Learning from life

Me, interviewed, answering this question:

Q: If you were to define unschooling in three words, what would they be?

A: I wouldn’t. It’s too easy to mislead. Too often, people grab a phrase or idea and run off and make a mess with it. If it’s used lightly though, I don’t mind “learning from life”.

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The interviewer said I had been writing about unschooling online since Yahoogroups days, but I was on in 1993, even before the AOL message boards came and went. 🙂

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Sandra Dodd—30 years of Unschooling
photo by Holly Dodd

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

Wonder and discovery

No matter how your children learn, take a few more opportunities to share wonder and discovery with them. It will enrich you all.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/allkinds
photo by Sylvia Woodman

Where learning abounds

Unschooling should be rich, flowing and mindful living where learning abounds. Too many people see "living" as nothing more than the absence of death. Let's encourage sparkly, bubbly, warm and effusive lives.

SandraDodd.com/sparkly
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Providing for your child

Once, long ago, a mom came to complain about her son wanting a toy. I wrote this:

If the begging is on the increase he's needy, but not for robots. Give him something: time, back rubs, a new tape or CD of something he likes, or rearrange his room, or make his favorite food. There are cheap and free things you can load onto and toward a needy kid. He's not being selfish to actually need more attention, more mom, more recognition of self. And you won't be spoiling him to meet his needs any more than you would be spoiling him to make sure he has a blanket on his bed, and a pillow, and a bath sometimes and toilet paper for his butt. There are necessities, and attention and direct one-on-one regard is one of them, bigtime.

SandraDodd.com/generosity

(the December 2001 original)
photo by Cass Kotrba

Keys to knowledge

One of a child's best tools is to learn to ask "What's that?" It's one of a baby's keys to knowledge. "Sa-sat?" said one of my kids. Hundreds of times, pointing. "Sa-sat?" Another said, "Aht-dat?"

With names for things, categories form. Some small furry animals ARE "dog" and others are not. "Not" needs another name.

On naming, a researcher named J. Doug McGlothlin wrote, "A child possesses a natural desire to call an object by its name, and he uses that natural desire to help him learn the language. He receives real joy from just pointing out something and calling it by name. He never thinks it is stupid or silly to say something that others might consider obvious. For him, it is delightful."

SandraDodd.com/words/words
photo by Cass Kotrba
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Accidental art

Deb Lewis spotted these beautiful shadows, that don't match what we see and think, of bees. The sun doesn't know it created that accidental art. The water was unaware. I doubt the bees were looking.


Deb saw, though, and now we can see.

Does it matter than the bees are gone now, and the water, too?

You will see things, in your children, for a moment, that others don't see or know. Let the moment pass; look forward to new surprises.

Impermanent beauty
photo by Deb Lewis

Being appreciated

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Be someone they want to do things for. We can't make people appreciate us. But we can become people they feel appreciate them and they will want to return that appreciation.

Be someone people will want to show appreciation for—and much of this applies to how we treat our spouses (and friends) too!

—Joyce Fetteroll

Getting kids (and spouses!) to appreciate what you do
photo by Gail Higgins

Avoiding problems

What else can be a problem with unschooling?
Trying to save time and money; skimping on attention.

I've done this, "Not now," or "please not today." But what do you tell yourself about that? If it's "Good, no problem," that's bad, and a problem.

Generosity begets generosity
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Comforted, entertained, loved

Too many parents talk and talk to their kids, and ask them how they feel and ask them what they need.

Learn to guess. Learn to provide in advance. Food is good to practice with. Soft, clean cleared-off beds are good to practice with. Clearing off space for video gaming is nice. Soon you start to think about heat, softness, clean clothes, toothpaste before it runs out, favorite foods when you shop. And then people feel heard and comforted and entertained and loved.

SandraDodd.com/quiet
photo by Lydia Koltai

Coincidence and confluence

I don't believe in magic, but I find joy in wonderful coincidences and confluences. I like looking at a digital clock right at 11:11, for its pattern and symmetry. When planets line up I'm happy, even though I believe it to have no effect whatsoever on humans on earth outside the happiness they might have if they know about it.



The quote is from Magic Window,
which was written about my kids about this time ten years ago,
when they were 16, 18 and 21.

photo by Chrissy Florence

Prevent preventions

Suspicion and cynicism prevent wonder. Unschooling requires wonder.

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SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Chrissy Florence
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Thoughts

It's okay not to share everything you think.

Children's thoughts are their own, but if you're interesting and interested, they might share their thoughts with you.

SandraDodd.com/trust
photo by Jennie Gomes
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Look, learn, proceed

Karen James wrote:

"Unschooling is really about learning without school. Radical unschooling includes all learning, not just academic learning. What encourages and supports learning in your child(ren)? Look at that. Learn from that. Proceed from that."

—Karen James

from SandraDodd.com/otherideas
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Keep the peace

How NOT to watch movies:

Don't be cynical and critical and dismissive. Find the good acting, the good sets, the good props. Don't say "OH BROTHER." If there's a movie you really don't like, don't watch it with your kids.


This link has a new list. While I was in there editing,
I saw the note above, by me, from 2010.
Movies for Unschoolers
photo by Janine
(not of a movie; sorry)
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No shoving, please

Set it out, don't try to shove it in.

That line is from small talk I gave once, to dads only. I was talking about logic—to draw it in, not to hit people with it. But "Set it out, don't try to shove it in" can apply to many things—food, interesting things, ideas, and to unschooling itself.

photo by Sandra Dodd

A moment of nothing much

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

Deschooling doesn't work until you let go of structure. Early days unschooling is about learning how to see learning in all things and if you are still looking to the structure of curricula it will be very, very difficult to grasp the fundamentals of unschooling. Having go-to ideas of things to do or engagements to offer is a good thing, but having those things be about education or a passing on of pieces of specific knowledge it won't help you to see the glorious world of unschooling. Those things are best if they are just kind of a fun thing to do in a moment of nothing much going on. Learning will happen.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/fabric
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Webs, nets, connections

The terms "web" and "net" have both been commandeered by the internet. The idea of a grid or web or matrix to represent the connections involved in learning and memory is a good one, though—of many "dots" connected in all directions.

The photo here is of the two-dimensional web—very flat—of a garden spider, outside my house this week. Black widow spiders make a web that's three-dimensional, but has no pattern. We have those in our yard, too.

The webs on which our own mental models of the universe are based are more complex—with past and future, emotion and theory, alternative stories and secondary theories. We have sounds and songs, scents and tastes to remember, and can sort things by temperature or texture, in our minds and imaginations.

Rejoice in the random!

SandraDodd.com/random
photo by Sandra Dodd
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What they think

"I'm more interested in learning what they think of the world than in telling them about the world."

—Linnea King

SandraDodd.com/inspiration
photo by Sandra Dodd

Rich and lush

They're learning, we're learning, we're all expressing ourselves, and when life is very rich and lush, learning grows like crazy.

from SandraDodd.com/panel, a page I had forgotten about
photo by Irene Adams
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