Really unschooling

Gradually, steadily, consider what might be better, how you would like to be, and what you have learned will help.

Be in the immediate presence of your own child, with the awareness and knowledge you can use to make that moment better.

The kinder thing, the better thing
photo by Nina Haley

Ease, joy, and sparkle

"Unschooling, for me, works better as a practice and less well as an identity. I can always get close, understand the problem better, and lean on unschooling principles to find more ease, joy, and sparkle."

—Tara Joe Farrell

SandraDodd.com/unschool/sparkly
photo by Cátia Maciel (her camera, anyway)

Interest in things

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Get interested in things yourself. Not interested in your child getting educated, but in learning for yourself. Pursue an interest you've always wanted to but never had time for. Be curious about life around you. Look things up to satisfy your own curiosity. Or just ponder the wonder of it all. Ask questions you don't know the answers to. "Why are there beautiful colors beneath the green in leaves?" "Why did they build the bridge here rather than over there?" "Why is there suddenly more traffic on my road than there used to be?"

—Joyce Fetteroll

Most of the third of Five Steps to Unschooling
photo by Nina Haley

Unexpected experiences

Unschoolers have experiences other homeschoolers don’t have.

Unschoolers know things that teachers can’t learn in or around school.

Unschoolers who start early enough can have relationships with their children for which there are hardly any words.

That lizard looks like it's in the air, but it was on the windshield. The driver didn't expect to see a lizard there. There was a time she didn't expect to arrange for her children to stay home instead of go to school, either.

What seems shocking, at first, can end up quite interesting, safe and peaceful.

Unforeseen Benefits of Unschooling
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran

Living well without boredom

From Wikipedia, about boredom:

There are three types of boredom, all of which involve problems of engagement of attention. These include times when we are prevented from engaging in some wanted activity, when we are forced to engage in some unwanted activity, or when we are simply unable, for no apparent reason, to maintain engagement in any activity or spectacle.

If that list is to be accepted, then unschooling parents can avoid boredom by finding ways to help children engage in wanted activities, not pressing them to engage in unwanted activities, and provide options to any activity or spectacle. (I'm thinking having quiet toys, a book, a Gameboy, smart phone or iPad on hand.

Boredom and unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd

Small choices

If you decide how you want your home to be, and then make choices that get you nearer to that, things will get gradually better.

If you don't decide, or if you don't think of it many times a day when you make small choices, and decide how to act and react, then things won't get better.

Not every step will be forward, but if most of them are, then you'll make progress.

SandraDodd.com/progress
photo by Janine Davies

Warmth and peace

"I'm amazed at not only the change in me but also how the little changes in our family form random, occasional pockets of warmth and peace. Hopefully, those little pockets will get larger and more frequent until we are fairly awash in it!"

an expression of appreciation for discussions
photo by Sandra Dodd
(sunlight flashing through a faceted amber-glass leaf)

Shapes and meanings

Toddlers want to name things. They're learning words. This picture might show a circle and a square.

For an older child, thoughts might be about "window" or port hole or whether it's still a window if you can't see through it.

Some adults might think about materials or purposes, and others about what plant is portrayed and why.

Things are seen at different levels and depths by different people in different circumstances. Connections are made to prior imagery and knowledge in each viewer. Thoughts of what something is or isn't, and ideas about what it is like or unlike, are the thoughts learning is made of.

That's how learning works.

Connections: How Learning Works
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Windows, and grown children

The pandemic made me appreciate the views from windows. I loved seeing so many exotic window views shared on facebook.

My youngest has her own house now. For a few months, she had a housemate, who is pregnant. The baby's father died, during the pregnancy. Holly had known the friend years ago, and invited her in to rest and recover.

A few days ago, Holly let me know she had been 200 miles away, overnight, helping the roommate move to another town to be with her mom, in a new place. This view is from that new window.

