Paleolithic unschooling?

Would you rather live in the stone age, or live now?

(Hint: You don't actually have a choice.)

Brie Jontry, responding to someone who said unschooling was the closest to paleolithic, and that unschooling has worked for countless generations:

Paleolithic families had Internet and Netflix and PS3s? Did they have park days and YouTube? Were their parents distinctly turning their backs on the dominant culture and letting them learn in ways that felt kinder and gentler? Were they, in many cases, living at significantly lower income levels so one parent could stay home, at least part-time?

Unschooling is nothing at all like paleolithic life.

Unschooling has worked for a generation or two, but it hasn't been working for countless generations. That kind of thinking might get you all bound up in confusion as your son gets older and more aware of the modern world, and it may hinder your own ability to define what it is your family is actually doing.

—Brie Jontry

Brie's response was longer, and a little scary (in good ways):
SandraDodd.com/reality
photo by Karen James

Good for a long time

If parents don't heal from those kinds of issues in their own childhoods, they will likely be perpetuated onto the next generation. Parents discovering and letting go of their old baggage is essential for unschooling to flourish.

And, as well as being good for unschooling, it's also good for the parents themselves, their children, family and other relationships, and generations to come!

—Debbie Regan

SandraDodd.com/issues
photo by Nicole Kenyon

Which direction?

Each journey begins with a single step, they say, but steps in the wrong direction don't get you to a good place. Milling around for a thousand steps without regard to the intended goal isn't "a journey."

SandraDodd.com/direction
photo by Jihong Tang

Power and worth

"What creates power and worth is taking single, conscious steps toward being the kind of person one would like to be. Making better choices."

Marta Venturini quoted me, on Facebook, in June 2011, and I can't find the quote elsewhere, to link to. It might've been on a recording or in a chat that was never published, maybe.

What's most interesting to me is that yesterday's post here was me (in 2009) discouraging someone from a focus on "power" (It's not about power), and the day before that was about things being "worthwhile." (Is it worthwhile?)

Here and there, over the years, I have reminded parents to avoid situations in which a child feels powerless. Life has realities, and we don't always have choices. Parents should avoid casual neglect of providing options for unschooled kids at home. You probably have the power to do that.


Thoughtful and sweet
photo by Cátia Maciel

An evolving life

"I didn't get it. I thought I did. But it's like mowing the lawn, or dishes, or laundry, or being their mom...it will always be evolving, because it isn't an it. It is life."

—Shan Burton

SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Gail Higgins

Concerned and attentive

Just as being kinder and gentler with a child makes one a kinder, gentler parent, being more attentive and concerned about a spouse or partner makes that person, in turn, more attentive and concerned.

It doesn't happen all at once, and you can't send them the bill. You can't count or measure it. It has to be selfless and generous. Your kindness needs to be given because it makes you kinder, not because you want any further reward.


From The Big Book of Unschooling, page 270 (page 311, in 2nd edition)

Also see: SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Marin Holmes

What peace is not

To have more peace, it helps to know what is NOT peace, so those harsh states can be avoided.

Outrage is not healthy for unschooling parents.

It's not healthy for anyone, for very long, but it works against unschooling.

Outrage is BIG, visceral, adrenaline-filled RAGE. If your "outrage" is any smaller, use a different word.

SandraDodd.com/outrage has a Donald-Duck demonstration.
photo by Marta Venturini, of her peaceful husband

Peace and use

In response to a question in a discussion once, I wrote:

Don't think of your brain. Think of your mind and of your awareness. A little tiny brain can hold a LOT of information. A big fat one can fail to do so. It's not size, it's peace and use.

Shan Burton responded:

OH! This just resonated through my mind and awareness.

What a concise, clear way of expressing it. It feels to me like this is the difference between unschooling learning and school learning. School learning is focused (and not so well, maybe) on pouring things into brains.

Unschooling is about learning, and engagement, and connections, and awareness of things that can get deeper and deeper, throughout life. It works that way for kids and for adults.

Peace and use. I feel like bit is going to be connecting to lots of other things in my mind and awareness for some time to come...

