It will be personal, and real, and at exactly the right moment.
photo by Chrissy Florence
The post was used six years ago, too, but here is a new link to go with it:
SandraDodd.com/conversation
Learning is defined not just as sucking in information about something the child is interested in. Learning is also figuring out the big picture and how things connect. Figuring out how stuff works, figuring out how people work, making connections, seeing patterns. This is a mechanical, biological process. It's how humans—all learning animals really—naturally learn, how kids are born learning.
Natural learning is like a doorway. We can't change the doorway but we can change the outside world so kids can more easily reach what intrigues them.
Learning does not teach us, but from learning we learn.I still haven't found her source, but in looking I found its "wordier" cousin posted here in 2011:
Is Unschooling Exhausting?My first thought is "compared to what?"
Happy, supported, trusted kids don't make the same choices as unhappy, controlled kids.—Joyce Fetteroll
The reason I used the method of speaking to each child separately, and ME going back and forth, rather than summoning them to where I was is that I was trying to comfort them and help them be safe and to be better people—people they would be glad to be. They don't like it when they're all frustrated. If I could tweak sibling behavior and comfort the aggrieved child, and then go to the other one with comfort and ideas, each was better prepared, in private, without a witness knowing what he was "supposed to do" the next time. That was important to me, to give them some privacy and some dignity, and some time to think without other people looking at them or praising my suggestion, or criticizing them further.
SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
or the same article in German: Bessere Partner werden
(though the quote is from a discussion)
photo by Sandra Dodd (it's a link)
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