Experiences and opportunities

Rebecca Justus, from a longer chart about unschooling (linked below):

Live your lives and trust that learning will happen around and within all your activities.

Realize that life is full of experiences, that the world is full of opportunities. Enjoy them! Enjoy many of them together!

—Rebecca Justus

SandraDodd.com/unschool/difference
photo by Sandra Dodd

Twisty turny now

Part of being your child's partner is helping her learn how to be in the world, how to live comfortably and fully and considerately and legally. 😉

Twisting and turning to get away from the world can work sometimes (like my kids never went to school, for instance) but you can't twist yourself right off the planet or out of the present year.

SandraDodd.com/unschoolworld
photo by Sandra Dodd

"Chair-o-planes"

Help children live playful lives by being a playful adult. Play with words, and ideas; play with shape, form, and color. Let children see you smile.

Steam Fair Sights and Sounds

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Steam-power, restored

The first time I went to Hollycombe Steam Fair was in 2011. I have been twice since, always with other unschoolers. Part of what I love about the whole collection of steam-powered machinery is that it has been found, gathered up and moved, restored, and maintained by volunteers who learned how to repair machinery from before they were born. Curiosity, a love of technology and of engineering, and a sense of wonder at how people lived at the turn of the century before this one have proven again that learning doesn't require school, or a curriculum, tests, or degrees. If the engine runs and if the gears are all set up so that the ride moves smoothly and safely, there is success.

There are also calliopes, and if you click below, you can see and hear more.

Steamfair Sights and Sounds
photos by Sandra Dodd

Spooky midway

I think the cure for spooky carnivals, fairgrounds, midways and amusement parks is to watch more Scooby-Doo.

The exception to this would be if one was never afraid of spooky abandoned amusement parks until Scooby-Doo instilled some fear.

As slightly-spooky, mostly-silly kid adventure, though, Scooby-Doo will bring up lots of connections, and probably make kids laugh.

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Scooby-Doo has been mentioned so many times in unschooling discussions that I have a directory page for it: SandraDodd.scoobydoo
photo by Amy Milstein

Lights!

There is something special about light, when it's dark. Small illumination is a great dark space can be beautiful. A camp fire, or a candle flame. A torch or flashlight. Neon, or the lit-up name of a store. A traffic light in a rural place. The familiar porch light of a favorite house. Fireworks.

Appreciate casual light shows. Maybe create a bit of light, for its special beauty.

SandraDodd.com/light
photo by Amy Milstein

Doing well, and doing good

Deb Lewis wrote this. Who is she talking about?

They work together, plan and organize. It might inspire thoughts about the usefulness of cooperation.

They handle tough situations with humor. That might inspire someone to think about the value of a happy and positive attitude.

They help people who need help.
The people who need help ask for it.
These are good things.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/t/cartoons
photo by Holly Dodd—"Three Round Things"
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Grabbing hold and changing

"When I stumbled across unschooling I grabbed hold. I read and I tried things and I moved further away from the childhood I had known to the parenthood I wanted to know."

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Random efficiency

Unschooling is a way to homeschool, but without the schoolishness. Things can be learned in whatever order they come along, and the learner will eventually connect all the information he has gathered, but maybe not in the same way or in the same order as the assembly line would have had him do it. —Sandra Dodd

Shockingly efficient
photo by Kristy Hinds

Bring on the Joy

"Focus on Joy. Really. That's all I need to do right now. It's vacation time in my home...bring on the Joy."

—Angela (NYCitymomx3)

Fron a longer list at Advice to Remember
photo by Jo Isaac
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Worth the work

Pam Sorooshian, in 2007:

I never "got it" about chores until it was really almost too late. My own issues about housework, etc., kept me from being able to embrace whole-heartedly the idea that any kid would ever actually step up and help out without it being required.

I see a HUGE difference, now, though, since I stopped demanding housework a few years ago.. . . .

What I regret is that I didn't figure out ways to do stuff like this when the kids were younger. I wish I'd made housework entirely optional, but then made it enticing for them to do it with me or with each other, so that they'd have still helped out, but without the tone of it being demanded. These days, when one of my daughters and I wash dishes together, it is fun, because they really know that they have a choice, that I won't be annoyed if they turn me down, so no resentment on their part. Very very worth the extra work I had and often still have to do.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/chores/shift
photo by Janine Davies

Some of all

School calls a small sliver of the world "all", and we call all of life's learning "some".


SandraDodd.com/quotes
photo by Janine Davies
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the best Now

Colleen Prieto wrote:

"I know that no matter how wonderful a childhood he has—no matter how accepted, nurtured, loved, and cared for he is—I can’t control his Future. His Someday is his—and he will run up against a whole world that is full of potentially confusing and potentially damaging things and people. We give him the best Now we can, in hopes that’ll carry him through his Someday as well as it can."

—Colleen Prieto

That's an almost-direct quote. There's a "but..." coming in the original,
but you might not need it today.
SandraDodd.com/addiction
photo by Sandra Dodd

Unique knowledge

Carefully considered thought is pretty rare, but unschooling parents who watch their children learning for years have a lot of time to see some particular things that no one else—not even the other unschoolers—can see. In each family where these principles take hold, children do and say wonderful things that help the parents *know* (not just kind of think) that learning can happen without teaching or showing. They see that connections are being made that school would not, could not, have set up, when the parents back away from directing and instead provide experiences, materials and input.

SandraDodd.com/knowledge
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Emotional well-being

Emotional health and emotional well-being are as important, if not more so, as physical health.

—Jenny Cyphers

Moving Toward Less Control, Concerning Food
photo by Janine Davies
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People they trust

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

The best way for introverts to learn to socialize is with the people they're comfortable with: their family. And then whatever friends they feel comfortable with.

Then when they're older and their desire to get something from a group is greater than their discomfort of being in a group, they'll have the skills they picked up from people they trust.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/introvert
photo by Janine Davies
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The good parts

Look at the immediate benefits of your decisions.

Look for the good parts of today.

Look for the value in this moment.

"Success"
photo by Sandra Dodd

Think (think)

"Thoughts and opinions that don't match reality should be rethought."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/tvchoice
photo by Sandra Dodd

A different place

"Your perspective will change when you've experienced new things, seen the world from a different place." —Debbie Regan

The quote above inspired this page:
SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Sandra Dodd

Lasting happiness

"Fun is serious. Fun is important, especially for kids. Don't underrate fun. People who are not happy as children seldom find easy or lasting happiness as adults."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/t/cartoons
photo by Susan Burke
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