These Barbies belong to a girl named Ericka, who generously let me use her bedroom recently. I bring them to join my collection. Some of Jayn's (from a few years back) and of Holly's (similarly historical now). |
photo by Sandra Dodd
These Barbies belong to a girl named Ericka, who generously let me use her bedroom recently. I bring them to join my collection. Some of Jayn's (from a few years back) and of Holly's (similarly historical now). |
"Much of what they're learning as unschoolers is the 'true grit' of living: communication, interaction, observation, exploration, etc... and it shows!"—a mom named Sandy
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Unschooling depends on children being able to follow their interests, but just as with food, it's hard to know whether they want to just taste it or finish off a case.
If a child wants to bake a cake, you don't know in advance whether she just wanted to mix the batter once or whether she will end up creating wedding cakes for millionaires. You don't need to know.
I had an amazing experience with [breathing] last night. At bedtime (which is about midnight in our family) I had just tucked in and said goodnight to our two youngest (8 and 11 yo boys) and was climbing into my own bed when I heard one of them calling me. My knee-jerk reaction was a blast of annoyance—very typical of me in that situation, exacerbated by the fact that I'd felt crummy all day and was really looking forward to collapsing into bed.
I huffed out an angry breath, started to head back to their room and suddenly had a thought from something I'd read here recently (or maybe on Sandra's website or the RU Network): "First, breathe and center yourself." So I took a deep breath, and as I inhaled I felt my whole being kind of slide into place—it was weird, almost a tangible sensation—and suddenly I felt completely peaceful. I walked into their room with a smile on my face and asked if either of them had called me. It was ds 11, he wanted me to set up his extra pillow (which was on the floor leaning against his bed) behind him so he could sit up and read for a bit.
Normally in this circumstance I'd have walked into the room annoyed and impatient and would have responded to this request by going on a rant about why he couldn't just reach down and pick it up himself, why he had to call me all the way back into his room for that, how tired and crummy I was feeling and there is no reason why I have to be the one to do it since he's perfectly capable himself! (You get the picture.)
Last night I just said, "Sure!" and set his pillows up behind him and gave them both another kiss goodnight and then went to bed feeling exhausted but very peaceful—and very thankful for my networks of unschoolers, from whom I'm learning the precious principle of abundance.
I do unschool but I obviously do not subscribe to your radical view of unschooling where children are expected to learn by osmosis and television shows.To the Always Learning discussion list I wrote:
When the environment is rich, children learn by osmosis, if the membrane through which ideas pass is their perception of the world. What they see, hear, smell, taste, touch and think becomes a part of their experience, and they learn. And they learn from television shows, movies, paintings, books, plants, toys, games, movement, sports, dancing, singing, hearing music, drawing, sleeping.... as if by osmosis, they live and they learn.
Geography can be about people and what they do, and believe, and wear. It can be about mountains, rocks, rivers, and where the rivers empty. The stories around a river that flows to the Hudson Bay will be different from the stories of rivers that flow into the Mediterranean. And with what you know of language and history and geography, can you look at "Mediterranean" and figure out why they called it that? | ![]() |
Be the way you want your children to be, and they will want to be like you. | |
![]() | It's easy to see beauty in nature. It's good to learn to see beauty in tables, cloth, air, spoons, socks, switches, handles, doorknobs, words, sounds, air, clouds, breeze, and ideas. |
![]() | Choose, find, make, sing, draw, eat interesting things. |
Surprises help with learning, and so a humorous situation is more likely to be memorable than a humdrum one.
One mindful step in a better direction can be joyous. You don't need to reach a destination to have joy.
The Big Book of Unschooling
page 318 (or 275, if it's yellow)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Unschooling can prove itself if it's not thwarted.
"Unschooling can prove itself if it's not thwarted" wasn't suggesting her husband was thwarting it, but that passivity and a lack of sharing it with a spouse thwarts it.
I like the sound of the word "thwart."
Don't thwart unschooling by using it to divide the family. Move toward it methodically and thoughtfully. Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch. Note and share the results with your spouse. It can take a while to come to shared confidence, but don't fail to see it as a family-improving project.
Online discussions of natural learning and parenting give people a serious opportunity to practice communicating clearly and carefully. For some people, an unschooling discussion will be their first "real writing"—the first time they've written real things for real people, rather than practice things for teachers. Those who stick with it or who have a native talent for it will find themselves getting direct and immediate feedback from other parents who have taken the ideas or examples or stories and used them to change their own real children's lives, and that is bigtime. | ![]() |
In an attempt to "be fair," parents can be very UNfair. Children don't all need the same things for the same amount of time. Measuring with rulers and timers and charts is often shortchanging one child or another. What they could use more than that is the opportunity to decide when they're finished for their own reasons. | ![]() |
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![]() | Taking food to someone who is reading or playing a game or watching a movie and just putting it where he or she can reach it without any instructions, warnings or reminders is a great gift. It is a simple gesture, and a profound service. |
The nest I built for my children even before I knew we would homeschool was made of toys and books, music and videos, and a yard without stickers. It was a good nest. | ![]() |
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