Details

There are different ways of seeing, and different things to see, even in the same scene, or object.


Look more closely
photo by Ester Siroky
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Look and see

If you're traveling or if you're in a familiar place, the things you see are viewed though your own windows, or doors. You see through your own eyes, and experience. *You* see.

The world you see where you are today will not be what you could see ten years ago, or twenty.

What your child sees and what you see will probably be different, and continue to change.

Keep looking.

SandraDodd.com/awareness
photo by Ester Siroky

Women, mummies, Abe Lincoln

Lyle Perry, who unschooled two boys, wrote:

While watching a movie, a Kotex commercial came on and spawned a lengthy discussion on menstruation, and how all the different methods of protection work, or don't work, the reasons why women pick one method over another, and what did women do back before companies like Kotex existed. Then the discussion moved to the different methods of birth control, then to birth itself, and C-sections, natural childbirth, etc. All from one little Kotex commercial.

While watching The Mummy (cartoon), we talked about Egypt and the pharoahs, and then slavery, which eventually led to the civil war and Abe Lincoln, and then on to other presidents that had done "great" things.

That's just a few off the top of my head, but the main thing to remember is that none of these discussions were planned, and it's always the kids that initiate the talks, and when they stop asking "why, when, how, who and where" the talk is over. They may come back at a later date and want more information to add to what they know, or they may be satisfied and leave it at that.

TV is not a "bad" thing. TV can be very, very cool.

SandraDodd.com/t/learning or (bonus link):
SandraDodd.com/presidents
photo by EsterSiroky

Not just the world....

If by "change the world" a person means "make the world better," then step #1 must be to decide right then not to make the world worse.

If you replace "world" with "marriage," that idea could still change the world.
Other words you could use insead of "world":

• party
  
• road trip
  
• dinner
  
• visit
  
• camp-out
  
• bathtime
  
• grocery shopping...

SandraDodd.com/philosophy
photo by Ester Siroky
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Step back and think

I did an odd thing, when Kirby was five. I consciously decided not to use the names of "subject areas," ever. Whether he liked something or not, I wasn't going to tell him it was "history" or "math" or "science." Each of those is made up of dozens, hundreds of interests and unrelated topics.

In school, kids decide to declare that they like or hate "science," when really geology has very little to do with psychology or surgery. Same with "geography." Would someone who "likes geography" because he's fascinated by maps and mapping necessarily care about the major production of different regions of the world, or traditional costume of Afghanistan?

But as an unschooling mom, I think it's important for the parents not to say "I don't like... (maps/science/costume/psychology), because if you have fears and prejudices left over from school, it's a good thing to do whatever internal work you need to get over that, so you can answer your children's questions without showing (and maybe passing on) an aversion.
SandraDodd.com/subjects
photo by Ester Siroky
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The peace of the world

Everyone who helps others unschool or to live peacefully with their children is contributing to the peace of the world.


SandraDodd.com/politics
(I wimped out of leaving the full, real quote, but I left the positive part.)
photo by Megan Valnes

Screendoors?

Joyce Fetteroll wrote: A computer, a hand held game, an iPod are doors that lead to a vast world of experiences. Just as your front door leads to a vast world of many different things you can do. Would you refer to all the things your family does by going through your front door—walks, shopping, visiting friends. mowing the lawn, vacations—as "door stuff"? Stop looking at the door. See the richness that exists beyond the door. —Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/screentime.html
photo by Sandra Dodd
"Screendoors" is a joke. Take it lightly.

Peekhole

Keith and I installed that peekhole in our front door when Marty was little. Now Marty is 28 and lives in that house with his wife of three years, who is expecting a child.

What you see from your own house, through your own eyes, starts small. The way you see the world as you're growing up can be like a peekhole. We will never be able to see out through others' front doors, as they do. We can't see through their eyes.

Remember your view, no matter how vast it becomes, is personal and limited.


SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Sandra Dodd

Visits

Visits make memories. I still remember places I visited when I was very young. I recall things I ate, saw, heard, discovered, and learned. The houses and places are like characters in the book of me.

For everyone who has hosted my kids when I wasn't there, I'm grateful. They have memories of many things I didn't see.

