photo by Lydia Koltai
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I think being side by side with someone is a good way to focus attention away from eyes yet still on them, so they can speak without the intimidation and confusion of your face right in front of them. |
Thoughts don't show. Provide opportunities and time. Watch quietly. Don't break the spell. |
I am willing to watch it with her because I know she loves it. I affirm something about her by taking her interest, her pleasure seriously. I let her know she matters by making it clear that she matters to me. |
It's the path to unschooling—to go toward the better things and away from the worse things. |
We appreciate people who can share knowledge, ideas and stories with us. |
Costumes, make-believe and juxtaposition touch on art, real life, and being in the moment.
photo by Sandra Dodd of a car in Lyon, France, 2012
Here's the other side of it:
Children play with toy guns. Sometimes those guns squirt water, or fire little Star Trek phaser disks, or they shoot light. Some of them make noise.
There is no young-child gun play so violent as a mother saying "NO. I said NO!" to a young child who has dared to pick up a friend's toy gun.
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It is hard to explain, but all three of my kids and all of their unschooled friends who have gone to college have repeatedly tried to articulate that there seemed to be "something wrong" with so many of the other students and that they seemed actually resistant to learning. The unschooled kids were there because they wanted to be there, first of all. They knew they had a choice and that makes a big difference. A sense of coercion leads to either outright rebellion, passive resistance, or apathy and my kids saw all of those playing out among the majority of their fellow students.