Showing posts with label boat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boat. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Each person's learning

"Every person's learning about the world will be piecemeal - so it might as well be serendipitous and interest based."

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Rosie Moon

Wednesday, February 8, 2023

It's about learning.

Unschooling is about learning, and not about teaching. Unschooling parents rely on their children's native, undamaged curiosity and on the interesting world around them.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/successful
photo by Nina Haley

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

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Find wonder where you wander

"Watch and listen to you kids. Let yourself get caught up in what they find wonderful and in the process rediscover wonder itself."

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Ester Siroky

Friday, November 13, 2020

Let it fade

Every day he's away from school, negative effects will fade.

But just as with any scab, scratching it and rubbing dirt in it isn't as good as letting it heal. So when school is no longer a part of the child's life, it's good to turn away from the school and let it fade into the distant past. Repeating and reciting and retelling the school problem keeps it alive and present.

SandraDodd.com/school/ has the quote. The original is here.
I made one small change, up above.
photo by Renee Cabatic
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Sunday, February 16, 2020

The horizon and beyond

"What you're dealing with is a very well-meaning person who is convinced the world is flat and is worried that you're so clueless that you want to head off across the horizon. It's a lot healthier and more useful to listen to the people who've been across the horizon than to the person who fears it."
—Joyce Fetteroll

The Big Book of Unschooling
(The quote is not from there, but the words and image both remind me of it.)
photo by Renee Cabatic
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Thursday, August 30, 2018

Rich and full


Karen James wrote:

The most wonderful thing (to me) about unschooling is that we can support our children's growth, development, and learning in ways that embrace and nurture who they are as whole people with all their strengths and limitations. Our children can learn to live a rich and full life not in spite of where they fall short, but in celebration of where they find meaning and purpose and useful practice of skills they've come to own through a deeper understanding of who they are and what they care to spend their time and energy doing.
—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames
photo by Hema Bharadwaj

Monday, October 9, 2017

Energy and joy

I have noticed how much energy unschooling parents are willing to put into their kid's joy.
—Robyn Coburn



SandraDodd.com/peace/newview
photo by Megan Valnes
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Thursday, June 1, 2017

Peace and consideration

Megan Valnes wrote, at Always Learning:

Radical unschooling can bring about such a sense of peace with one's own self, that it can be poured into the being of another. I *enjoy* finding ways to make other people around me comfortable, including my children. I *want* the people who come to my home to enjoy their experience here. Sometimes, we have to bend a little for others, and isn't that empathy? To feel another's feeling and adjust your own reaction to fit their need? Keeping peace has become the number one priority in our home, so sometimes we have to get creative to make that happen! Consideration for others is key.
—Megan Valnes


SandraDodd.com/empathy.html
photo by Megan Valnes
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Thursday, May 18, 2017

Something different


tugboat with truck tires mounted on it for pushing and bumping

Things you are used to are exotic to others. There are things you see every day that some people might never, ever see in person.
Lightning storms.
Snow.
Kangaroos.
Tumbleweeds.
Tugboats.
Mountains.
Beaches.
Cargo bikes.
Lifts / elevators.
Temples.
Shave ice.
Castles.
Cactus.
Alligators.

Inventory your special local treasures!

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd
(click it for a video)
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Sunday, April 23, 2017

Nurture and share

Be the kind of person you want your child to be.

Nurture your own curiosity and joy.

Find gratitude and abundance in your life.

Explore. Make connections, on your own.

Share those with your children when they're interesting.

SandraDodd.com/video/doright
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, April 22, 2016

Better everything

Learning to be kind and gentle to a child will make you a kinder and gentler person. Learning to make choices that make you kinder and gentler to a child—more generous, softer, more patient—will help you be a better partner, adult child, neighbor, customer at the grocery store.

SandraDodd.com/random
photo by Karl Morgan (I think)
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Easy flow

Jenny Cyphers, on overcoming fears:

If a parent has too many hangups, too many fears, too many issues, that they don't take out and examine, it will destroy what unschooling could be. People can get really wrapped up in fears and "what if's". Sometimes it consumes a person, a parent, a family. Happy, peaceful, unschooling can't flourish in those conditions. Fear creates blocks. Learning needs easy flow. Easy flow can happen naturally unless a person blocks it.
SandraDodd.com/fears
photo by Chrissy Florence, the day they saw a mom and baby whale
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Saturday, October 24, 2015

Everywhere, all the time


My response to this question, from 2009:

What resources do you use for your children’s “educations”? Feel free to comment on the word “education”.

We don’t “educate” our children. We help arrange so that they have so many learning opportunities they can’t possibly take advantage of them all. We have friends with interesting jobs and hobbies. We invite them over, and we visit them. We have a house full of books, music, games, toys, movies, art materials, plants, food and dress-up clothes. We don’t expect learning to happen in the house, nor in museums, but we know it happens everywhere. We don’t expect learning to happen during daylight hours or on weekdays. We know it happens all the time. So we don’t “use resources” except that we see every thing we discuss or see, smell, touch, hear or taste to be a resource. It’s not a word we use, because it’s all of life.

SandraDodd.com/education
photo by Cá Maciel
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Monday, July 20, 2015

Go forth and soak it in

To understand what Unschooling is, it helps to understand what it is not. It can also help to see some of the best examples.
. . . .
Explore! Decide you want to learn, go forth and soak it in, sort it through, spread it around to dry.
—Sandra Dodd

SandraDodd.com/comparisons
photo by Cathy Koetsier, click to enlarge

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

A lot of DOING

I think unschoolers should let their kids do what they want all dayin an attentive and enriched environment.

The parents should be facilitators of natural learning, providing new and interesting things for their kids to experience, being supportive of their children's interests, providing them materials and experiences with music, food, art, materials...

It's a lot of DOING, and being, and learning, for years and years.

SandraDodd.com/neglect (cheery neglect)
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Robbie Prieto's Viking ship
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Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Something different

What's "same old" to you will be different or new to visitors and children. Something you see all the time might be worth a closer look.
SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Sandra Dodd

Sunday, October 19, 2014

It's important

"If it's important to them, then it's important."
—Laurie Wolfrum
SandraDodd.com/priorities
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Thursday, June 19, 2014

Knowledge and experience

You can't and don't need to "trust 100%."

You need to see the progress in your own children's life. Then it's not "trust." It becomes knowledge and experience.
dyad, canal, colorful houses
SandraDodd.com/knolwedge
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Investing at home

old sailboat, listing, nice reflectionSomeone commented that responses to her questions had hurt her feelings. I wrote:

When he is calm and happy and trusting, THEN you will feel better—not because of things we wrote, or didn't, but because you will BE better. You will see it in your son's eyes.

Don't make it about you. Make it about his range of exploration and his choices and his learning and his happiness. You can live on the interest, if you invest enough in him.

(at Radical Unschooling Info, on Facebook)
photo by Colleen Prieto
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