(upbeat music) - Welcome friends to this episode of the "Everyday Educator" podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you will find even closer support in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, listeners, I'm excited to welcome you to this episode. We are gonna talk about character study. And that sounds like a kind of a dry thing, but something that we as parents are very interested in.

But we're gonna talk about character study from a different perspective, maybe than you've ever considered before. We're gonna marry that with a discussion of great literature. And why is it important to read books as a family and to discuss books with your children? And what can you do when you're talking about books, besides just say, what was the story about and what happened in the story and what did you learn at the end?

Some of the best conversations come when you dive into the characters that you love or the characters that you hate in a book and try to pick apart what you can learn about yourself, about human nature and about making better decisions by reading books together. And I have a really great guest who loves to think about all of those things and has been thinking about them for a long time.

I have with me today, Stephanie Meter, who is the Curriculum Developer for the Exposition Strand here at Classical Conversations Multimedia. Stephanie, welcome and thanks for coming. - Thank you, I'm excited to talk about this. - You always like to talk about books, I know. I can always count on you to have a good perspective and a really good story.

So I'm excited for our listeners to hear from you today. I want you to tell me, you might have to go back, not as far back as some of us would have to go, but who is the first character you remember meeting in a book? - So I don't know.

(laughing) - You have been reading books for a really long time, I know. - Yes, and I don't really remember not knowing characters because books were such a part of just, you know, my infancy on all the way up. I can say that I remember Betsy in the Betsy Tacey series.

- Yes. - And Laura from "Little House on the Prairie" were some of my really early characters. And then a little bit older, I was maybe like in first or second grade when we read "The Boxcar Children" and "Jessie and Violet" really stuck out to me. So I don't know if I could give you a first character, you know, when I was three or four, but Betsy, Betsy maybe was four or five.

- Yeah, maybe. That is really cool. So you met these characters, you met the first characters that you remember when somebody else was reading to you, is that right? - Yes. - Yeah. - And it's kind of funny, I was having this thought as you were asking me about first characters, that the characters that stuck out to me the most were girl characters, which is interesting because in modern movies and books, I don't tend to love the female characters as much, but that's never been a problem with older and classic literature.

And now I have to think about that because what is it about classic literature that maybe the characters are just better developed, but I always like those female characters more than any of the modern female characters. So that's kind of a tangent, but you may be-- - Isn't that interesting, but that may come back into play.

'Cause I think in a few minutes, I want you to talk about why great literature, what is it that we learn from great literature? So put a pin in that thought, 'cause I wanna come back to it. I love that Betsy from the Betsy Tacey books. And listeners, if you haven't read this, this is a series by Maude Hart, H-A-R-T, Lovelace, about a little girl named Betsy who is born around the turn of the century.

And I mean the 1900s. So she's born in the early 1900s. And this series takes her from when she is a really little girl all the way up through her marriage. And so you can grow up with Betsy. I myself remember meeting Betsy and Tacey at the church library when I was a little girl.

Okay, so what did you think about these characters? What did you think about Betsy and about Laura from Little House on the Prairie? - I liked them. I liked finding pieces of myself in them. I think especially when you're little, you resonate with characters that remind you a little bit of yourself because you're forming your own identity.

And so when you see that reflection, it gives you something to look at and then to aspire to or to use as lessons. If you are similar to a character and that character makes some bad choices, you can think, "Oh yeah, I would have done that as well." - Yes.

- So I liked these characters because they reminded me a little bit of me, I think. And then they were also often a little bit better than me in ways that I just was noticing. I think about, especially Laura from Little House on the Prairie, just the daily tasks that they were asked to do and to participate in their lives.

I felt she had a really important role in her family and that was something that I could aspire to of doing chores or activities that actually helped her family survive. I thought that was really cool. The same thing really with Jessie and Violet from the Boxcar Children, because in that first book, the kids are on their own.

And so they have to figure out how to get food and cook food and schedule their lives and get enough sunshine and exercise. - Right. - Those were things that were inspiring to me. So finding characters that reminded me of me but that were a little bit better so that I could have something to reach toward.

