Illuminating the world

I remember being in school and asking "Why do we need to know this?" I asked it, other kids asked it, and one answer I remember was when I asked my Algebra II teacher, when I was 15, why we needed to know how to figure out square roots. He said it was in case we wanted to figure out how far away stars were. I said, "Don't we have people to do that?"

I didn't care how far away stars were. I thought it should be left to those who really are curious or have a need to know. That need to know the distance of stars has never been good for anything at all yet, as far as I know.

It wasn't long after that (six years) that I myself was a teacher in that same school. Luckily for me and for all the world, I wasn't teaching algebra or astronomy. But still I would be asked "Why do we have to learn this?" Sometimes I gave a serious answer, and sometimes a philosophical answer. Sometimes I made light of it. Sometimes the honest answer was "You don't have to learn this, but I have to try to teach it so I can get paid." Or "Only some of you will need to know it, but they don't know which ones yet, so I have to say it to everybody."

Then one day, the question came phrased a new and better way: "What is this GOOD for?" The answer I gave then changed my life and thinking. I said quickly "So you can get more jokes." I think we were reading a simplified Romeo and Juliet at the time. I could've gone into literature and history and fine arts, but the truth is that the best and most immediate use of most random learning is that it illuminates the world. The more we know, the more jokes we will get.

To Get More Jokes
photo by Sandra Dodd
(click the photo if you don't know what it is)

Thank them

Joyce Feteroll wrote:

Thank them! Even if they haven't done it the way you would. Even if they've done less than you think they're capable of. Thank them. They've set aside time from something they find valuable to do something for you. Appreciate that they're willing to do that for you. The more they feel appreciated for what they choose to give, the more they will give when they're able. People want to feel they're appreciated.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/chores/appreciation
photo by Sarah S.

Thought and belief

Terminology reflects thought and belief.

Sometimes just a slight shift in terminology will release the mental block that keeps people from understanding unschooling.

SandraDodd.com/parentalauthority
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Connecting and learning

Kelly Schultz, at the end of a longer account of learning from Barbie

Everywhere we go, we meet women who have loved their Barbies, young babysitting-age girls, grandmas with collector editions, women at the toy store commenting how they still love to get their Barbies out. Barbie-lovers are everywhere! Who knows when this shared interest will help them connect with someone down the road?

Who would have imagined - design, construction, dramatic narrative, social skills, a little bit of history mixed in - it's really a wonderful learning experience!

—Kelly Shultz

SandraDodd.com/barbielearning
photo by Karen James
___

Artifacts

I have seen toys, in museums, just like things I played with as a child in the 1950s and 60s, and that my children played with in the 1980s and 90s.

History is happening all around and through us.


Seeing things from the past can trigger stories that might never have been told without the presence of those artifacts. I missed the days of radio dramas and serials. By the time I was listening to radio, it was all music. The stories had moved to the TV. All of my older relatives had radio stories—of war news, comedy routines, inspiring speeches and of mystery stories presented in several voices, and with sound effects.

We still want stories, news, humor and inspiration, but the sources change, and will change some more.

Antiques elsewhere here
photo by Sandra Dodd

---

I wrote this four days ago (what's above). Three days ago, I started listening to So, Anyway...: A Memoir by John Cleese (read by the author, who is best known as a member of Monty Python). He has talked about radio shows four times in eight chapters, telling stories of his childhood memories, and of radio producers who seemed to think, when television was new, that TV would not supplant radio programs.

Knowing this post was ready to go made those stories seem like magical coincidence to me. Jung called those coincidences "synchronicity."

Perspective

How you view a thing is affected by physical realities (height, vision, lighting), cognitive aspects (familiarity, spatial ability), emotional factors (attraction or revulsion), age, experience, biological states (hungry? sleepy? impatient?), etc. Anything adults and children see or do "together" is sure to be different for each.

See that as a good thing, as a feature of a rich life. They are not you. Shared experiences are still individually perceived.

SandraDodd.com/angles
(These words aren't there; others are.)
photo by Abby Davis

Closeness and connection

Janine wrote:

Most of the things that have happened I didn't foresee! And they continue to happen and surprise me every day! To name just a few: spirituality, healing, realisations and awakenings, and most of all, a closeness and deep connection with my boys (and partner) that warms my heart and fills it till it's fit to burst! We spend every day laughing and smiling, most days side splitting laughter over a shared joke or something.

—Janine Davies

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Janine Davies

You can hear Janine's voice at 10:22 in the recording here: Healing

Passing a passion on

When we stop looking at our kids and what they do through schooly glasses, we're no longer concerned about how long they've been interested in something, or how much time they've spent doing something but rather we're in there with them, their passion leaking onto us and giving us a bit of that passion too. It just becomes life and living, not some thing they're doing because it's good for them or because they'll need it when they're an adult or whatever other reason school says kids should do things.

—Kim H.

SandraDodd.com/obsessions/course
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Candy, TV, books and broccoli

Jo Isaac wrote:

While Kai and I were watching Inside Out yesterday, they had a part where broccoli is in the 'disgust' part of Riley's emotions. Kai loves broccoli - it's one of his favourite foods and the first thing he eats if it's on a plate. He said that parents make broccoli disgusting in kids heads because they force them (the kids) to eat it.

In the same way we can make broccoli seem 'disgusting' by forcing it down our kids throats, we can make TV seem more 'attractive' by setting it up as a limited resource with apparently magical powers of 'distraction'.

By giving broccoli the same status as candy, and TV the same status as books and board games, children are free to make the choices that are best for them, and learn the way they learn best.

