We are here now. We have been other places in the past. We will be in surprising places in the future. |
photo by Sandra Dodd
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We are here now. We have been other places in the past. We will be in surprising places in the future. |
Look quietly. At least once a day, just look quietly. | ![]() |
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![]() | "[T]he more willing I am to help Simon and Linnaea to do what they want to do, the less needy they are. And, conversely, the more joyfully I spend time with them, helping them out, the less needy I am of my own space, my time to myself." —Schuyler Waynforth |
Can there be too much peace? For learning, yes. Learning requires mental arousal. If an environment is so still and barren that one's curiosity isn't sparked, then people might be closer to a state of sleep
Can there be too little peace? Yes, and in many ways. There can be too much noise, stimulation and chaos. So finding the balance place and the comfort level is part of creating a peaceful home. |
![]() | Looking out at our offspring, they are aligned in a certain way from our perspective, but they're not paused and gazing back. They are in the full motion of their own harmonic and intersecting spheres, spinning ever further away from us, and we marvel to see the celestial show. |
Living becomes learning. How many hours a day do you live? All of them. |
There are amusing mysteries, spooky mysteries, beautiful mysteries and sacred mysteries.
Sometimes a thing is just a thing, and sometimes it's a mystery.
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When you look as far to the east as you can see, what is the view? Turn around and look the other way, too.
Where you are is exotic to most of the rest of the world. Most other people will never see it. Knowing that your plainness is someone else's curiosity can make your life richer.
Sometimes, when you look, listen, taste, feel, smell, close your eyes and rest, remember that you are in one special place.
![]() | How many worlds can one world hold? |
![]() | "That's part of the magic of unschooling—information swirls around, connects and reconnects until you're not really sure where learning begins and ends and where any particular adventure will lead you." —Meredith Novak |
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"Be the best friend to your children that you can be." —Pam Sorooshian | ![]() |
![]() | Being patient and kind makes you a person who is patient and kind. |
If your child is more important than your vision of your child, life becomes easier. | ![]() |
![]() | Tiny changes make big differences. Step toward what you want and away from what you don't want. |
Pay attention to your child and help him do/find/see/experience things that will interest him. Help him be his best self as often as you can. |
Make the better choice. | ![]() |
"We can't always fix everything for our kids or save them from every hurt. It can be a delicate balancing act—when should we intervene, when should we stay out of the way? ![]() —Pam Sorooshian |
![]() | Someone wrote that learning about unschooling felt like learning a new language. I responded It's like learning a new everything, but an all-slightly-better everything. |
![]() | Be the way you want your children to be, and they will want to be like you. |
Our days are full and our learning is unmeasured and immeasurable. | ![]() |
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Newness can dazzle us, and the future is confusing. But right around you are simple, plain, useful, interesting, solid bits of history and tradition—things that were there before you were born, things with their own stories, whose makers might be gone and forgotten, but the artifacts remain. | ![]() |
I'm glad to live in a time when photographs are so easily taken and shared, without ever needing to be set on paper or touched with hands. I can show you things I've seen. Just Add Light has had images from four continents, |
![]() | If something comes up in a conversation and then it doesn't come up again later, that's fine. The tide comes in, leaves some stuff on the sand, and goes out; some things stay, some go back out. All of it still exists—the sand, the shells, the water—they're all still there, just rearranging a bit. |
I think that an unschooler's checklist should look more like the five senses and past/future than like "science, history, language, math, maybe-music-art-physical education." Because that model is prescriptive and limiting. And the other is descriptive and unlimited. |
![]() | If the mom changes, the family is changed. |
![]() | "Feelings and intellect are not in opposition and not even separate things. All learning involves the emotions, as well as the intellect." —Pam Sorooshian |