- I like that, I like that. I can remember, and I'm just gonna go ahead and say this because probably in some of the stories that we'll tell, it's gonna come out or either be awkward. Stephanie and I are related. I'm actually Stephanie's mom. And so I remember what she was like from my perspective anyway, when she was being introduced to some of these characters.

So what I was gonna say, Stephanie, is that I can remember when you read the Boxcar Children that for months, if not years after that, you and Sarah played Boxcar Kids. You played that with everybody who came to the house and you played what would it be like if we lived by ourselves?

How would we make it? - Yes, I mean, the pine straw beds, we had pine trees in our yard. So the Boxcar Children made their beds of pine straw. And I mean, that was a staple in our games for years. - Yes. I think, I found it interesting that you learned how to do things from reading.

I remember when you came in and asked for aluminum foil because you were making an oven with some bricks you had found in the woods. And I remember thinking, how do you know these things? And so it was interesting to me, all the odd skills and odd bits of knowledge you seem to glean from the books that we read.

- Yeah, a lot of weird knowledge. I can, well, I probably couldn't, but I think I could have a chance at preserving ice using straw and shade thanks to Farmer Boys. - It's so funny. I think it's beautiful the way that reading can give you scope for your imagination, as Anne Shirley would say.

But also practical knowledge that you might not just come upon in your everyday modern life. So that's very cool. So can you think of other memorable characters you've encountered in your reading? And did you find yourself wanting to be like or not like? Or maybe give us some characters you wanted to be like and why, and some characters you did not want to be like and why.

- Yeah. So interestingly, I think the characters that I wanted to be like stick out to me more than the characters I didn't want to be like. I definitely have some in mind that I don't wanna be like, but on the whole, I would say the characters that I did like and want to emulate stuck out to me more.

And thinking about this question, what's occurring to me is that most of the characters that have stuck with me are either from books that I read when I was very young, or books that I got to study with a more fine tooth comb. So either books that I read when I was like 14 years old or younger, or books that I read, had to read slowly and talk about.

Those are the two categories that really stick with me. Characters I wanted to be like, I talked about that a little bit already, but I also, funny that comes to mind is Beatrice from Beezus and Ramona. - Oh, yes. - And Beatrice is not even the main character. She's like the sort of, she's the annoying older sister because she's so responsible.

And I kind of wanted to be like that. I thought she was really cool. - Right, well, you were the older sister. So you probably had some of those same tendencies, although I did not find you annoying, but I won't ask your sister if she found you annoying. - Well, I think on the whole, I'm more of a Ramona, but I kind of aspire to be (indistinct) - That's really good, I like that.

That in the books that we read with our children, we can allow our children to find the people that they are like, and then the people that they maybe wish they were more like, even if they are self-aware enough to know that they're not quite there yet. That's pretty good.

- And then like older, I love Betsy and the Hiding Place. She's just sort of one of the ultimate aspirational characters. I don't know how she managed to be both so good and so likable, because a lot of times characters that are really good to the nth degree are not likable.

They kind of, they remind us of all the things that we're bad at, and we find them annoying. But Betsy was not like that. She's such an example of a Christian woman who is being Christ-like, but in a way that's endearing instead of a turnoff. So love her. I also like Edward P.

Dowd from Harvey. - Oh, yes. - He has a line that has stuck with me since challenge one that he says, he realized that he needed in his life to be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. And for years he was smart, but he thinks he prefers pleasant.

And that just has stuck with me the whole time. Just, you can be smart, but being kind, and maybe kind is a better word for me than pleasant, is a more enjoyable and effective way to be. So he's stuck with me. - Oh, that is lovely. And that's one thing I wanna encourage you, parents.

Your children, you and your children are gonna happen upon these characters that are going to say or do something that might really change your thought patterns, could change the trajectory of your life if you really take it to heart, take some of those words to heart. And that kinda leads me into the next thing I wanna ask you, Stephanie.

I know that you're the strand, the exposition strand developer, and you're in charge of developing our curriculum with regards to reading and writing and shepherding our families as we learn about and learn from literature. So here's a question. Why do we read so much in the challenge years? We read a lot of books.

