Thoughtful and mindful

I don't like the term "authentic," of human behavior. It suggests that all those doing anything differently are false, inauthentic, wrong.

If it means being thoughtful and mindful, those are much better terms and concepts to use. If it means living by principles and making careful decisions rather than stumbling along following vague rules, then let's talk about living by principles. But "authenticity" is a false clarity. It's not as real as it sounds.

SandraDodd.com/issues/authenticity
photo by Karen James

Fun and learning

Robin wrote:

I'm sure on any given day I could look at what we're doing and say "We haven't done much today" and I could choose to freak out about it and panic. But when I look back over a week or a month I can see the rich tapestry of fun and learning that is our life.

—Robin ("Blue Skies")
Robin's Typical Days

SandraDodd.com/typical
photo by Sarah Dickinson

The Fabric of Life

When learning is recognized in the fabric of life and encouraged, when families make their decisions based on what leads to more interesting and educational ends, children learn without effort, often without even knowing it, and parents learn along with them.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/allkinds
scanner art by Sandra Dodd; click it for more info
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An important distinction

I remember being corrected on saying someone "taught themself" something and thinking it was bullshit semantics, needlessly picky, and a little snide. Now I understand that distinction so well and it's very important.

— Pamela C,
after a year or so
of unschooling

SandraDodd.com/teaching
photo by Cátia Maciel
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Purely learning

Facebook Memories showed me that someone on another continent had quoted me, years ago:

Learning does not teach us, but from learning we learn.

I still haven't found her source, but in looking I found its "wordier" cousin posted here in 2011:

Mastering ideas about learning

As some of my articles are being translated (now into Japanese, French and Italian) I see how much of my writing and thinking is about language itself, and so some of these ideas won't translate. But sometimes, that fact is very good. Some of our confusion about teaching and students and study and learning, in English, has to do with the words we use, and if the problems don't exist in other languages, that's wonderful for them.

In Romance language (Italian, French, Spanish and so on) our "teacher" translates to something along the lines of "maestro," a word we have too in regards to music direction. And we have the English cognate "master" which is more currently left in "master of arts" and other college-degree titles. Once that meant a person was qualified to teach at the university level. That meaning is gone in the U.S., pretty much.

Considering the word family from which "maestro" comes (and not knowing all its connotations in other languages), the English verb "to master" means to learn. It means to become accomplished in the doing of something. Whether mastering horseback riding or blacksmithing or knowing and controlling one's own emotions, it's not something someone else does to you or for you.

So for any translators or bilinguals reading here, have sympathy for English speakers who can't get to natural learning without disentangling all the graspy words and ideas about teaching and education and their implications that learning is passive and teaching must be done to a person.

SandraDodd.com/wordswordsother
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Exploring interesting things

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

What can we do to help natural learning along?

We can help our kids explore their interests. If they're exploring their interests, they're doing real world work that will provide feedback on how well they're putting their puzzles together. We can bring the world to them so they have access to new interests. They can't know they're interested in the Titanic or haiku poetry or sheep shearing if they don't know they exist.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/talk
photo by Sandra Dodd

Broadening horizons

From responses to a charge that unschooling couldn't broaden a child's horizons:

As to broadening horizons, sitting at a table with an assigned book is less likely to do that than a life filled with going, doing, seeing, touching, tasting, hearing and communicating honestly from inside while learning. Children DO have questions when they're in the process of learning things. It doesn't broaden horizons for a book to tell them which ten questions were the RIGHT ones to have at the end of each chapter.

—Sandra Dodd, 2004

Related ideas: SandraDodd.com/connections/
photo by Irene Adams, from her front yard