Showing posts with label balloons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label balloons. Show all posts

Monday, January 9, 2023

Positive, upbeat, hopeful, helpful

Parents who want unschooling to work should be positive, upbeat, hopeful, helpful.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Gail Higgins

Saturday, December 31, 2022

Little tiny choices

Jen Keefe wrote:

I gave up New Year's Resolutions a loooong time ago.

I learned that grandiose resolutions rarely add up to anything that matters. Now I know it is the little tiny intentional choices made moment after moment that are good for me and my family and make our world better. Not just my world. The whole world.

How do I know? I am living proof.

That's the end of some sweetly powerful writing, about late-night learning. You can read it in full here:
Stories of Late-Night Learning
photo by Jen Keefe

Saturday, October 8, 2022

Relax!


Relax! You can deal with problems better without struggling. You might find out that struggling WAS the problem.

SandraDodd.com/struggle
photo by Gail Higgins

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Books, directly deposited

Deb Lewis wrote:

Listening to audio books is a wonderful way for kids to experience great stories beyond what they'd be able to read on their own. (And beyond what their moms have voice for!)

SandraDodd.com/limits/listening
photo by Sandra Dodd

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Differences and similarities

People are always comparing and connecting things. Those are tools of learning. What is "just like" this, or similar? What is the opposite, or very different?

Those considerations work with visual arts, music, puzzles, sports, politics—just about anything involving thoughts and decision making.

Who am I similar to? Who am I glad to avoid? How does my child see me? How would I like to be seen and remembered?

Knowing Differences
photo by Holly Dodd

Saturday, June 19, 2021

Layers and sky

Photos with layers keep catching my eye.
Balloonists learn that there are layers in the air, where the wind is going different speeds or directions, too.

I like that there are visually attractive layers and invisible layers represented in this photo.

SandraDodd.com/spirituality
photo by Gail Higgins

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Lighten your child's life


The more lightly you live, the lighter your children's lives will be.


Live lightly, in various ways
photo by Nina Haley

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

A clearer, brighter light

Sandra Dodd:
Principles that applied to the kids applied to the adults, too, and we all experienced and shared more patience and understanding.

Karen James:
The deeper we applied the principles of unschooling to our lives with our son, the more we saw each other in a clearer, brighter light.



Each quote above is slightly longer at this link,
Spouses / Partners, where Karen's is in the first comment.
photo by Gail Higgins

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Change for the better

With apologies to male readers... adjust as necessary.
You don't have to change everything. You can't change everything at once anyway. If you start acting consciously and mindfully with a goal in mind (more peaceful, richer environment, more patient, more gentle—whatever direction or combination of principles you want to hold as your guiding lights), you can and will be a better (more conscious, more thoughtful) mother, and a better person.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd
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I wrote "have to."
Perhaps it was in response to someone having used it in her "yeah but..."
I could have written "You don't have to change everything, yet everything will change."

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Beautiful, vibrant and alive

hot air balloons, two nearest are shaped like the heads of Yoda and Darth Vader
If a child has a joyous excitement for music, or sports, computers, poetry, horses, golf or dance, nurture that without owning it. Smile at it without naming it something bigger than your child. Treat is as a butterfly, beautiful, vibrant and alive. Don’t stab a pin in it, label it and stick it in a display box to show everyone the details, and try to keep it as it is forever because then you take the life of it away. YOU own it, and not the child, then.

SandraDodd.com/giftedness
photo by Lisa Jonick
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Monday, October 27, 2014

Oddments

inflatable horse and spooky wagonSometimes, if you're lucky, you'll come across something unexpected, like a full-sized inflatable coach.

Your life will be better if you smile and think "cool!" than if you have a less cool and smiley response.

Sometimes someone will unexpectedly come across you! Be smiling. Be cool.

SandraDodd.com/humor
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, October 25, 2013

Good person, good parent


Being a good unschooling parent involves being a good person, a good parent. Unschooling can't work unless the parent is there, whole and attentive and not screwing it up.