I can remember having students come back and say when they went to college that they talked to other peers who did not read a quarter of the books that they, the challenge students, had read. Why do we read so much in challenge and what are we learning? - Yeah, well, the sheer volume is partly because there are so many great books out there.

I mean, we want to get a survey of some of the classics. Reading a number of books also increases the chances, I think, of students finding characters that are like them or that resonate with them and getting a wide variety of situations and questions answered and settings covered. So just surveying a number of books is helpful for a lot of reasons.

And all of them can help you exercise your moral imagination, which is something that we talk about a lot at CC, just that idea of being able to think about tough decisions and tough situations and see what the character did and imagine how that can apply to your life.

So that exercising the moral imagination is one of the things that we are learning in all of these books, as well as learning how to read hard things. Learning how to read things that are challenging either in the words or the content is a skill that you can apply for the rest of your life, whether you're continuing to read challenging things or just think about challenging things.

The way that your brain learns how to put thoughts together comes through what you're reading a lot of the time. - I love that. I really do love that. And I love that we encourage our students to come upon hard human struggles and human nature in all its shades.

We encourage our students to read all about all of those things, many of which are disquieting or even disturbing, but we encourage those students to read those things while they are in the shelter of their family, while their families are stewarding what they take from that. And that's why it is so important for families to read together and discuss together so that students don't carry necessarily the burden of context and situations that are too hard for them or too heavy for them without help to process.

We have Challenge B students reading about the Holocaust. That is a horrible thing, a horrible situation, and the things that the Jews faced. And the situation itself is difficult. And so to have students talk with their parents through that is very important, I think, Stephanie. - Yeah, absolutely. And it gives them kind of a safer space to experience and process these things than having to encounter them head on in their actual lives.

- Yeah, I like that you brought up that a lot of the books that we read help our students consider the questions of human struggle and how their decisions have shaped them and how their circumstances have caused them to react in certain ways and where they can find themselves and want to go that way, and then where our students can find themselves and think, "I don't want to go that way." And being able to talk about that in the family is so very important.

I like that you say we are learning all of those things by reading a broad selection during the challengers of all kinds of things. So we get a lot from reading books and we gain a lot from talking about books. What can good literature teach us about writing? - Yeah, so thinking about that, people who are excellent at any art, so I mean, painting, dancing, sculpting, sports, writing, first start by observing the masters who came before them and then imitating them and then eventually coming into their own.

So by reading and talking about great literature, we can begin to identify the patterns and stylistic devices that great authors used and add those to our writing arsenal. And so doing that, honestly, with study and practice, I do think that most of us have the ability to become good writers.

- Oh, wow, I really did want to ask you that because so many parents that I've talked to through the years at practicums and at other events, so many parents have said to me, "I don't know how I can help my child be a good writer "because I'm not a good writer.

"I was never a good writer. "I'm not gonna be a good writer. "I don't know how to help my child be a good writer." So what you're saying is that we probably all can learn to be a good writer if we try and if we intentionally pick up on what these great masters were laying down when they wrote these books.

- Yeah, I really do think that. So, and I mean, obviously that doesn't mean that everybody is going to love writing or that writing will always become the thing that they're best at. So just because everybody was created with different passions and strengths, writing isn't going to be it for every human.

But I think a good writer, somebody who expresses themselves clearly and accurately and is able to keep a reader's attention, I do absolutely think that everybody has the capability of that. - That is great. What do you think you learned? 'Cause you were read to pretty much constantly as a child until you could read to yourself.

And then you read pretty much constantly since you've learned to read. What did you, do you remember what you learned from reading? - I think a lot of what I learned was unconscious almost. So I am a writer and I aspire to be a novel writer one day. And I can notice that the quality of my writing is directly related to what I'm reading in my spare time, which is really interesting and kind of, I don't know, humbling.

It's weird. My writing quality definitely goes up when I read good books. But the things that I learned from reading, I mean, I got a good grasp of basic things like grammar, I guess. But what's sort of interesting to me is that I think I got a good understanding of the shape of a story.

