Contentment and curiosity

Nancy B. wrote:

If you raise your children with a lot of happiness, contentment, curiosity, love, affection, they don't place all their future happiness on what their career will be, what they'll "be." Life is instead about exploring, having fun, pursuing interests.

—Nancy B.

SandraDodd.com/jobs/stories
(Stories about Jobs)
photo by Nina Haley

Wisdom at its finest

Willow Lune wrote

The wisdom coming from these unschooled kids amazes (and surprises) me on a regular basis. The choices they make and the thoughtfulness they put into decisions. The in-depth discussions. Their take on the world. Their willingness to give feedback, knowing that their words matter. Wow—wisdom at its finest.

—Willow Lune

SandraDodd.com/surprise
photo by Rosie Moon

Being merry and light

If a single, childless person wants to spend a LOT of energy being negative about school, cataloging school's ills, revealing and reviewing school damage, then that's a hobby.

If the parent of unschooled children wants to do that, I think the energy and emotion could be better and more positively spent being merry and light with children who are not in school.

No one can have everything. You can't store up and identify with cynicism, pessimism and self-righteous ire and still pour out joy and happiness to your family.


moving away from negativity about school
photo by Nicole Kenyon

Big things happen

Something BIG happens when a person turns away from selfishness to service.

Something HUGE happens when a person can care about another person more than about himself.

SandraDodd.com/divorce
photo by Nicole Kenyon

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

Real life science

Joyce Fetteroll, responding to a fear-filled mom:

While I'm a big fan of science and have a sciency degree, in terms of helping children I trust the real life experiences of unschoolers far more than I trust scientific studies done on (schooled) children (often with an eye towards getting kids to perform better in school!)

Offering a fear over experience as the basis of decision making isn't going to be helpful to unschooling.

—Joyce Fettroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/logic
photo by Nicole Kenyon

To be nourished...

Rippy Dusseldorp described her intentions:

To be nourished from beautiful and interesting ideas, people, places and things.
       To learn from everywhere.
              To take time to reflect.
                     To be daring.
                             To have adventures.

—Rippy Dusseldorp

Benefits beyond just "be a better parent"
photo by Elise Lauterbach

Safety and welcome

This gate was made for an open-air museum in The Netherlands, in a style that's called "wattle," in England. I like it.

I love gates, especially when you can see through them, but they keep children, animals and gardens safe. Though they might keep strangers out, they can welcome friends in!

I hope you have a gate or two you use, or see, or like, in your life.

Other gates
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Following different kinds of trails

I took this photo in a history museum called Archeon, in The Netherlands. They have sections portraying different historical periods, with full-size buildings, and with guides in costume, making things, playing instruments, cooking, training birds, and many other things. There are gardens growing. There are chickens.

When I decided to use the photo, I googled "Roman hopscotch" to see whether there was documentation for that, and found this quote: (source)

Hopscotch began in ancient Britain during the early Roman Empire. The original hopscotch courts were over 100 feet long and used for military training exercises. ... Roman children drew their own smaller courts in imitation of the soldiers, added a scoring system and "Hopscotch" spread throughout Europe.

This is a kind of history about which more is known as time passes, rather than less. More may yet be discovered. Whether the diagram in the photo is historical or not, maybe people at the museum know. Either way is fine.

Learn history lightly, because new things will be learned, a new focus will come, and if you live long enough, it will change again. Collect ideas and information so that connections will continue to form, your whole life long.

Many images of hopscotch layouts, and many lead to more info
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Bright and conversant

When I was a new unschooler, I sought out reports of college success and social ease. As the years passed, the social ease seemed so central to my children's lives that the college thoughts receded. As they reached the teen years, and their friends (schooled or not) went to the university (or not), they saw college "education" (and partying, and class skipping) as just another part of the infinite fabric of life. They haven't been channeled toward it in the dark, as so many millions have been.

It has been a long time since I worried about whether they would grow up whole and functional. They were whole, functional, bright and conversant all along. They surprise and impress older friends, co-workers and classmates (when those temporary relationships do arise) with their energy and joy.



