People, writing, improvement (really)

Writing to real people for real purposes improves writing in real ways.

There are some people who haven’t been born yet who will, someday, read things Jo Isaac wrote, and other people here. It might be hard for them to find it, or it might not be. But good ideas, written well, can outlive the writers.

SandraDodd.com/realwriting
photo by Karen James

King of the Monsters

Sandra Dodd to Deb Lewis:

If I could describe all your writing in just a few words, it might be "Peace, humor and scary monsters." Dylan's life has involved a lot of Godzilla and that ilk. Scooby Doo and Godzilla.

Deb Lewis:

Yes, a lot of Godzilla, beginning when he was very little. And then any movie with a monster, or any book about monsters. And then all kinds of horror and science fiction. Godzilla was the gateway monster, though, and it started with a movie marathon on television. I couldn’t have guessed then, when he was three years old, that he would find a lifetime of happiness in horror! And I didn’t know then that his love of monster movies would lead to learning to read and write, finding authors, making connections to other cultures, (and more movies and authors) and connections to music, theater, poetry, folklore, art, history... It turned out to be this rich and wonderful experience he might have missed, and I might never have understood if I’d said no to TV, or to Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

Before Dylan was reading or writing really well, he’d meticulously copy the titles and dates of movies he wanted, and request them from interlibrary loan. All that writing, and all the time spent watching movies with subtitles helped him read and write better. I remember the feeling of joy and wonder, mixed with some sadness and loss when he didn’t need me to read movie subtitles to him anymore. I learned so much about learning.

There's Even MORE at
Montana to Italy via Godzilla
(an interview with Deb Lewis)
photo by Deb Lewis

Conversations and interactions

The middle of a longer article:

They grew up with exposure, context, experiences and knowledge of those things mathematics is designed to describe. Our oldest son, Kirby, worked in a games store from the time he was fourteen, and was running tournaments for Pokemon, Magic the Gathering and other such structured strategy games, in the store and at hotels in town for several years. The knowledge required to play those games and even more to organize, judge and score tournaments, is huge.

When Kirby was 18 he took his first math class, at the community college. Like a musician who can't read music, he was baffled at first, but once he understood the notation, he soared, and had the highest test score in the class.

To some people reading this, it might seem there was no "higher math," but what we have done is create a home in which algebraic thinking is a standard part of conversations. Our interactions are analytical and involve factors and projections. They see the concepts and they use them.

SandraDodd.com/math/unerzogen
(There's a link there to the published German version.)
photo by Belinda Dutch

Negotiations, commerce (not bribery)

I think we were discussing offering an older child money to read to a younger child, or to play with them at their level; kind of an occasional in-house mother's helper situation. Someone asked about bribery; my response follows. —Sandra

How do you go about it without it feeling like/being bribery? I'm guessing it is in attitude and wording, but I can't imagine a way to word it that it doesn't sound like bribery to me...? Thanks for the idea!

How do places of business get people to go to work without "bribery"?
How do you get an auto dealer to give you a car without bribery?

If someone's supposed to do something anyway and holds out on you until you pay them or give them something, that's a bribe. If something is not someone's job or someone's property and they negotiate for an exchange, that's commerce, not bribery.

There are some truisms that are spoken without real examination and I think the very vague rules against bribery of children are right up top there.

SandraDodd.com/bribery
photo by Cátia Maciel

An element of peace

Peace is not an element "that can neither be created nor destroyed." Peace is entirely a condition and a mood. It's very, very fragile. It has to be created and maintained and protected.

from "A Loud Peaceful Home"
SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Jihong Tang

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
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Is unschooling productive?

In a life where the goals are partnership, good relationships between parents and children, and an atmosphere of constant curiosity, exploration and learning, just about everything is "productive." If things are going well, then life is "producing" partnership, relationship-building, exploration and learning.

Playing, and happiness

The quote is from a discussion on my facebook page, about the idea of "productivity." "Productivity" questions

photo by Roya Dedeaux

Not just "one thing"

Meredith Novak responded to a mom worried about a child only doing one thing:

It's important to note that he's Not doing One thing, he's doing several:

• playing Minecraft
• watching videos
• skyping
• reading
• writing

The fact that all those things seem to revolve around a single subject isn't any different than another child who wants pirate clothes, pirate stories, pirate movies, pirate pajamas, pirate sheets, and pirate themed food.

—Meredith

Minecraft is fifteen years old; there's a new video here:
SandraDodd.com/minecraft
photos by SarahScullin
of Minecraft-themed food
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Learning the OTHER things

Sylvia Toyama wrote, in 2004:

This week Andy has figured out money, and it's happened in spurts all week... . . . .
He has learned all this through his own observations. He figured it on his own, when it made sense to him, because it was now important to him to know. And he has the pleasure of knowing he did it without being 'taught' by someone else. He's learned that he's capable and smart — something you just can't get from a worksheet with some arcane facts memorized.

And that's how they reach the point of 'wanting to learn' — when it matters to them, not when it matters to you or anyone else.