- Ooh, yes. - The pacing and the elements that make up a good story, I internalized just because I was reading so many good stories. And I drafted the first draft of the novel that I hope to one day publish when I was 12. And I still go back to it.

I'm still working on it 18 or 19 years later. But I actually still go back and reference that draft. And the things that my editor is telling me about the shape of the story are things that I got more right as a 12 year old when I was reading stories similar to my story.

And I am now. So just the way the plot beats hit, the way the elements happen, it's really strange. So I think you learn a lot by reading, especially when you're young, it just sort of shapes your idea of what a story is in a way that can be very helpful later.

- I think that's cool. And it's almost intangible. It becomes part of who you are. Like you don't even know that you know it, but you can feel what makes a good story. I love that. I remember, Stephanie, I remember, I don't remember if you were eight or nine or 10, but you were around that age.

And we went to the library one time and I had in general been steering at least your selection of books because I wanted you to read what I knew was good and not just trite and trivial and not well done. And so I remember the first time you really pushed back and said, "Well, can't I pick my own book?" And I remember thinking, "Oh, I don't think I want to go here." But I realized that you needed to stretch and you deserved a choice.

You were a voracious reader. And so I let you pick a book. And as you usually did, you started reading as soon as we got back in the car and you read all the way home. And when we got home, you went upstairs and you read. And it probably was not even 30 minutes later, you came back down and put the little book you had chosen.

And I don't know if it was like "Pony Girl Club" or something, some little paperback book that had caught your eye. And you stuffed it back in the library basket. And I asked you about the book. I asked you if you were done. Do you remember this at all?

- I remember hearing about the story of it, but I can't remember what the book was. - Yes, I don't remember. I can see the rack you pulled it from. But I remember you telling me that it was not, that, I think I asked you if you were done and you said, "No, you're not gonna finish it." And I asked you what was the matter?

And you told me that the story was not very well told and the characters were not very deep and the story was not believable. - And there's still some pet peeves of mine. (laughs) - Yes, and I remember, and I just said, "Oh, okay, well just choose another book." And I remember being so happy that you had been raised with enough good books that those deficits jumped out at you, even as a young girl, those deficits jumped out at you and sort of discounted the story.

You didn't feel compelled to finish it if it wasn't good to chew on, you weren't gonna finish. And I was really happy about that. I was really. What do you think that good literature teaches us about words and emotions and places? What does good literature teach us about human nature?

- Oh my gosh, this is like my favorite question to answer. - I love it. Well, go on as long as you want to. I wanna hear what you think. - Well, I just think that almost anything you can learn in the real world and almost anything you can learn in the real world, you can learn in part through stories just because stories imitate life.

And there's a little bit of storyteller in all of us because we're made in the image of the ultimate original storyteller, God. - Yes. - And through stories, we can watch how decisions and circumstances affect the characters and draw real parallels to our lives and the lives of others.

So like when you're little, maybe you read a story about a character who loses a favorite toy and he's sad and the story maybe even uses the word sad. And so you get to see what sad looks like and what causes the sadness. And you realize that you've felt sadness before.

And so you see yourself in that character and you more fully understand the word sad. And now you have language for something that you have already felt or certainly will feel at some point as a little person. And then maybe in the story, you see how other characters come and help the main character sit with that sadness or look for the lost toy.

And you see how the community helps the main character and that sadness can be worked through and solutions found. And so that character shows you that there's a way out of sadness. And then when you feel sad in the real world, first of all, you can name that feeling because you've read about it.

And second, you have a model for a way to work through it. And so that's just an example of how stories might affect a young person, but the same principles grow with us. So when we read about character struggles, poor decisions, good decisions, friendships, experiences with political or natural disasters, if we're reading good literature and talking about it with other people, we're gaining a kind of experience ourselves that can lie in wait in our subconscious or and surface when we need it.

So just, I mean, that's so powerful. And then, you know, on a different note, they can, stories can be an effective way to learn about other time periods or cultures and information does just tend to stick better in our minds when it's woven into a story. So like, that's true for the factual aspects, but also those emotional beats.

