Stephanie (age 15 1/2) is interested in art. She gathers information and knowledge as a by-product of her interest in art. For example, she loves writing and drawing and voice acting. As she auditions for parts in on-line audio productions, she learns about the characters and their ethnic and historical backgrounds.

She reads stories and RP games to her younger siblings. They are currently involved in Hetalia, a story about characters that represent different countries and their involvement in historical events. Each country has a distinct personality including character flaws. The kids discuss the idea of stereotypes and generalizations. How valid are they, how much of it is based on actual behavior. Eric wants to know if stereotypes can be applied to animals. This led to a big discussion of animal behavior and their relationship with humans.

This all ties in with our ongoing talks about eating and nutrition. Steph is helping me make the move toward vegetarian diet for us.

Stephanie picks up on current events. She helps the little kids with context as they listen to radio news and adult discussions of events. She is on the ACB team, and although she does not dominate the game, in fact she is the quietest team member, she contributes to the team effort and specializes in popular culture. My guess is that's because, unlike most homeschoolers we know, we let her watch the Simpsons!

Much of Stephanie's education is in the form of lectures and discussions. She asks a question and is prepared to endure an hour-long discussion. These lectures are very effective as the child actually wants to learn the subject matter. After all, she asked! And even if she learns more than she bargained for, she knows that's OK, at least partly because she knows she's got it pretty easy. Her education is pretty enjoyable and stress-free.

On Sunday night, we sat at the kitchen table and looked at Eric's student Atlas of the World. We looked at some maps and flags. Eric learned about the map legends and also studied some charts. After a while, he got tired of it and played Flipnotes. But Cassie and Stephanie stayed and looked at some world maps about literacy rates and average caloric intake per capita. Then, when we got to talking about life expectancy (on another map), Eric came back to the discussion and we had a big talk about life expectancy and some of the reasons certain areas have terrible stats and others have better stats. They were very interested in this. We talked about warlords and how governments use the resources they have, either to provide education and public health, or to buy guns to carry out their tribal wars. This went on for about 20 minutes and this morning, Eric brought it up again. Each one of these subjects brings more, deeper discussion.

Dad