Understanding

Joyce Fetteroll wrote, twelve years ago:

Natural learning is easy to understand. It's not so easy to feel confident that natural learning is as good as (let alone better) than institutional learning. Natural learning *shouldn't* test as well as school learning. It isn't geared to passing tests. It's geared to understanding. And understanding is hard to test for!

If natural learning were easy to trust Sandra could have put up on her website:

Create a rich environment. Support and feed their interests. Connect with them.

And none of us would still be sitting here nearly 20 years later, still explaining that it does work. 😉

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/simple
photo by Christine Milne

Open to swirling

Art, culture and ideas can swirl in your life if you let them.

Be open to seeing, appreciating and connecting.

SandraDodd.com/schuyler/tv
photo by Sandra Dodd

Tangents are the good parts

Even two people reading the same book are gleaning different things from it, or maybe one is just looking at the photos. Marty and I pulled down several books with sections about The Black Death of the 14th century. We weren't "reading the books," we were using them as reference materials for details and stories. But as sometimes happens, other interesting parts jumped out at us, just from having the books in our hands and using the index, or flipping through.

The tangents are the good parts.

SandraDodd.com/reallearning
photo by Sandra Dodd

Who needs to know what?

In a discussion about things unschooling parents have learned from their kids, I told a story involving my Uncle Billy Jack, a fun guy I didn't see much:

When I was a kid, 10 or so, my mom's youngest brother (who was probably 24, 25 at the time) asked me "What's the capital of South Dakota?"

I said "I don't know, what is it?"

He said "I don't have to know—I'm not in school."

That moment is branded in my brain.

I went and learned it [Pierre, SD] when I got home, and haven't forgotten, though it will NEVER matter to me in any way whatsoever. It's trivia disguised as "knowledge." But the idea that there were things kids needed to know and adults didn't care anything about stayed with me.

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Unschoolers see their kids learning all kinds of things joyfully, for fun. I'm definitely NOT opposed to trivia. Trivia means "it won't be on the test." Without tests, everything can be entertaining trivia.

SandraDodd.com/trivia
photo by Alex Polikowsky

Learning from our kids

People assume they will teach their kids lots of things. Then they move on to knowing they don't need to teach, just help/assist/facilitate. But there's that other area where the kids know things we don't know (and maybe could use knowing). By the time you get to that stage, confidence is easy to have, I think.

From the transcript of a chat on Learning from our Kids
photo by Colleen Prieto

Your House as a Museum

There are stories behind the things you have. You're saving history, geography, social ties, mysteries. Share those stories with your children and your guests, if there's a lull, or a connection to be made.

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd

Growing art

Something pretty is growing in our yard. The cone grew grass last year, too. Keith could move it and mow, but it's prettier as it is.

This year, the gate that no longer opens or closes has a Virginia Creeper growing up and through it.

When life is still, I enjoy seeing what will happen, sometimes. Our contributions are giving it water and letting it grow—that and stalling about the gate repair. It won't be this way forever, but it was pretty at the beginning of August, 2026.

SandraDodd.com/surprise
photos by Sandra Dodd,
close, far, and morning light



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