Will they "catch up"?

Q: If they decide to go to school, will they be able to catch up?

Some are already ahead. Maybe their handwriting won't have as much use, or they might need to learn mathematical notation and practice writing numbers by hand if they've been using computers and calculators and phones to to do calculations and to communicate.

So in a way they can be way ahead, but give the appearance of "being behind," because kids at school are using paper and pencil, rather than computers.

Another way to think about school is that when someone moves from a very different culture—Kenya, Japan—where the writing system or culture or language are extremely different, they catch up in a year or two. Someone from the same culture and language shouldn't have much problem.

SandraDodd.com/faq
photo by Stephanie Cone-Early
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Positively happier

When people ask about being happier and more positive, the answer can't help but be the same. BE happier. BE positive.

More positive
photo by Karen James, "the last sunset of 2018"

A drop of water

Karen James took this photo, and wrote of it, "A forest in a drop of water."

It reminded me of this, from "Disposable Checklists for Unschoolers":

Universe-in-a-Drop-of-Water Method: Can one intense interest come to represent or lead to all others? A mom once complained that her son was interested in nothing but World War II. There are college professors and historians who are interested in nothing but World War II. It can become a life's work. But even a passing interest can touch just about everything—geography, politics, the history and current events of Europe and parts of the Pacific, social history of the 20th century in the United States, military technology, tactics, recruitment and propaganda, poster art/production/distribution, advances in communications, transport of troops and food and supplies, espionage, prejudices, internment camps, segregation, patriotism, music, uniforms, insignia, religion....

---

Karen took a photo of a forest and of unschooling in a drop of water.

SandraDodd.com/checklists
photo by Karen James
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Sky show

Free show! Look up.

Trees change, clouds change, you might see stars, or the moon. Birds or flying machines might make special appearances.

Feel the air on your face. Breathe in peace. Summon up your gratitude.

From his perspective, a younger, smaller person might look up and see you, in the sky show.

Same sky, another view
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sun, or moon, or fire

Sometimes light is from an Aha!! lightbulb moment.
Sometimes light is more information, or seeing from a new angle, "in a new light."
Sometimes light is from the sun, or the moon, or a fire.
Sometimes light comes from just lightening up. (Not "lightning up," or "lighting up," so spelling will make a big difference, in those lights.)

Live lightly.



SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Kes Morgan-Davies

In the old days...

Sometimes when I see something unusual, rare, or notice something from a special angle, I think of how important an ability to draw was before there were cameras. Someone who didn't have a chance to draw, or couldn't draw from memory, wouldn't be able to share with others except with words. I like words, but I wouldn't be able to describe these chimneys, which I got to see from the roof of East Barsham Manor, in Norfolk.

Weird that I saw them.
Nice that I had a camera.
The builders had no idea, in 1620, that a camera would ever come along.

Abundant Beauty
photo by Sandra Dodd

Into the future

One of the most important things to remember is that we have choices. It's the choices we make, consciously or unconsciously, that take us into the future. —Karen James

SandraDodd.com/separation
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Laugh, think, smile

In a group chat on "wonder and awe," Marta wrote, to me:

Do you know what I have done lately whenever I'm feeling a bit down? I listen to one of your talks! It makes me laugh, it makes me think, it makes me smile, it makes me feel awe and it makes me go right back to my daughter and my husband and touch them and kiss them.

I love your voice, I love your laughter. It calms me, what can I say?

—Marta Venturini Machado
2012

The quote is from Wonder and Awe
and there are things to hear at SandraDodd.com/listen.
photo by Amber Ivey

Near and far

This apple was in yesterday's post. I didn't move it, I moved the camera.

That's my sister, on stage, singing and playing guitar. She isn't doing that all the time, but she was then.

It seems there are no people listening. There were a hundred of them, but mostly behind me, and outside the tent.

What any one of us sees isn't everything there is to see.

Here and there
photo by Sandra Dodd

The up side...

It's easy to think our "up" is everyone's up, and our focus is the obvious way of seeing. Let your children see in their own ways, and if you're lucky they will share with you.

"What's up?" can have a special new meaning.

Thinking and choosing (also upside down)
photo by Karen James

Seeing through

Most of what happens in the world, I will never see. Most of what happens in my own back yard, I don't see. Most of what I see, I don't understand, or fully consider. That's the way the world is. That's the way people are. You will see some beauty. You will understand some things.

SandraDodd.com/
photo by Kristy Hinds
So much, in that photo!

All of the days

Q: How will you know if they're learning?

A: Teachers need to measure and document because they need to show progress so they can get paid, and keep their jobs. They test and measure because they don't always know each child well.

Parents know a child is learning because they're seeing and discussing and doing things together every day. Not five days a week, or most of the year, but all of the days of their whole lives.


SandraDodd.com/faq
photo by Sarah Lawson
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Actually seeing it

Q:  How can families transition from more traditional methods of education to an unschooling approach?

A:  Unschooling involves seeing the world in a different way. Sometimes formal homeschooling families do some deschooling, but when switching to unschooling, more and different deschooling is needed, especially for the parents who have been involved in school and teaching and defending schooling for probably 20 or 30 years. The kids will be ready to unschool before the parents, usually.

It would help to be in contact with other unschoolers at playgroups or on the internet, and to meet unschooling families with children of various ages. It's difficult to imagine it, so it's easier to actually see it.

This new way of seeing the world involves seeing music in history, and science in geography, and art in math, and not talking about it. The last part is the hardest part.

I don't mean never talk about it. I mean don't say "Oooh, look! Science!" Once a person knows science is everywhere, and everything is connected to everything else, there will be nothing to talk about except the topic at hand, or where they're going or what they're seeing. The learning will happen without being labeled and sorted out. The labeling and sorting can prevent learning.

SandraDodd.com/successful
photo by Ester Siroky
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And behind that...

Think of something. What's on the other side of that? Remember something. What came before that? Imagine something. What could follow? See something. Remember there is more than you can see.

The words are new, but this is a cousin:
Perspective: Looking back, looking around

photo by Caren Knox, who described it as
"La bella luna, flirting from behind our tree"

A small, beautiful thing

Beauty can be found in small things.

Inside, outside
photo by Orion Larson
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Thames and shadow

It was a sunny day, in England, to get a shadow like that.

Shadows prove sunshine.

SandraDodd.com/light
2011 photo by Sandra Dodd, from the Royal Windsor Wheel
which is hardly ever there

Special times

Seasonal lighting, favorite food, special music and colorful clothing—you don't even need to wait for a holiday!

SandraDodd.com/generosity

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Oxygen

Get oxygen into that part of you that fears the tiny monsters.

SandraDodd.com/TinyMonsters
photo by Gail Higgins
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Learning, peace and kindness

Learning, peace and kindness make marriages better.

(and friendships, and partnerships with children)

SandraDodd.com/partners/
photo by Karen James, of a painting by Karen James

A tiny change of course

A different approach to life yields a very different set of results.

You don't have to turn 180 degrees from the way you would have lived before you decided to parent differently. At first it might seem pretty close. But as you move further from the starting point, you will see what a difference a tiny change of course made.

SandraDodd.com/quotes
image by Sandra Dodd