Things just stick with us when they're through stories. - Wow, that is so rich. I could pick that apart and we could probably talk for half a day about that. I love both of the things you said that reading teaches us odd little bits of knowledge that we don't even realize that we are gathering and filing sometimes away.

I know if you play, if you read a lot and if you are, you read lots of genres or you read about different places or different times, you are probably a really good trivia player because you know a ton of archaic words or odd customs or weird things from different time periods or different places that you don't even know you know.

They were just like part of the setting or something that the character used or something that appeared in a story. So yeah, you will gather odd bits of concrete knowledge about the world as it is and the world as it was. But I love what you said that we gain knowledge about emotion and about struggle and about possibilities and about human nature.

I think my favorite thing that you said was that we build knowledge that surfaces when we need it. That is awesome. What a great reason. And what a great reason, listeners, for parents to provide good literature and good characters and to talk about the situations with their student, for you all to talk about the book so that you can find what the character is learning that might be a teachable moment for somebody in your family.

That is lovely. So what kind of things do we learn from literary characters, Stephanie? How can, if we've got listeners today who say, yeah, my student is a great reader and they can write some killer papers and their vocabulary is huge and they really are, they're really a good student.

And I've always wanted my child to be smart, but I also want my child to be honorable and truthful and a lover of beauty and merciful and a man or woman of perseverance and honor. How can parents use literature discussions as teachable moments for building that kind of character?

Yeah, so this can kind of go back to what I was saying earlier, I guess, but watching the struggles and decisions of characters gives us a lot to think about in ways that we can apply to ourselves as well as the characters. And that's often more comfortable and less impersonal when talking about your own struggles or shortcomings directly.

So, I mean, being vulnerable is hard, maybe especially when you're a challenge age student. So it is easier to talk about why a character's decision was wise or unwise than it is to talk about the unwise decisions that you yourself have made. But I think processing the cause and effect of a character's actions can forge trails in the mind that stick around.

So I'm a little iffy on suggesting that parents directly use literature to get to matters of the heart and soul, just because, depending on the student, they may scent what you're up to and- And rebel and not shut down. Yeah. Or sending literature with you trying to hack into their person.

Oh yes, it's the key to your psyche. Yeah, but I do think that establishing the pattern of looking at a story or a character and asking, "Does this remind us of anything in the real world?" And vice versa, when situations come up in real life, establishing that habit of asking, "Does this remind us of anything in literature?" can be helpful.

So maybe not ever directly calling out, "Does this remind you of this time you made this dumb choice?" Right, that would be so off-putting. Oh my word. Right, but just all the time, even when you have nothing specific in mind, continuing to forge that trail of looking at literature, does that remind you of anything in real life?

Looking at real life, does that remind you of anything in literature? And then, especially if you're going through those conversations and you don't have an agenda, that can kind of start to become part of your student's inner voice and something that they're turned onto and analyzing just all the time.

I love that, part of your student's inner voice. I really liked your reminder that when we're watching the struggles of a character and we're discussing that character and what she or he did or thought, and then, well, what could they have done or how did that work out well for them?

How did that work out poorly in the moment and provide a teachable moment for that? How did that character grow and change and maybe develop wisdom from that situation? Talking about the character instead of your student gives your student freedom to think their own thoughts and learn and gain wisdom without feeling like they're under the microscope or feeling like you are heavy-handedly talking about them and some decision.

If you make a practice of talking about the characters that you guys are reading about and saying, well, why do you think they did that? Do you think they were sorry? Do you think they were glad? What do you think they learned? Do you think if this situation happened again that they would do the same thing?

Why does that seem like they grew from that? Did they gain wisdom from the experience? Did they just become harder from the experience? I think all of those things are really good. I think that when we discuss the characters or discuss the situations that our students are reading about, it can just be a conversational opening for matters of the heart or the soul, even if you're not putting it in bluntly personal ways.

