Showing posts with label frame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label frame. Show all posts

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Still on your path



Lots of the photos I have these days are of paths. I love them. They're taken by people who were there, about to walk that very path, seeing things to the sides, hearing birds, or the wind, or other people. But we only see one view of one path.

The symbolism and the idea of a person being on his own path can be confusing and restricting, if others are trying to manage who walks where, and how. Path, trail, course, curriculum—they all can be about a pre-determined, inflexible way to go.

We only see our own paths by looking backwards. Find joy, today, in options and twisty turns. You're still on your path.

Hard paths and soft ones
photo by Amy Milstein

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Being safe, being trusted

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

If your default answer is no—by the *kids'* standards even if *you* feel you say yes a lot—then they're likely to 1) see the world in terms of impossibilities rather than possibilities or 2) ask someone else who may be less trustworthy.
—Joyce Fetteroll
Be their trusted partner.


SandraDodd.com/chores/appreciation
photo by Rosie Moon

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Focus on what you're doing


Jenny Cyphers wrote:

I compared homeschooling to school a lot for a long time. It seemed so big and relevant. Then, when Chamille was about 9 or 10, I stopped reading the local homeschool boards and focused more time on reading only about unschooling. That's when my focus changed greatly, from what we weren't doing, to what we were doing.
—Jenny Cyphers

moving to more positivity
photo by Sandra Dodd

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Relax inside yourself

Someone wrote once:
"I really have to be vigilant on myself and try not to control."

I was amused, but responded, in part:

Being "vigilant" sounds like absolutely exhausting effort. Relax. You do not "have to be vigilant." Especially not on yourself. That's you watching yourself. Way too much work. Let go of one of those selves. Relax inside the other one. Have a snooze. Don't be vigilant.

When you wake up, think. Am I glad to be here? Is this a good moment? If so, breathe and smile and touch your child gently. Be soft. Be grateful. Find abundance. Gently.

SandraDodd.com/battle/
photo by Denaire Nixon

Friday, November 17, 2023

Step toward learning

Confidence in unschooling can't come from other people's accounts. It can only come from seeing one's own children relaxing into learning effortlessly through play, conversations, observations, a rich life.

"Facing fears" sounds scary, intimidating and negative. Stepping toward learning is much more positive. Being with children is easy; they're already right there. Move toward them, instead of milling around with fears and vulnerability.

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Denaire Nixon
__

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Turn away, to have peace

When school is no longer a part of the child's life, it's good to turn away from the school and let it fade into the distant past. Repeating and reciting and retelling the school problem keeps it alive and present.

SandraDodd.com/school/
photo by Sandra Dodd

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Children being themselves

Life will be better for all involved if you don't label your children's intelligence, or processing speed, or likelihood to reverse numbers, or ability to pay attention to something deadly boring. Don't drug your children into being still enough to sit on an assembly line. It has nothing on earth to do with natural learning or unschooling. Neither does "giftedness."

SandraDodd.com/giftedness

The quote is from The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Gail Higgins

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Open to change

It's kind of schoolish, the idea that the more one reads the more one knows. Unschooling is one of those things that isn't accomplished by recitation or test-taking, but only by changing thoughts and actions, beliefs and relationships. It's not easy, it's not quick, and it's not for everyone.
SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Amy Milstein

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Full and whole

I have comforted my "inner child" by comforting my own children. I have felt like a stronger, better person by being a stronger, better mom. Then it's not imagination, it's reality.

Helping them grow up whole helped me feel more full and whole myself.

Changing the present, healing the past, hope for the future
(from a comment I made there)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Solidly optimistic

Unschooling is a profoundly optimistic decision and that it involves a huge commitment to living a very optimistic life.

