen as a member of the three-person U.S. team at the biennial National Geographic World Championship, held in July.

In between all the competitions and studying. James finds time to practice piano, participate in Boy Scouts, and swim in the local pool. He is also a computer whiz, taking his first community college programming course when he was only 11 years old. He now serves as Webmaster for the EXCEL home-schooling group in Vancouver, Washington.

So how does one young boy find time for all these activities? Possibly because he doesn't waste time watching the boob tube. The Williamses haven't had a TV for years, and except for not being able to watch travelog videos, they don't miss it much.

The family does subscribe to a number of educational publications, not the least of which is THE NEW AMERICAN. In fact, James credits TNA with helping him win the state level of the geographic bee. One of the questions dealt with Yucca Mountain, Nevada, which James remembered reading about in a TNA issue. Other magazines the Williamses subscribe to include National Geographic (of course) and Smithsonian.

After winning the geographic bee, James found himself the darling of the national media, appearing on the Today Show, the Early Show, and CNN. After his winning answer, James said, there were "microphones and cameras everywhere -- and I just wanted to sleep." And, as amazing as it may seem in this day of ubiquitous television, the same kid who knows that cocoa is produced in the Ashanti region of Ghana, and that the mouth of the Orinoco River is north of the mouth of the Zambezi River, had never even heard of NBC's Katie Couric. Sort of puts things in perspective....

Bee All You Can Bee

James' achievement at age 14 is in stark contrast to the 11 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 who cannot find the U.S. on a map and to the 50 percent who cannot find China, the United Kingdom, or Japan. To counteract these appalling statistics, the National Geographic Society started the geographic bee in 1989. Over five million students participate at the local level, narrowing down to the best 55 competitors who compete in the finals.

At the finals, the competitors roomed together and forged friendships likely to endure beyond the competition. James said he exchanged e-mail addresses with a number of his fellow competitors, while Ann commented that she "wouldn't be surprised if we visited them, or they visited us." James' roommate, Sean Rao, placed third in the finals. Imagine the bedtime chatter: "Was it Pakistan or Bangladesh that got its freedom in 1971? Which country has the third-highest annual oil production? What's the main crop produced in the Ayeyarwady Delta?"

For winning the geographic bee, James was awarded a $25,000 scholarship to the college of his choice, along with a life-time subscription to National Geographic and a week at Sea World-Busch Gardens Adventure Camp, courtesy of corporate sponsor ING. But Ann stressed that it is the learning process, not the winning, that is of truly important. "All the kids have learned to appreciate the world around them more by being curious about other countries," she said.

Jodie Gilmore, a home-schooling mother of two, is a freelance writer.