SandraDodd.com/issues
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Monday, July 1, 2013

What unschooling is about

balloons in the produce section of a new grocery store

Rippy Dusseldorp wrote:

Unschooling is about children learning naturally and parents being partners in their children’s learning. Parents create and maintain a rich and interesting environment where children can follow their interests and passions. Children have lots of choices and options available to them. Parents facilitate, help, encourage, inspire, guide, support and love. Children learn, laugh, play, discover, explore, puzzle, build, invent, create, ponder, go on adventures and learn some more.
—Rippy Dusseldorp

SandraDodd.com/rippy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Monday, April 15, 2013

Wholeheartedly and happily

Someone asked me, "Are the unschoolers more successful and clever? And do they have more chance to find good jobs as adults?"

I wrote:

I can't say. Even if most were, your own kids might not be. Even if most weren't, your own kids might be.

If what you do is better than school, for your kids, keep doing that. If school would be better than what you're doing, for your kids, in their real lives, then do that.

If you're going to unschool, do it wholeheartedly and happily.

SandraDodd.com/screwitup
(That page can help people see what they can do to be good unschoolers;
the quote was from e-mail.)

photo by Holly Dodd
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Monday, January 21, 2013

Just Say No

Sandra Dodd, response in 2000 to: Can anyone explain to me "unschooling"?

It's like "just say no."

Just say no to school years and school schedules and school expectations, school habits and fears and terminology. Just say no to separating the world into important and unimportant things, into separating knowledge into math, science, history and language arts, with music, art and "PE" set in their less important little places.

Most of unschooling has to happen inside the parents. They need to spend some time sorting out what is real from what is construct, and what occurs in nature from what only occurs in school (and then in the minds of those who were told school was real life, school was a kid's fulltime job, school was more important than anything, school would keep them from being ignorant, school would make them happy and rich and right).

It's what happens after all that school stuff is banished from your life.

Several Definitions of Unschooling
photo by Catherine Forest
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Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Resolutions

I don't make resolutions, and I think they're a bad idea. Deciding today what I want to hold important a year from now sets me up for failure.

Deciding that I want to make many good moments tomorrow, though, I can do with confidence and the expectation of success. I can't live a year at a time. I can't live a week, nor even a whole day at a time. I can only make a choice in this moment (or fail to remember to do so).


SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Sandra Dodd (or someone with Sandra Dodd's camera)

Friday, March 30, 2012

The world changes slowly

The world changes slowly, but it tends to stay changed! Flight was not possible before balloons. Food storage and transportation were difficult before canning and refrigeration. Without today’s wealth of books, videos and online information, home learning would be much more difficult. We can live in the light of our shared knowledge and ideas, in freedom and with confidence, at the cutting edge of education’s future.



SandraDodd.com/thoughts
photo by Sandra Dodd; a hot air balloon visible out our back gate

Saturday, April 16, 2011

The First Step


Curious, happy kids will learn a lot from whatever they do. Frustrated, unhappy kids won't learn much no matter what they do. So the first step is to create a happy, rich environment.


photo by Holly Dodd

Friday, April 1, 2011

Regaining Playfulness

Maybe because I kept playing I had an advantage, but I don't think it is beyond more serious adults to regain their playfulness.
But (some might be thinking), if you just play all the time, how will you know the kids are learning? I knew my boys had learned all the swimming safety rules when they rhythmically took turns reciting them exactly wrong: Never swim with a buddy, always swim alone; Always swim in a storm; Always run by the pool…

The bit above will make more sense if you read here:
SandraDodd.com/playing.
photo by Holly Dodd
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Saturday, January 8, 2011

Music where it lives and breaths


A parent doesn't need to be a musician to bring more music into the house, or to take the family out to more music. Start finding music where it lives and breathes, and share stories about what you're hearing with your child just conversationally. Walk more slowly when you're around live musicians. Watch them. Listen.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 83 (or 92)
photo by Holly Dodd