History, in a word

A parent cannot decipher words for a child. Only the child can decipher written language. You can help! You can help LOTS of ways. One way would be to gain an interest in the words you use yourself, and stop once in a while to examine one, its history, why it means what it means.

Here are some fun practice words you can probably figure out without looking them up, maybe.

Cambridge
breakfast
trailer
another
never

SandraDodd.com/etymology
These days, you might be able to ask Siri or Alexa for the etymology of a word.
photo by Sandra Dodd

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

Artsy collections

This photo is of home decorating, artistry, collecting and storytelling. Everything in the picture has a story. Some might be "found it," or "made it," but those stories would involve where, and how, and when.

Not everyone can arrange a collection interestingly or harmoniously. One of the greatest forms of artistry is arranging a display of paintings in a museum, or organizing a gift shop so that the visit itself seems a gift.

But wait! Look at the duck shadow! Beauty pops up wherever you see it.
Tree of Knowledge Motif is an example of an online collection.
photo by Colleen Prieto

History is Here

History is here—in the appliances and furniture we have in our homes, the medications and bandages and toothpastes we use, popular music and movies, and the available bicycles, skis, computers and candy.


If that seems wrong, look at photos from 1919, or read accounts of what they had, for those things listed above. What were the soles of their shoes made of? What games did they play? How many presidents or kings or prime ministers had there been then? (Depending where you're from, adjust the question—your country might not even have existed in 1919).

SandraDodd.com/Trivial History
photo by Holly Dodd, of two trucks and a jeep, a mailbox
and a tumbleweed, at a farm where she works sometimes
(The truck on the right is hers, but belonged to her grandfather before.)
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Fascinating and important

Joyce Fetteroll, responding years ago to someone looking for the educational content in Thomas the Tank Engine:

I think it helps not to see it as educational content, because what he’s getting out of it that’s important to him very likely doesn’t look at all like something taught in school.

He may be absorbing things about relationships, accents, effective story telling techniques, the usefulness of color and so on. All those are really fascinating and important to some people and figure largely in the careers they choose.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/peace/newview
photo by Sandra Dodd

Ideas, pulled in

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Teaching is pouring knowledge over a child. Whether a child takes it in is not in the teacher's power. Which is why teachers punish and reward to make not taking in an idea less pleasant.

Learning is a child pulling in ideas. Those ideas are most full of life when those ideas connect to other ideas the child is fascinated by. It makes no difference if those ideas connect along a particular path. Which is why natural learning looks so chaotic and meandering compared to school.

It makes it hard to create an environment for a child to explore freely and pull in what fascinates them when someone is unschooling through a fog of TEACH.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/teaching/problem
photo by Amber Ivey
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Words where they live

What writing needs is a large range of things that begin and expand outside of and away from "paper" or writing of any sort. A familiarity with the range of the language, of voice and tone (without knowing those words, it's easy), of funny words, scary words, plain and fancy words. That comes from listening to comedy, watching award-winning films, and YouTube videos, reading (or hearing someone read) comics, artsy menus, advertisements, legal notices, warning signs, brass plaques on government buildings. Tweets. Posts on yahoogroups or facebook. Post cards. Business letters and birthday cards.




SandraDodd.com/writing/seeing
photo by Sandra Dodd (for this post, of things I could see and reach without getting up)

Sparkly and joyful

Choices in an environment maintained with learning in mind are different from choices in a quiet, boring place. If I were a kid, my choice in a quiet, boring place would be to go to school.

Make your unschooling sparkly and joyful.


SandraDodd.com/schoolchoice (righthand box halfway down)
photo by Sandra Dodd

When is writing "real"?

Somewhere between writing nothing and being a wealthy professional author, many people write in the middle ground, and others' lives are changed.

Other Voices
The quote is from SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tactful tactics

Tact is not a rule.

Tact is making a strategic, thoughtful decision after considering as many factors as the person has access to. Tactful. Tactics.

