Showing posts with label bird. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bird. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Tiny sparks of imagination

Lyle Perry wrote:

Unschooling is like the tiny sparks of imagination that arc through a person's mind when they really watch a bird fly for the first time, and the huge lightning bolts of clarity when they realize how that miracle can actually happen, that make unschooling work.

I think one of the most difficult things for people to grasp about unschooling is the time factor that can be involved between connecting those tiny sparks to the huge lightning bolts. It may be days, months, or years between the time a person watches something happen and the time they understand why or how it happened. But the time factor doesn't make the event any less important, and in many cases it's the time factor that makes all the difference. A person understands when they are ready to understand. No time schedule can ever change that.
—Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/lyle/definition
photo by Karen James

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Raised up

With "make the better choice," the quality of the options gradually is raised far and away from the original starting-place options.

SandraDodd.com/levelup
photo by Jo Isaac, of a barking owl

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Greater clarity

Karen James wrote:


If we don't move away from the extremes—those slightly blurry edges—we won't get to appreciate the crisp details of whatever it is we do hope to see and understand better.

That's true for most things, I believe.

Learn to recognize your own extreme thinking. See the nevers and the alwayses. 😊 Then, move around a bit, in search of greater clarity. That shift in thinking will help most relationships, I'm confident.
—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Gail Higgins

Friday, November 24, 2023

Naming things

Seeing new things and learning their names is the way babies and toddlers learn their native languages and how they learn about the world. It works for people of any age.

Each model of the universe requires identification, sorting, relationships between things, and other patterns. Whatever seems trivial in one context is of central importance in another.

Names and words and labels and descriptors have a glory about them.

Naming Things elsewhere here
photo by Denaire Nixon, of a young red-footed booby

Thursday, November 2, 2023

Trails connect to other things

If someone is being entertained, that person is thinking. That person is analyzing SOMETHING, and every trail made in the brain is a reuseable trail, and a trail to connect to other things.


The Roy Rogers Show used to end with "Happy Trails to You," like this:



"Pure entertainment"
photo by Gail Higgins

Sunday, June 11, 2023

This "thing"

A mom in 1995:
Do you use books at all, Sandra?
SandraDodd:
What do you mean "use books"?
That mom:
As in curriculum, textbooks, etc.
SandraDodd:
I use books like crazy—we need to look at what you mean by "use."
. . . .
SandraDodd:
A lot of the problem with discussing all this is philosophical—the definitions of "learn" and "know" and things like that.

If we talk about what we "do" and "use" and "are" instead of what's happening in and with our children we dance around the "thing" without seeing the "thing" (and the next philosophical problem is: what is this "thing"?)


SandraDodd.com/chats/definitions
photo by Colleen Prieto


P.S. In the days of text chats, there would be ten or twenty people in the chat, rolling over each other. I wasn't saying I used a lot of texbooks; I was still responding to her first question. Reading chats is a bit different, but for those who didn't get to be in any, there was overlap and lag and confusion, and they were fun, too.

Friday, May 26, 2023

An evolving life

"I didn't get it. I thought I did. But it's like mowing the lawn, or dishes, or laundry, or being their mom...it will always be evolving, because it isn't an it. It is life."
—Shan Burton

SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Gail Higgins

Thursday, March 2, 2023

Look directly

Look at your child directly, and not through the lens of other people's fears. See the joy and learning and doing and being. Be with your child in moments, not in hours or weeks or semesters.

Screentime
photo by Colleen Prieto

Wednesday, March 1, 2023

"Mindset"

"Mindset" is an odd word, and not an old one.

If I've been listening to, talking about, singing or playing music for a few hours or days, I think in music more than usual.

When a long conversation about politics occurs, I might dream about those things. My brain needs to shake itself loose and re-set.

Twice this week I have played a card game called "Blink" with young grandkids, two different sets of them. With no numerals or words, cards are played to match by number, color, or shape.

When I was looking for a photo for Just Add Light, I saw this one and thought One; black; bird. Round; red.

It reminded me sweetly of four children who are, this week, five, four, three and two years old.

If mindsets can be affected and changed, try to lean toward music and laughter when you have the option.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Sandra Dodd

Sunday, February 12, 2023

Gradually, but hurry

Gradually move toward doing it right now. Halfway between "very gradual" and "do it right now" is the place to be, while you're learning about unschooling.

Stalling and hesitation take time away from your future unschooling peace and success!

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Diane Marcengill

Saturday, February 11, 2023

Respond thoughtfully

To say "yes" reflexively is no more mindful than saying "no" thoughtlessly.
—Sylvia Woodman

Mindful and Thoughtful
photo by Gail Higgins

Monday, January 23, 2023

Beauty

"Choose to look at the beauty around you and to see life and people through loving eyes."
—Alex Polikowsky


Sandra's addition: "... to see life and people" and fancy chickens, cupcakes, frost, sleeping puppies and your favorite mug as beautiful.

SandraDodd.com/alex/optimism
photo by Helene McNeill

Thursday, November 17, 2022

Towards positivity everywhere

Janine wrote:

It's exhilarating to me, the transformative power of unschooling. It is the thing that has finally drained negativity out of my life and pushed me daily further and further away from it, and further and further towards positivity in every area of my life. When it does sneak in again it is more obvious and ugly and I see it for the poison it is. It was ever present through my childhood, my youth, relationships and early parenting.
—Janine Davies

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Tara Joe Farrell

Sunday, August 21, 2022

Windows

Windows can frame surprises!

Part of being able to balance yourself in the world is to be ready to appreciate the unexpected, and also to be grateful for a same-old, uneventful view.

Sometimes, leave your curtains open and your soul prepared for anything.


Not My Windows
photo (wild turkey out the window) by Colleen Prieto, in New Hampshire

Thursday, April 21, 2022

Principles instead of rules

"The Principles apply universally. That's what makes them Principles instead of rules."
—Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/principles
(but the original is here on Always Learning)
photo by Janine Davies

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

A Sense of Abundance

Colleen Prieto wrote:

I hope I have instilled a sense of abundance, not moderation, in my 11 year old. I hope he will love, enjoy, think, create, eat, sing, play, read, watch, go, see, and do in whatever amount or volume makes him smile. I hope he will never look at an opportunity, or a person, or a cookie, and think "I'd really like to do that, or hang out more with him, or try that" and then stop himself because his goal is moderation rather than happiness.
—Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Gail Higgins

Friday, February 18, 2022

More and more learning

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch. Read a little more... try a little...

Gradually you will notice more and more learning, and soon it will be happening all the time!

Sandra Dodd, on Unschooling, from the Do Life Right Teleconference 2012
photo by Sandra Dodd

Monday, January 3, 2022

Learning will be like breathing

Children don't need long explanations to learn something if it's something they would like to understand better right at that moment. If you can learn to live at the edge of knowledge and curiosity, learning will be like breathing.
SandraDodd.com/learning
(quote from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 112 or 123)
photo by Colleen Prieto

Sunday, December 19, 2021

Peace and excitement

Enjoy quiet moments, but be ready to jump.

Sometimes you're a calm, safe place, and other times you're an action hero, to your kids and maybe to others. Rest when you can, but keep your shoes near.

Unschooling: Getting It
photo by Sandra Kardaras-Flick

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

What you can't see

Look at this reflection:
Your presence, your being, is reflected in things whether you can see it or not. When you cast a shadow, you might forget to notice.

The effect of your passing through, of waiting, walking or twirling, can affect others even without your conscious intent to "create an impression."

Light and Lightness
photo by Colleen Prieto