—Sylvia Toyama

You can read the details I left out
at SandraDodd.com/math/money
photo by Cátia Maciel

Looks like playing

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Real learning looks very different from schoolish learning. Real learning looks like playing. Even when it matches something kids do in school (learning the names of the different clouds for instance) it still looks more like goofing around because it stops as soon as their interest is satisfied. They don't push on like they're "supposed" to. No, what they do is revisit it when the feel the need to build on it and they draw on it (though not necessarily making it obvious to us) to help them understand more of the world. *Everything* connects to everything else.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/jitters
photo by Cátia Maciel

An interested and interesting adult

Someone wrote to me: "I’m starting to see why you admire John Holt. Will you tell me more about him?" I responded:

I admire his courage and his writings. ...

He wasn't married. He didn't have kids. What he learned he learned from other people's kids in classrooms and when visiting in their homes, and he was SO interested in kids that their lives were different just for his being there, so what he saw often was how a child is in the presence of a really interested and interesting adult. That's the part I want to emulate.

Because John Holt was SO interested in children, every time he interacted with one, he saw a child interacting with a fascinated adult. THIS is one of the things unschoolers need to remember. When the adult brings boredom, cynicism, criticism and doubt to the table, that's what he'll see and that's how he'll see it, and it will be no fault of the child's whatsoever.

SandraDodd.com/johnholt
photo by Sandra Dodd

"When Jayn Reads"

Robyn Coburn wrote:

There is no doubt that one day, in the fullness of time and at the right time, Jayn will become a reader. I have no doubt that she will slide into reading with the relatively effortless grace that so many other Unschoolers report of their children as they gain literacy with their parents’ support in their text-filled environments.
. . . . Without any pushing, independence will come at the right time for Jayn’s needs. Without any pushing, her only struggles will be with her own impatience—not any of mine. At the right time Jayn will launch herself into the world of independent discovery through solitary reading, and I will see less of her. I will have to wait to be invited into her private world that presently is a place that is always open to me. And I will treasure the memory of when I was as essential to her understanding as I hope to always be to her heart.

She will be a reader. But I’m in no hurry.

—Robyn Coburn

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When Jayn was seven, her mom wrote that (and more, and it's beautiful: When Jayn Reads). Jayn is 24 now, and earned a university degree with honors. For the follow-up about Jayn's reading, you can listen to (or watch) this interview of Robyn, by Cecilie and Jesper Conrad: Robyn Coburn | From Doubt to Devotion - The Unschooling Transformation

SandraDodd.com/robyncoburn
photo by Jayn Coburn

Help, often

Pay attention to your child and help him do/find/see/experience things that will interest him. Help him be his best self as often as you can.

SandraDodd.com/intelligences
photo by Kelly Drewery

A variety of good things

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 Choices (and lots of them)
SandraDodd.com/eating/idea
photo by Sandra Dodd, in Pune, in India

Responsibility

Mainstream advice often reminds moms not to worry, that kids will be just fine. Kids are resilient. Kids won't remember.

For purposes of helping people see how unschooling can work, advice that seems (though perhaps it wasn't intended) to say that moms shouldn't worry or feel responsible seems headed the wrong direction.

SandraDodd.com/responsibility
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Life at home is blooming

A mom named Heather wrote:

Sandra Dodd & Joyce Kurtak Fetteroll, I came to unschooling to provide a better way to learn for my kids. Then I came to radical unschooling because I discovered it was about more than school. Now I'm discovering my hang-ups about food / nutrition / healthy food obsessions / weekend "junk" binges and controlling the groceries in our home and now radically unschooling (and your wisdom!) is helping me to unravel these problems and live wholly in the area of food too! Radical unschooling has SO MUCH been about me discovering issues I didn't even know I had, and life at home is blooming. I can't thank you enough for sharing your knowledge!

—Heather...

SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Sarah S, who took the photo in September 2023, of candy that's available for her kids anytime, and invites us to note there is still Easter candy in there

Be amazed

When someone asked"What are some good ways to teach a 3 1/2 year old during a grocery store visit?" Joyce Fetteroll responded:

Don't teach. Just look at *everything* with new eyes and you'll see how amazing:

automatic doors and scanners and scales and deli ticket machines are and all the different kinds of fish and lobsters and

how many different sounds you can hear when you close your eyes and

the man wearing a polka dot bow tie and

how high up the cereal is stacked (lift her up to get one🙂) and

whether there are more tie shoes or slip ons on the people in the store and

how you can draw pictures on the inside of the glass doors of the freezer after they're opened and they frost over and

whether the different coffee beans and candles and apples smell different and

whether she likes blueberries or raspberries or blackberries better and

how many different kinds of circle cereal there are and

how the different types of potatoes feel and

whether people say Hi when you say Hi to them and

how many different kitties or different types of pets there are on the products in the pet food aisle and

whether the stories in the Weekly World News are true or not (well, maybe for an older kid since at 3 *anything* is possible) 🙂 and

whether you recognize the Muzak version of the song playing and....

Just live life amazed. 🙂

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/discovery
photo by Sandra Dodd, 2009, Norfolk, UK
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Value kids as kids

Meredith wrote:

Generally speaking, kids are Busy people. Its good to see that and value what they are doing. When we don't, its easy to slip into resenting them for "just goofing off" while we grown ups are busy doing the "important" stuff. An important aspect of radical unschooling is valuing kids as kids, not adults-in-training, and so valuing kid-stuff. Playing Green Dinosaur smashes Legoland, watching tv, daydreaming, all are just as important as cleaning the kitchen.

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/priorities
photo by Sandra Dodd

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