Tact is not about rules. Tact is about not burning bridges, not losing friends, not screwing things up. Tact is about being a good member of a social team. Tact is what helps a person maneuver a difficult situation and be praised and thanked later. Tact is what can get someone invited back over again. Tact is a WONDERFUL thing to have. It is one of the best things anyone could have.

SandraDodd.com/courtesy
photo by Karen James
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A fun, new song

The separation of learning and fun is the only thing that keeps learning from BEING fun.

Perhaps this will be seen as preaching to the choir, but I prefer to think of it as teaching a new song to an experienced, enthusiastic choir.

Living becomes learning
photo by Holly Dodd

Everything else

A mom once expressed excitement about strewing books. I wrote and said strewing books wasn't the best way to strew. She asked "What else is there to strew?"

I wrote:
         "Everything else."
And then I listed a few dozen things, which are saved at the link below.

My kids have been interested in books and documentaries, but if I only "counted" that, or thought those were more valuable than the other connections, unschooling would fizzle.

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sparkly thoughts and moods

When someone said she should make her house seem more sparkly, I wrote:

Not seem. No pretending.

Not your house. Your thoughts, your interactions, your moods, your responses. Sparkling, like sparkling from one thought to another, connecting a picture with a song with a joke with a movie with a dog.

Sparkly ideas
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Enjoy it!

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

What do I regret? EVERY minute that I spent worrying over whether the house was clean. That would be my biggest regret. THAT was wasted worry. . . . . I have learned to LOVE doing the dishes. I don't DO them without enjoying it. I either enjoy it or don't do it. Appreciate or enjoy or at least feel pleasant&mdashI don't have to be deliriously happy. So sometimes they don't get done. But usually they do. And nobody in my house ever has bad feelings about dishes anymore. —Pam Sorooshian

Quote from Chat with Pam Sorooshian;
Ideas match Dishes.
photo by Sandra Dodd

No assembly required

My favorite definition of unschooling is providing an environment in which learning can flourish. School prescribes what should be learned, and in what order. Then they build an assembly line, and put all the students on it. The reward those who get through easily, and punish others. School at home is like an assembly line for one.


Learning for Fun: Interview with Sandra Dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd, in an antique shop,
in Ashford, Surrey
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He will learn.

When a child’s life is full of sights, sounds, tastes, smells, textures, people and places, he will learn. When he feels safe and loved, he will learn. When parents begin to recover from their own ideas of what learning should look like (what they remember from school), then they begin a new life of natural learning, too.

a 2012 interview at Mommy-Labs
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Look up and smile

Some mom reading here might look up and smile at her child, or touch his head softly, or turn off the computer and go watch him build with Lego, or go with him to the park to throw a frisbee for the dog. Maybe without this discussion, she would've told him to just go do something else because she had to fix dinner.

SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully
photo by Robin Bentley

Artsy imaginings

Art, arrangements, sculpture—any art—is based on a vision or a mental image. Viewers interpret that, and respond, sometimes with thought, words, or responsorial art of some sort. Then someone will see that art, or comment, or review, and reference it somehow.

These are connections, sometimes wordless, and that is learning, even when it's far from facts and figures.

Writey-Drawey
Art about Art
photo by Heather Booth
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A new understanding of service

Clare Kirkpatrick wrote:

One of the things that has enabled me to really begin to understand unschooling has been a new understanding of the word 'service'.
. . . .
Now the word 'service' has only positive associations for me and is linked with the words 'honour' and 'privilege' and 'joy'. And I think also 'gratitude'. There is nothing richer than making someone's life more joyful and I get to do that at home and at work for the people in our society who need it the most.

—Clare Kirkpatrick

Longer original (you'll see what I slightly changed), lower right:
SandraDodd.com/service
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Little lightshow

Somewhere in your house is a little lightshow. Be ready to appreciate it.

SandraDodd.com/light
photo by Brie Jontry