photo by nobody; avoid photos
Thursday, July 24, 2025
To avoid learning...
If you want to avoid learning, it's best not to look, or read, or wonder.
Don't even click links.
photo by nobody; avoid photos
photo by nobody; avoid photos
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
364 Days of Learning
Sandra, from a recorded interview:
When people who are running a school, charging money for people to send their kids there, where they will keep them there every day, like the law says, and they're reporting to the state, like the law says, to then equate themselves with what radical unschoolers are doing, it’s cheatery. They are cheating, They are trying to suggest that they can do in 180 days—whatever 6 times 180 is in hours—that they can take the state requirement of hours and create, in that time, what a radical unschooling family can create in 364 days of learning.Amy:
My audio wasn’t being recorded properly at this point, but here I said something sort of snarky, like “You mean 363 days, because of 'Learn Nothing Day',” because apparently I don’t know how many days there are in a year, and Sandra said:Sandra Dodd:
I took out the one already, it would have been 365.Amy:
And we had a pretty good laugh about that. But eventually we got back to talking about the other benefits of unschooling—things that people don’t necessarily think of as "education."
Learn Nothing Day (July 24)
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Doing enough?
SandraDodd.com/mha (an obscure page)
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
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Monday, July 21, 2025
Some good comparisons

It can be healing for parents to think back to their own sorrows and then to their own children's freedom from those experiences.
photo by Sandra Dodd
of a sculpture in Old Town
Albuquerque
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Stir up some peace
Sandra Dodd (in 2017—general discussion, not unschooling):
There is a natural need in people to know the "us" and the "them." Those who want an inclusive, multicultural, liberal, accepting life will still have a "them." It's easy to revile "the enemy." It might be impossible NOT to have the idea of "other." But creating a "culture" or nation that is created of a combination of others won't save any individual from their own instincts.
Deb Lewis wrote (in the midst of other things):
You can't clean up a pile of shit by shitting on it.
Sandra Dodd, to that:
The people who are cleaning up can feel hatred for those who keep shitting on it (whatever the "it" is they're cleaning up).. . . . Hating those other people makes you hateful.
There isn't a final solution, but there are things to make it (the big pile of shit) worse, and ways to make our own moment in time better. Enough good moments might make a good day. Don't collect shit unless you want a shitty day.
Back to nowadays...
I know it's not the most uplifting quote, but a reminder that negativity is negative might help parents of children who are still at home to be positively sweet and present. Stir up some peace.
photo by Holly Dodd
Saturday, July 19, 2025
Sensible, good and generous
photo by Sarah S.
Friday, July 18, 2025
History
Museums and historical markers can be fun, but most of the history around us is unmarked and undocumented.
Every little bit of trivia gives you a hook to hang more history on.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Thursday, July 17, 2025
Find the joy in it!
There are many benefits to letting them choose their own input, and a world of disadvantages to controlling it. Find the joy in it!
Here are some ideas that might be helpful:
SandraDodd.com/control
SandraDodd.com/t/economics
SandraDodd.com/being/
SandraDodd.com/videogames/
photo by Janine Davies
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
The whole set of everything

We didn't have problems with our unlimited turns, but it's because nobody ever played longer than he really wanted to just to keep another kid from getting on. Not even nearly. If Kirby knew he wanted to play for a really long time, he would offer Marty a turn, knowing Marty couldn't last so long. Sometimes I would appeal to one of them to trade out, but it was for real reasons every single time. "Kirby has to go to karate, so can he go now and you can play all the time he's gone?" or "Holly's pretty sleepy anyway, and wanted to play Zoombinis. Can she have her turn soon?"
As with so many other things (every other thing, maybe) in our lives, though, it wasn't that single slice that "worked," it was the whole set of everything. They trusted me because I had spent years being trustworthy. They knew there was no secret agenda, and that I really did want them to all have fun things to do, and that they WOULD get to be on the computer uninterrupted, soon.
That was in the dial-up days. The world is better now, with more computers in homes, with wifi, with tablets. At the link below you can also read how Pam Sorooshian handled sharing a different way, when she had three children at home.
Helping Children Share
photo by Sandra Dodd
(re-used, because it's from the days of the writing)
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Tuesday, July 15, 2025
What you can see
I appreciate people's beautiful (or funny, or kid-capturing) photos, and their willingness to share them, for the inspiration of readers who hope to improve their family's peace and learning.
photo by Stacie Mahoe
Monday, July 14, 2025
Safe, supported and believed in
Karen James, January 3, 2017
(Ethan was 14 in that story)
Last night, I went downstairs where Ethan has his computer room set up. I asked if I could try the new VR set we got for him over the holidays. He set it up for me. He turned off all the lights, moved the cord out of my path, put the headset over my eyes, put the paddles on the floor behind me and said, "There you go. Now find the paddles. They're behind you." Then he went upstairs to make himself a burrito.
Frozen in place, I called out, "Don't leave me! I don't know what to do!" but he was already gone. I'm sure he heard me, but he knew I was safe and trusted I would discover what to do. I soon did. I slowly turned around, surveying my new environment. I looked down, and there were the paddles in my view! I picked them up. Now what? I started clicking and pulling and jabbing air. I began walking carefully around. I found the walls. I found out how to move beyond them. I discovered how to open new programs—new worlds and new things to explore.
Ethan returned with his burrito, and ate it far enough to not interfere with my play, but close enough to be able to watch and listen to me. I could hear him. I told him how excited I was. I played for a good long time. I tossed a stick to a robot dog in a meadow in Iceland. I caught planets in their orbits around the sun, looked at them, then tossed them into the surrounding stars. It was magical.
A good part of the magic was in what I learned along the way and the confidence that grew from each new discovery. The fact that Ethan left that magic intact by not telling me everything ahead of time struck me as thoughtful, insightful and trusting. I felt it was significant how certain Ethan seems that a person will learn what they need to know when they're safe, supported and believed in. His understanding of and respect for the personal nature of that learning moved me too. This is an interesting journey.
photo by Karen James
I couldn't show anything like what Karen saw, but this might be the dark room.
Sunday, July 13, 2025
Various doorways