2006, from "To Be Fascinating at Cocktail Parties"
photo by Sandra Dodd
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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

Museum of the Random

I love thrift shops, charity shops, yard sales, flea markets, car boot sales. In The Netherlands, on the King's birthday, people are allowed to put things out in front of their houses, to sell. Then they need to wait a year. Albuquerque has an ordinance that says a family can have a garage sale or yard sale twice a year. Most people never do, and some have one nearly every week, so it all evens out.


I have some wonderful things with good stories, bought off a little table at a casual local fair at a hill fort in Cambridgeshire in 1979. From a yard sale in Colorado Springs in 1970, I got a Chinese Checkers board made of wood, with a set of marbles I still have. But even the names of the places are exotic and collectible: Wandlebury. Colorado Springs (called more locally "C-Springs" or "the Springs").

When digital cameras came along, I bought fewer things and spent less money for other people's used treasures. As museums and ever-changing collections, they are wonderous. Unlike "real museums," if you love something, you might be able to buy it! But you can probably pick it up and examine it, even if you don't take it home.

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd, at Family Thrift, not far from the house,
a shop to benefit programs for veterans of the Vietnam War

Better, happier, more peaceful

"Are there ways of living with people that can make life better, happier, more peaceful? Are there ways of living that can make life worse? Doesn't it make sense to choose to live together in a way that will make life better?"

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/deblewis
photo by Amber Ivey

Playing around

Usually it looks like we're just playing around. When it doesn't look like we're playing, I work on it. Unschooling works best when we're playing around. Much of our play involves words, music and humor. It has to do with merrily connecting the dots, in a real world way, and in a mental-connection way.

Jubilation and Triangulation
photo by Karen James
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Seeing and Doing

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

Go to parks, pick up sticks, ride bikes to new places, swing on the swing differently, make bubbles and blow them in front of a fan. Look at stars at night and try to find constellations, light things on fire with magnifying glass, roast hot dogs for dinner (it's cheap), the possibilities are limitless, but only if you choose to see them.

—Jenny Cyphers

Choose to see abundance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Joy and learning

If a family is looking for rules and passivity, they can create a lifetime of it. If a family wants joy and learning, the creation is a bit more difficult and unusual but doable!

SandraDodd.com/zombies
photo by Kristy Hinds
(at Bandelier National Monument)
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Time flows

Every ghost town used to be alive.

Every "haunted house" was once new.


An abandoned car started with good tires, a running engine, and a happy owner.

Each adult was a child.

The flow of history
photo by Karen James
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Helping

Joyce Fetteroll, small part of larger writing:

We can view children's needs as inconvenient for us or we can view them as people who need our help doing what they want to do.
. . . . We can be our kids partner in helping them get what they want in life or we can be the barrier that opens or closes according to our whim.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/yes
photo by Eva Witsel
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Tales of "Oops"

Advising about an easily frustrated child, Brie Jontry wrote:

Talking about your own frustrations and talking through your own "mistakes," etc, in a light way—not *to* him, but around him, where he can hear you—might be helpful.

I did a lot of: "Ooops! I meant to cut the carrots length-wise instead of into circles. No big deal..." or "Hmmmm, I think next time, I'll do X first instead of Y" or whatever—talk to yourself, to your friends, to your partner about how you learn by doing. Short, light observations. No long drawn out monologues.

—Brie Jontry

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Free to play

Sylvia Woodman wrote:

I love the flexibility. The ability that we could travel whenever we want. Like we’re not tied to the school system. I love the fact that I can play. That I am free to play just as much as my kids are free to play. I like to do a lot of cooking. I like to experiment with a lot of recipes. We like to invite a lot of people over. We can have parties. We can play games. We don’t have to do what everybody else is doing. We’re free to not only do what’s right for us but what makes us happy. And I feel like by unschooling that provides a really nice framework for that to happen.

—Sylvia Woodman

SandraDodd.com/sylviawoodman/interview,
Sylvia Woodman, interviewed by Pam Laricchia
photo by Megan Valnes, in Italy
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