You're talking about mercy in general or integrity of this character in this situation. What situations is it hard for people of any age to be integrous, that kind of thing? Well, I know we just have a few minutes, but I want to give our listeners, Stephanie, some specifics. How do we do this thing that you're talking to us about?

Let's talk about some of the characters that we meet while we're reading in "Challenge." Now, I know that you were a "Challenge" student. You went all the way through the "Challenge" program. You have been a "Challenge" director. So you have been both a student and a facilitator of discussions about "Challenge" literature.

And so some of these, I know that you have still opinions about some of these. What characters, who do you love? So what are some of the characters in "Challenge" literature that you loved or love? Who do you love to hate? Who's the most complex character to you? And then I have one other question that I want to ask you, but answer those first.

- Okay. So characters that I love, I don't want to keep harping on it, but Betsy from "The Hiding Place," love. Edward P. Dowd from "Harvey," I love. I also love Jane Eyre, and I have not talked about her yet. So I love the character of Jane Eyre, and I think she would probably also be one that is the most complex to me.

Let's see, love to hate. I mean, I love to hate Uncle Andrew from "The Magician's Nephew." Like, we all just, no one wants to be an Uncle Andrew. - Oh, my gosh, yes. - And then I also hate, it's a little less fun to hate, but Reverend Demsdale from "Husband and Wife." You know, he's got his own struggles.

He's not just a straight, easily condemned character as much. - Not totally without sympathy, mm-hmm. - Yeah, but I respect for him. And at the time, I remember not liking Crispin, but I haven't read that since I was very young. So I think he's one of those characters that I just wasn't able to see his growth.

I think he probably grows a lot, and I just had stuck in my mind the initial Crispin, who's a little bit of a coward. - Right, right, right, right. - I didn't like him as a student. - Yes, yes, I remember that, yep. - Yeah, well, and also St.

John, which is spelled like St. John, if you are like me and didn't realize that, 'cause it's pronounced St. John from Jane Eyre. I don't like him either, but I don't wanna get too deep into that because I want readers to be able to discover that for themselves. But I also, I don't like St.

John. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you said Jane Eyre might be the most complex character to you, why? - She's so unusual as a heroine. Bronte wanted to write a heroine who was not beautiful and not particularly charismatic. And to be able to do that and still have your character carry the story and be so engaging is very interesting to me.

And I mean, I think I would agree. I mean, we're told that Jane is not beautiful, so check. - Right, right. - Charismatic, she's not charismatic, but she is likable. - Yes. - She's interesting. She's so interesting. She's very observant of other people and her insights in other people are fascinating to read.

She's very incisive. She paints really good character sketches of the other characters. And a lot of what you get about Jane, you get sort of indirectly. She does sometimes straight up tell you about her character. She says, "I am not this," or "I do not that." But a lot of what you get is indirect.

And you have to watch what she actually does and actually says to put together who she is. And that's such a fun puzzle to work through just with the text and then also with conversations with other people. - Yes. - People do tend to have very different opinions on Jane.

And I love to talk about that because she is someone that I'm very passionate about and I have a very specific opinion on a lot of aspects of her character. - Yeah, yeah, she's a very deep character. You know, I would agree with you that she's very engaging. She is not flashy.

So she's not a sparkly blue, but she is a deep, rich blue. She's not sparkly, but she is steady. She's not flashy, but she is substantial. And her character draws you in over time. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. So let me ask you this.

This might be really personal. What, have any of the characters that you've encountered, primarily in the challenge reading, but in any reading, have any of the characters led to revelations about yourself? - Yeah, tons. I mean, short answer is yes, just a lot. But one of the ones that comes to my mind is actually Satan from "Paradise Lost," which is kind of a wild one maybe.

And this revelation really happened to me in college when I got to encounter the text for the first time. But like most students, I was fascinated by the character of Satan. Milton gives him a lot of the really good lines and he is very charismatic. He's basically, he's seductive, which is what he really is.

- Right. - And like as a Christian initially, I felt kind of nervous or even guilty about being fascinated with Satan. - Yes. - But I did want to analyze his character a little bit. And so I began to analyze one of his soliloquies in book four of "Paradise Lost." And the paper assignment was to analyze the how of the speech, so to get at the literary devices.