I think it is possible that THE most significant thing unschooling does is nurture optimism.
—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/commitment
photo by Jihong Tang

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Be careful

Improved is better than failed. Solid and long-lasting is better than painful and disrupted.
Be gentle, be careful, with your thoughts, responses, facial expressions, and touch. Be sweet and soft to your family.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Jo Isaac

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

"H" is for Healing

This art is in the "H" of "Nothing" in the logo created by Holly Dodd in 2020.
For me, it seems like a gift to me and my mom both, if I can do better than she did. She would have liked to have done better, too, so I can do it for her.

I get some healing benefit either way.


from Kids' stuff, and sunrise. 2019
Thank you, Holly Dodd, for the photo and the logo.

Monday, June 20, 2022

The sun will be there

I usually forget to look at the sunset, but sometimes I notice the change of light, out the window from where I'm sitting.

Sometimes a sunrise or a sunset is beautiful, but why? The symbolism varies. The colors might be different, and the effect won't be the same on different individuals, but it is the same old sun.

Let it soothe you and give you hope, when you happen to see those changes of colors and light as the sun appears, or as your part of the world starts to pass into darkness, just until morning. Take a breath and be grateful. Be grateful for the breath, for the gratitude, for being.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude/chairs
photo by Theresa Larson

Thursday, June 9, 2022

Small changes


Each person knows when she's happier and when she wishes things were a little better. If small changes of attitude can make more happy moments than before, that benefits everyone involved.

SandraDodd.com/happy
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Monday, May 9, 2022

Calm and thoughtful

Don't rush into anything. Parents should learn to be calm and thoughtful instead of panicky and reactionary. It's better for health and decision-making, and it sets a good example for the children. Don't live in fear when you can live in joy.

Time, change, learning
photo by Holly Dodd

Sunday, January 23, 2022

Natural residents of Earth

So how do unschoolers learn geography? Better than I did in school. They learn it with flexibility and a lack of awareness of having "learned geography." They learn it from games, movies, satellite photographs, globes, the history of ships and airplanes, of cloth and houses, of the Okinawan karate and of Roman bathhouses. Their model of the universe is better than mine was when I was their age. Their confidence is better than mine is now! They are learning about THEIR planet. I felt like an unwelcome guest here, when I was "just a kid." They feel like natural residents of Earth, and they do know their neighborhood.

SandraDodd.com/geography
photo by Olga Degtyareva, while visiting Stone Town

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Moments to years

"As we get older and our kids grow up, we eventually come to realize that all the big things in our lives are really the direct result of how we've handled all the little things."


Pam Sorooshian
photo by Jihong Tang

Monday, November 29, 2021

Interest in things

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Get interested in things yourself. Not interested in your child getting educated, but in learning for yourself. Pursue an interest you've always wanted to but never had time for. Be curious about life around you. Look things up to satisfy your own curiosity. Or just ponder the wonder of it all. Ask questions you don't know the answers to. "Why are there beautiful colors beneath the green in leaves?" "Why did they build the bridge here rather than over there?" "Why is there suddenly more traffic on my road than there used to be?"
—Joyce Fetteroll
Most of the third of Five Steps to Unschooling
photo by Nina Haley

Saturday, October 30, 2021

Saturday, October 9, 2021

Esoteric and foofy? Why?

Even in the long term, unschooling is not about the completion of a project at all. It’s about becoming the sort of people who see and appreciate and trust that learning can happen. And who can travel with children, not just drag them along or push them along, but who can travel with children along those interesting paths together not until you get there, but indefinitely.

And for beginning unschoolers that sounds also a little esoteric, a little foofy. And not solid. They want to know what do I do when the kids wake up in the morning? So, the beginning information is very often, “What do I do?” But the information that will get people from the beginning to the intermediate is why. "Why do we do this?"


Changes in Parents
photo by Ester Siroky

The quote is from a podcast episode of Pam Laricchia interviewing me.
I tweaked the quote just slightly, capitalizing "even"
and using "unschooling" rather than "it."

I've used this quote before, but used better titles:

2017: Travel interesting paths

2018: "Why do we do this?" (with the same photo, even)