—Jo Isaac
(original, on facebook)

SandraDodd.com/joisaac
photo by Sarah S.

Private ideas

I love museums. Museums of any sort are special to me, and sometimes I'm thinking about the building or whose idea it was or where the funding comes from to keep the lights and heat on, and to hire people to keep it all safe and clean.

What others are thinking in a museum, even if they're with me, could never be exactly the same. An object will, without fail, remind me of a personal experience, or of when or where I first learned of such things. If it's SO NEW to me that I'm surprised, I tend to think of which friend of mine, alive or dead, I would most like to share it with, or to ask about it. Sometimes that's my dad, especially if the object is an old truck, or a metal structure.

Sometimes I've been the person one of my kids shared something with. That's sweet, and I get to know a bit about what they're connecting to and with.

Long ago, I came to see the whole world as a museum. I love that, too.

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Shops, museums, and museum shops

Sometimes a shop can be like a museum.

Some museums have displays of shops (or things from shops, in the past).

Some museums have gift shops.

Even when you don't buy an object, you can still admire, inquire, or (maybe) photograph it to ask about or think about later.

Your House as a Museum
photo by Sandra Dodd

What and how much to eat

Alex Polikowsky, the day after "Pi Day" one year when her kids were younger:

My kids can eat bowls of sugar if they want. They are not fat, obese of even chubby. They have lots of cookies, candy and sweets at home at any time. Just yesterday I bought two pies for Pi day and baked. My daughter ate a big piece of the pumpkin pie but only the filling. Then she asked for an apple and ate half of it. Then she went to the refrigerator and grabbed the red bell pepper that we got for the Guinea Pigs and cut a couple pieces for them and ate the rest. That was while I was reading [an unschooling discussion]. That was her late night snack.

My son ate a strip of bacon and left the other one and went to sleep.

They have chosen what they eat and how much all their lives.

—Alex Poliowsky
March 2012

True Tales of Kids Turning Down Sweets
photo by Sylvia Woodman, of candy sitting peacefully

Better? Good!

Ultimately, "better" and "good" will be seen in retrospect, or in realizations that things are WAY better than they used to be. That "better" is between children and parents, and happens when it happens, not because of anything anyone here says or thinks.

SandraDodd.com/goodorbad
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Stories and penguins

In some corner of your house, on some shelf, or windowsill, you might have a few items about which you could tell a story or two.

I saw the penguin above, and its accompanying rocks and another mystery thing in Bristol, at Alison's house. I didn't ask her to tell me about it. Now I wish I had. She told me many stories, and showed me places, and things.

Our internet is called RealPenguin, because of this fun kids' story, acted out by their dads: Salesman.

Little stories are parts of bigger lives.


SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd

Slack and choice

Feeling like a good parent is huge. The opportunity to be successful every day at something with immediate feedback (hugs and smiles and the little-kid happy dance) is rare in the world. But giving children more slack and choices creates more slack and choice for the parent, too.

If it's okay for a child not to finish everything on his plate, might it be okay if the mom only cooks what he likes next time? Or makes the best parts in new ways? Not every meal has to look like the centerfold of a cookbook. If children can sleep late, maybe the mom can too. If children can watch a silly movie twice, maybe the mom gets to be in on that. If a child (or a seventeen-year-old) wants to watch a butterfly for a long time, perhaps the parent will have the priceless experience of watching her own child watch a butterfly.

From "Changes in the Parents," page 268 (or 309), The Big Book of Unschooling which links to SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Sandra Dodd

Individualized learning

Unschooling is the ultimate individualized learning situation, and comparisons are unnecessary.

SandraDodd.com/pam/reasons
photo by Holly Dodd

"I do my best to be the best..."

Karen James wrote:

I do my best to be the best mom and unschooler I can be - for myself, for my son and for my husband - with the knowledge that my example might give someone some ideas on how to see and try things a bit differently themselves. I am constantly looking for examples to grow myself. I absolutely love it when I see someone do something that I think I'd like to try. Sometimes it's a sweet gesture or phrase. Sometimes it's a cool project or idea.

—Karen James

on Always Learning, in 2014
photo by Nina Haley
(documenting the way things were, for a while, when her kids were a bit younger, and also a cool pumpkin-patch outing)

Peace and love and food

Without choices, they can't make choices. Without choices they can't make good choices OR bad choices. In too many people's minds, "good" is eating what parents say when parents say (where and how and why parents say). That doesn't promote thought, self awareness, good judgment or any other good thing.

Food is for health and sustenance. Eating with other people can be a social situation, ranging (on the good end) from ceremonial to obligatory to courtesy. There's no sense making it hostile or punitive.

---

Food Choices (and lots of them)
SandraDodd.com/eating/idea
photo by Sarah S.

Life as Show-and-Tell

People with collections have collections of stories. Objects have origins, and connections. If you ask people about their things, they will tell you stories about themselves.

Most people think of "exploring" as going to new places, but exploring ideas, music, foods, games and each other's experiences and stories, within a family or group of friends, creates an environment of learning.

The first paragraph is new today.
The second paragraph is here.
photo by Sandra Dodd

Humor helps

Deb Lewis wrote:

Studies are now popping up suggesting laughter makes our brains work better, reduces stress and helps sick people get well...

I don't think humor will guarantee my kid will have a better life, but I know it won't hurt him. If all it does is leave him with happy memories of his childhood and parents, I'll count it among our most useful tools."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/humor
photo by Elise Lauterbach