My life is richer for visits as an adult, being able to see architecture in neighborhoods unlike my own, happy homey artistry and collections of everyday things, oddities, back yards and gardens.

Take your kids visiting. Have guests. What is small and routine for you might last forever in them.

Unschooling Very Well
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Real things

Life. People can live lives, even little kids live lives, without preparation, learning on the job, as they go. They can learn while doing real things with real happiness and real success.

SandraDodd.com/connections/cocktail
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Changes

You may pass through the same door again, but you will be different each time.

Where you are right now will never be exactly the same again.

SandraDodd.com/growth
photo by Sandra Dodd
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That voice

"Be their support system. I want so much for my kids to grow up and hear that mommy voice in their head saying positive supportive things, not tearing them down, but encouraging them—and especially not a voice to be resisted." —Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/choice
photo by Sandra Dodd

Circles

Today I have a game for you to play with your family, or friends, or me online somewhere. Think of circular things, like a wreath, like a wedding ring, a crown or a halo. Think of them in art, architecture, cooking, machinery (ancient or modern), sewing, astronomy, games, baskets, botany, hats, Venn diagrams. Look around with the eyes of a child, of a spy, a painter or an anthropologist. Think of their symbolism, realities, of naturally-forming circles, and do it today, but don't stop doing it when today is over.
SandraDodd.com/connections
wreath and photo by Janine Davies
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Remember...

"I will never forget how I realized that I could be an independent person from watching "That Girl," or how seeing Barbara Jordan give the DNC speech as the first Black Woman ever to do so impacted me in ways that stay with me to this day."

—Jocelyn Cooper

You remember learning things. Your children are learning, too.
Read more: SandraDodd.com/t/memories
photo by Sandra Dodd

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Sorry for the American references, but here:

"That Girl" was a game-changing television program, and Barbara Jordan (a U.S. Representative from Texas) gave a speech aired on TV at the 1976 Democratic National Convention at which Jimmy Carter was nominated to run for president.

Beyond the door

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

A computer, a hand held game, an iPod are doors that lead to a vast world of experiences. Just as your front door leads to a vast world of many different things you can do. Would you refer to all the things your family does by going through your front door—walks, shopping, visiting friends, mowing the lawn, vacations—as "door stuff"?

. . . .

Stop looking at the door. See the richness that exists beyond the door.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/screentime.html
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Gradually, without fanfare

Gradually, without fanfare, be more positive and more supportive
of her desires and requests.

SandraDodd.com/gradualchange
photo by Eva Witsel

Everything in the Whole Wide World

There is a Sesame Street book called Grover and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum. There is a "things under the sea" room and "things in the sky" room, but still each room is just a room in a museum, no windows, everything out of context. Then he opens a big door marked "Everything Else" and...

The picture that follows is here, and more text, but what's outside the door of your own home is more important.

art by Joe Mathieu, early 1970's
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Evidence

So what do we need besides seeing things in a new light, trying to be more understanding about noise and mess, and being our children's partners? I mean tools for moving toward being with children in new ways? Maybe LOVE the mess See it as evidence of health and joy and learning, and then it's not "mess," it's proof.

SandraDodd.com/chats/being
photo by Julie Markovitz

Doors to creativity

"Unschooling has inspired us all in so many ways, and opened doors to creativity that among other worries and insecurities we just didn't have time for before in the rush and busy of that old life! But mostly I needed to be inspired and have something meaningful and of value to write about, and now I have found it in this wonderful world of unschooling, and making so many new friends, and just so much positivity it's fantastic!" —Janine

photo by Sandra Dodd

Reading something strange and new

Sometimes I've been criticized for saying that I won't say my child is reading until he or she can pick something up and read it. Not something I planted and that they've practiced, but something strange and new. If I can leave a note saying "I've gone to the store and will be back by 10:30," and if the child can read that, then I consider that the child is reading.


Others want to say "My child is reading" if he can tell Burger King's logo from McDonald's. I consider that more along the lines of distinguishing horses from cows. Yes, it's important, and yes, it can be applied to reading, but it is not, itself, reading.

The Nature of "Real Reading"
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
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