And so that's what I was doing. But you can only look at the how of a speech for so long before you start the what he's talking about. And what I realized in Satan's big speech was that he was wrong. And I knew that, obviously Satan is in the wrong, like he's Satan, but he'd been really articulate and suave and reasonable in the poem so far.

But all of a sudden I noticed that his argument wasn't what he meant it to be. He talks about not, he wants his freedom. He doesn't want to submit to God. And he and God are just at odds forever because Satan wants freedom and God wants submission. And so Satan's conclusion is that he says to himself, "Evil be thou my good." And so he's gonna devote himself to evil instead.

And I realized that Satan, he doesn't choose freedom in that moment. He simply decides to make evil his master rather than God. And so he's still submitting to something higher than himself, but he's choosing to submit to evil instead of God. So he's, you know, God is the only good.

And when we try to circumvent him, we'll only ever settle for something less. And so that's maybe a really big sort of lofty thing. And I don't know if it's directly like about myself, but mostly I guess what I learned is a little bit more of who God is and who I can trust him to be with myself.

So it was just a really revelation moment for me to see literature acting that way and making me think through something so big. So, I mean, I learned about myself because initially I'm drawn to the evil, like humans are, we have that in us. But then being allowed to see that the true way of setting yourself free is through God was really cool.

- That's lovely. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that. I actually think that will give lots of our parents hope because what you said is that you met this work of literature and challenge, but it didn't leave you there. You studied it again and you were able as you had grown and matured, you were able to use your knowledge of literature, but your knowledge of logic and your knowledge of spiritual truth to learn something about God and about yourself.

And that's what as parents, that's what we hope will happen. Thanks for sharing that, Stephanie. - All right, let me ask you this one last thing. There are lots of characters that we meet in literature. And we can learn from the lessons that these characters learn. We can either learn that we want to be like them or that we do not want to be like them.

Maybe there's just one thing we learn from the character. We learn resourcefulness from "The Sign of the Beaver." We learn hope, maybe. There are a lot of books that we read. We read "The Secret Garden" with our Young Challenge A kids and characters like Mary and Colin and Dickon.

And we read "To Kill a Mockingbird" and we learn what a really good parent is, a parent who struggles, but a parent who's good. And we read "Pride and Prejudice" and man, we learned a lot about Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. And even from Elizabeth's father, Mr. Bennett. From "The Iliad," we can learn about Hector and Achilles.

I want you to pick a character that you met, that our students meet in challenge literature. Tell us what might we learn from these characters. - Oh my gosh, there's so many. All of those that you listed are so good. Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, like as a pair, I think are really fun to talk about because they both learn something.

It's not just the main character who has to change. It's also the secondary character. - Yes. - And they learned that they were both very similar in ways that needed to change and very different in ways that needed to change. And I think we can see ourselves either in one of the two characters or maybe both.

- Yes, depending on the circumstances, you're right. - Yeah, because Elizabeth is, she's the prejudice if we're going to do "Pride and Prejudice." She makes up her mind about Mr. Darcy really early and also he's rich and so he must be a little bit snobby. - Right, right. - And Mr.

Darcy is too proud to explain that he's really just shy is the main thing. - Yes, yes. - So he had a lot of reasons, good-hearted reasons for doing the things that appeared bad to Elizabeth. He's too proud to unpack that for her. And so they both have these big character struggles and in the end, they work through both of those and they meet in the middle with so much joy.

Sorry, that's a spoiler, but I mean, you know where this was going. - Yes, I believe that we do. - With so much joy and I love that. I love that to me, it's one of the really good love stories and love stories are not like my favorite type of story, but it's such a good one.

And you learn how to be friends with somebody and help them to sort of shave off those rough edges and have your own rough edges shorn off a little bit. So their relationship and the way that Elizabeth handles things is mature in the end, I think. And even the mistakes that she makes along the way are very understandable.

