Wild math

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Wild math looks different than domesticated math. It looks more like conversations, using numbers to figure out something the child wants to know, video games, allowance, weighing things in the grocery store, finding the best deal among several choices—that is not as a lesson but what you would normally do—board games, figuring out "how long until?" when she asks, budgets, doing a rough estimation of the items in the grocery cart to see if you have enough money, baseball statistics, crafts, origami, wrapping presents ...

There's a list at "A Few Words About Math"

Look at the things on there that naturally come up in your life. Don't look at the ones that don't! It isn't a checklist to see how many you can complete! It's meant to show you that there's more math in life than school math lets you see.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/math/
photo by Christine Milne

Smiles and kindness

Cynicism is poison. It erodes relationships. It saps one's spirit and dissolves faith and hope. I will choose cheeriness over pissiness anytime I can manage to do it, and I hope most of those reading here are able to make that choice too, for the sake of themselves and their families. For their neighbors, for their dogs. For safety while operating motor vehicles and other machinery. For success at work, and joy while grocery shopping.

Negativity sucks. It sucks the possibility of a joyful life directly out of a person, and if it's not stopped, it will spread to others.

Smiles can spread, too, though. Kindness can be contagious. You choose a hundred times a day to smile or to frown, to breathe in joy or to suck in resentment.

Live responsibly, especially while you have children in your home.

Smiling, kindness and peace
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Yet another shift

Jen Keefe wrote:

Sydney (7) wanted to make sure she was spelling "Girl Scout Cookies For Sale" correctly for her sign, so she asked Siri how to spell it.

I went over to offer my help to make sure it was giving the correct results for her (thinking any number of results could have come up in the search). "No mom" she said "I just look at what I said. Siri types it out every time."

Yet another shift in how I see things and I found myself shaking my head in amazement.

I thought you might appreciate that story 🙂

—Jen Keefe

SandraDodd.com/digital
photo by Jen Keefe

Service as magic

By e-mail from a mom I didn't know, one day:

I just got your Big Book of Unschooling and I came to the service page. I did the exercise you proposed about pausing, breathing and feeling what that word/concept made me feel. And I felt immense joy and positiveness. I continued reading and I was surprised to read that for some people it might have a negative connotation. And then I thought about what made me feel the way I feel.

My husband and I are Colombian but lived in India for seven years, in an ashram where my children were born (they are six and three now). In India, and specially in an ashram, people do work as an offering to a Divine source, without any expectations. As you serve others, you receive a tremendous amount of joy and your heart is at the same time filled with gratitude, because that Divine source, or life itself (the name does not matter) has given you that opportunity. It is a matter of choice. You choose to serve others, to see it as a divine gift and to be filled with joy, awe and magic.

You could also see it as a simple unpaid chore and feel miserable and make everyone miserable. The act is the same; the attitude is different and so the atmosphere you create is different. Only with an attitude change.

I choose to be positive and to take every opportunity as a gift. So serving others (and many other things) becomes a great spiritual endeavor.

—Manuela (2014)

SandraDodd.com/serviceResponse
photo by Sandra Dodd
(Bangalore, library)

Thinking about that

A formal question came:

I would appreciate any insight that you could give in how to communicate more amicably with family and friends who are not necessarily “believers” about the choice to unschool and/or homeschool.

Sandra:

Some good and useful answers are “We’re going to try this for a while,” and “If this stops working, there’s a school right down the road.” If relatives or friends warn you or remind you of things they’re worried about, it would be courteous and sensible to say “Thanks, I’ll think about that,” and smile.

If someone asks a question about socialization, you could ask “What do you mean?” They probably don’t know what they mean, and trying to articulate their real question will probably bring them to see that they were following a script, and to consider (probably for the very first time) what “socialization” in school really is.

If someone asks about algebra, you might ask how they use algebra in their everyday life. Nod and listen. Maybe say “I'll think about that,” if they have thought of an example of everyday use.

When the question is “what about writing?” you could say “Do you mean penmanship or composition? Storytelling?” If they say “book report,” you could say “Like reviews on Amazon or GoodReads?”

SandraDodd.com/school/say
photo by Ida Marie Stenild Coltau

Creating comfort

Help make your child comfortable where he is today, this hour, this moment.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Cátia Maciel

Real-world math

Marti Kennedy wrote:

My son once pointed out that he finds math in the "real world" less stressful because you don't always have to get it right the first time; if you find you've made a mistake, you can go back and refigure. On assignments and tests, when it's wrong, it's wrong.

—Marti Kennedy

Quote saved by Joyce Fetteroll,
at "Unschooling Math"
photo by Alex Polikowsky