—Shan Burton,
most of that

Those quotes, and more, in context: SandraDodd.com/awareness
photo by Denaire Nixon

Beliefs and priorities

Principles instead of rules means not to decide in advance what you're going to do, but to know what you believe and what your priorities are, and then to make decisions based on that. Not to behave arbitrarily, but thoughtfully.

Principles of Learimg (chat transcript)
photo by Holly Dodd, 2014, India

Children see it

A mom named Nancy, in western Canada, wrote:

Again and again my kids can catch me when I am falling, and help me see the wonder of the small things.I feel so blessed to have this time with them.

—Nancy in BC

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Nicole Ní Néill.

Can't see everything

No matter how far you look or imagine, you can't see everything. Children are growing in a living world.

When you look ahead, as far as you can see, look for beauty.

When you look behind, as far as you can, remember the good things.

SandraDodd.com/abundance

photo by Stacie Mahoe

Learning to learn

How will they learn to learn?

By learning.

How will they learn everything they need to know?
photo by Roya Dedeaux

The nature of things

Things do what they can do. Some things we affect, and others we can't.

Rivers are flowing whether people are looking or not.

Children play, and ask questions, and examine new things, and ideas.

Children will learn whether people are looking or not, but for unschooling to work well, parents should be involved in providing an environment of safe, soft, interesting materials and experiences. They should be new and different sometimes and comfortingly familiar sometimes. Not the same all the time.

When relationships are comfortable and adults are attentive, learning will flow even when you're not looking.

In Full Flow
photo by Karen James

Positively winning

Someone else's question, and part of my answer:

As much as I read,... I seem to slide right back into schoolish ways. How long does it take to really break that bad habit?

Forever.

If you think of it in negative terms ("bad" and not just "break" but "really break"), you will just sit in that negativity, frustrated, forever. You will feel there had to be a winner (you) or a loser (you) and you will be angry with yourself.

The change you need is to live a different way. Step out of the grumpy dark into the calm decision-making choose-joy light.

SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Sandra Dodd

That was written before "Read a little, try a little, wait a while watch." It was also before the pages on Negativity and Positivity.

Relative sizes

New unschoolers are often afraid. If you feel fear, that's natural. If you've taken a child out of school, there is still a school there you could put him back into, so if your fear is that it's a once and forever decision, it's not. Schools are right there, still.

If you feel that you're turning your back on your entire culture, take a deep breath and note that when you turn your back on school, all that's behind you is a school. What's not school is infinite. What is school is small.

Fears
photo by Roya Dedeaux

quote is from page 16, Big Book of Unschooling

Gradually, but hurry

Gradually move toward doing it right now. Halfway between "very gradual" and "do it right now" is the place to be, while you're learning about unschooling.

Stalling and hesitation take time away from your future unschooling peace and success!

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Diane Marcengill

Respond thoughtfully

To say "yes" reflexively is no more mindful than saying "no" thoughtlessly.

—Sylvia Woodman

Mindful and Thoughtful
photo by Gail Higgins

It's about learning.

Unschooling is about learning, and not about teaching. Unschooling parents rely on their children's native, undamaged curiosity and on the interesting world around them.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/successful
photo by Nina Haley

Simple needs

Joyce Fetteroll, in helping others untangle ideas and prejudices about what children think they "need":

If someone needs three glasses of water a day and only gets two, they'll spend the rest of the day trying to get that third glass. So it will seem to others like this person's constantly thirsty and can never get enough. But if he gets three glasses and can have as many as he wants, he won't seem thirsty at all.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/needs
photo by Karen James

Compassion, for a minute

Yesterday I played with a stranger's five-year-old granddaughter in a waiting room. It helped the child, and her grandmother, it gave me something good to do while I waited, and she was quieter so it might have helped those in the room who weren't feeling well. The little girl was one of those, so the distraction helped her forget she was at a clinic. I gave her tissues and told her mine were softer than those in the box on the table. Her grandmother thanked me.

Looking for a quote for this post, I found something 11 years old. Part of it was this:

Each day for a year, could you add one minute to the time you spend with a child? Any child. One extra minute. If you can infuse that moment with love or compassion, bonus!

I suppose that would be a minute you could be doing something else, but I doubt it would be something better.

The longer writing, with another story: 1/11/11
photo by Sarah S.