She's not one of those heroines who does wildly ridiculous things that no one can relate to. The mistakes she makes are relatable and make sense in the moment. And that can remind us that the things that we do maybe did make sense in the moment, but we still need to reassess.

- Yeah, that's so good. There's so, and it makes for some really good discussions and really good talking points and really good considerations. Like, would you ever do that? Have you ever done that? Have I ever done that? Parents, when you're having literature discussions, don't only put your student under the microscope, do a little self-introspection, maybe share.

- Yeah, I've made prejudice judgments just like that before I've judged somebody by what they looked like or what I thought they were going to act like or what somebody else said about them instead of getting to know the person or asking some clarifying questions of that person. That's really good.

That's really good. All right, I wanna give you a chance to pick one of your favorite characters from "The Iliad," discuss one of those characters. And what did you learn about human nature, about yourself, about life from one of those characters? - Ooh, "The Iliad" is just all about human nature and sort of through the gods as well, which is odd.

But I loved Hector when I read "The Iliad" and "Challenge." He was my favorite. I mean, I held him on a pedestal sort of, and I don't love the name Hector, but I was like, if I liked the name, I would name a kid after this character. Like, I just love it.

What I remember in "Challenge" is that he was very honorable and brave and charismatic and a good leader. I recently reread "The Iliad" and did not have those same impressions, which is very interesting. And I'm very glad that I never named a kid Hector. (all laughing) The story has grown.

Well, the story's been the same. That's the cool thing. The story's been the same, but I didn't get those same beats. And now I want to go back and read my "Challenge" notes. Like, where did I see the honorable, brave, charismatic? I mean, there are some moments in "The Iliad" where I don't know how I took that away with what actually happens.

And that's so interesting. - Yes. - So what I learned about, well, I guess what I learned about human nature, A, is that it's multifaceted and it's going to look different at different times, kind of. Human nature is a constant in some ways. I mean, people are always going to be bent toward selfishness and self-preservation and want to make decisions that make them look good.

But also, human nature is change a little bit in that people do grow and mature and the decisions that you looked at one way at one point in your life, you can look at differently later. And so really one of the things I learned from literature here is that you have to keep assessing and keep paying attention to books and to life.

You need to keep your priorities in line with the truth, with what God is revealing to you. And some of that is going to shift as you hopefully become more Christ-like, so. - I love that. Oh, I love that. Okay, very, very last question, I promise. Why is a story such a grand vehicle for expressing truth?

You were just talking about aligning our lives with the truth and finding the truth. Why is story such a grand vehicle for expressing truth? - I mean, everything we've said so far, we're wired for stories because we're made in the image of God. And so stories get into our hearts in a way that is just very human.

And it opens up the door for these conversations, for community, for introspection, little facts stick in your brain better when they are through stories. It's such a grand vehicle for expressing truth just for all of the reasons, all of the ways that make expressing truth effective can be found in stories.

And that's why God speaks to us through the Bible and why He maybe spoke the world into being. Yeah, stories are just very unique in the way that they can speak deeply to all people. - Yeah, yep, they get at your heart in a way. And I think that's why Jesus taught using parables and stories.

They get at your heart in deep and sometimes very unexpected ways. Stephanie, thank you so much for being with us today and helping us to explore characters in literature and how we can, as parents, have some really good, deep, maybe life-forming discussions with our students. I appreciate you sharing today, I really do.

- Thank you for giving me a chance to ramble about these things. - Yes, I love it. And parents, if you are looking to be a better everyday educator, let me invite you to check out the 2025 Practicum event that's coming close to you. Classical Conversations leaders host Practicums every summer, they're parent conferences that give an opportunity for new and experienced homeschool parents to gather and learn and practice the classical arts.

If you are interested in an opportunity like that, rubbing shoulders with like-minded home educators, maybe growing in your own use of the tools and skills of classical learning, check out ccpracticum.com and you'll be able to find out when your local practicum meets. That would be a great opportunity for you to maybe have some discussions like we have enjoyed having today with Stephanie.

Stephanie, thanks again. Listeners, I will look forward to talking to you next week. Bye-bye. (gentle music) you you