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:
Learning is defined not just as sucking in information about something the child is interested in. Learning is also figuring out the big picture and how things connect. Figuring out how stuff works, figuring out how people work, making connections, seeing patterns. This is a mechanical, biological process. It's how humans—all learning animals really—naturally learn, how kids are born learning.
Natural learning is like a doorway. We can't change the doorway but we can change the outside world so kids can more easily reach what intrigues them.
—Joyce Fetteroll
(original)
(original)
photo by Sandra Dodd, in Pérouges, France
Something looks like this:
passageway,
repeat,
stonework
Saturday, July 12, 2025
Experiences flowing over
When people say I don't know anything about unschooling except my own kids and my own family, a flood of families flow over my memories, of people who have shared with me and (often) the whole world how things were unfolding, in small moments and over years. 🙂
Without the internet, we couldn't have zoomed along on that flow of encouraging information.
—Sandra Dodd
photo by Jihong Tang
Friday, July 11, 2025
Thoughtful and mindful
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.
photo by Karen James
Something looks like this:
color,
geology,
reflection,
water
Thursday, July 10, 2025
Fun and learning
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
Robin's Typical Days
photo by Sarah Dickinson
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
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.
scanner art by Sandra Dodd; click it for more info
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Tuesday, July 8, 2025
An important distinction
—
Pamela C,
after a year or so
of unschooling
after a year or so
of unschooling
photo by Cátia Maciel
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Monday, July 7, 2025
Purely learning
Facebook Memories showed me that someone on another continent had quoted me, years ago:
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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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
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.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sunday, July 6, 2025
Exploring interesting things
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.
Saturday, July 5, 2025
Broadening 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.
photo by Irene Adams, from her front yard
Friday, July 4, 2025
Dance around; save the world

by Deb Lewis, once upon a time:
I wrote once before about how dish washing has come to be my mental health moment. I light a candle, I make some tea or pour a glass of wine, turn on some music, take off my shoes, and do just the dishes I want to do. I use dish soap that smells great—LOVE that hot water...sigh. I never start out feeling like I *have to* do *all* the dishes. I think how I want to have clean dishes and do however many I feel like doing. I dance around a little. I plan my garden. I save the world. It's never just about doing dishes.
—Deb Lewis
mostly-unrelated photo by Deb Lewis
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Thursday, July 3, 2025
Thoughtfully and respectfully
Having the concepts of authenticity and freedom foremost in your mind doesn't help unschooling - they're freighted with political meaning - actually, all sorts of meanings -that have little to do with unschooling. Better to instead think of helping your child make choices - choices that take others into consideration, (which is respect).
What we as unschoolers are doing is helping our children learn to make choices so that they can live and thrive in the world. You can do that without getting tied up in knots about authenticity and freedom.
There'a an Annie Dillard quotes that always makes me think of this process - "How we live our days is how we live our lives."
If you live your days being kind to your family and helping your child make choices that take other's feelings and expectations into consideration you'll be helping him learn how to have live thoughtfully and respectfully in the world.
—Cara Potter
photo by Colleen Prieto
Something looks like this:
architecture,
dog,
equipment
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
What to wear...
Depending on the destination or weather, there are many inappropriate clothing choices. The parent should be helping the child learn what's good, and when there are lots of options, and when there are fewer.
It's not oppressive to coach a child about what's appropriate to wear to a funeral (NOT a swimsuit and goggles, even if it's a burial at sea) or to a wedding (NOT a black dress and black veil).
photo by Julie D
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Ideas, changing, carefully
photo by Jihong Tang
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