I brought that story to let you know that someday those little children at your house will grow up, and you might find them being compassionate and generous in ways you will only learn about after the fact. They will see beauty, out windows in other places, and might send you a photo.

SandraDodd.com/generosity
photo by Holly Dodd

Limitations

Sometimes limitations are physical. Sometimes they have to do with resources, weather, health, fears and random happenstance.

There are no guarantees, but appreciation and gratitude are better than any of their opposites.

Above and beyond limitations; underneath and through limitations
photo by Karen James
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Frames

I love images where something shows through something else—natural frames, tunnels, windows, holes...

photo by Ester Siroky, in Turkey
more of Ester's photos on Just Add Light and Stir

Enthusiasm and curiosity

Sometimes an adult who had learned not to learn, or had grown up to be self-conscious about enthusiasm and curiosity, rediscovers the joy of discovery. SandraDodd.com/curiosity
photo by Ester Siroky

An atmosphere of wonder

Think in terms of creating an atmosphere of wonder where people are genuinely curious about life and where there are intriguing things to be curious about.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Cally Brown

The possibility of restoration

So with radical unschooling it is possible for a family, even who skipped that part—even who didn’t have infant bonding—to, as much as possible, restore a relationship between the parents and the children, where the parents really do care about what the children think and want, more then they look in the book and see what a six-year-old should think or want.

This was inspired by Family Bonding, Amy Childs interviewing me,
and there is a transcript!
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Perspective, attitude, emotion

I love my children and think they're really important, and that it is part of my privilege to be their mom and to introduce them to the fun and interesting parts of the world, and I hold them in esteem. They are of higher value to me than other things and other people. That isn't respect they had to earn. But it's emotional and it's attitudinal, and it's relative to me. —Sandra Dodd, in 2010

This and a bit more, near the bottom of a page on respect.
photo by Sandra Dodd (sprouts growing in my kitchen recently)

Better biochemicals

Once I jokingly complained that a package of citric acid was marked "chemical free." Several people joked entertainingly, but a couple were humorless and critical.

I noted:
Citric acid IS a chemical. Looking for harm is, in itself, harmful. Fear and negativity stir up chemicals your own body makes, that aren't good for you. Induce the better biochemicals by being sweet, hopeful and calm.

original discussion, on facebook

or a page on the irrational fear of chemicals: SandraDodd.com/chemicals
photo of a navel orange slice hanging by thread, by Sandra Dodd
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Learning, not being taught

Weeding out terminology we would prefer not to mean improves thinking.
. . . .Every time someone says "taught" or "teach" they can slip back into the whole school thing and be seeing the world through school-colored glasses. If they do what it takes, mentally and emotionally, to recast their reports and then their thoughts in terms of who *learned* something, then they can start to see the world in terms of learning.

The last holdout for some people is "he taught himself..." but maybe that should be the FIRST to go. Teaching comes from someone WITH skills or knowledge passing them on to those without them. If I taught myself to play guitar, I would have had to have known how first.
. . . .I learned from everything around me, from trial and error, from watching others and asking questions.

The information was being sucked in by me, not pushed in by me or anyone else. I didn't PUT the information inside me, I drew it in.

SandraDodd.com/control
photo by Sandra Dodd, of bricks with Florida on the other side

Be light

Whether it's warm outside or cold, the sun through the window is the same. Be light.

SandraDodd.com/mindfulness

words originally at Sunshine, November 2016
photo by Amber Ivey

A gift for the child and the parent

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

Every time I prevent something damaging happening to one of my children, it's like healing a little bit of me. Every time I help my children achieve something wonderful, it's a little bit like healing that little girl that would've like that to happen for me! I love gifting my kids with that! It helps make me a better person to give my kids something better!

—Jenny Cyphers

on Always Learning, in 2010
photo by Janine Davies
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Photos, thank you

When I came to choose a photo, I looked through the past week's to find something that wasn't too similar to something I've just used.

When the blog was new, most of the photos were mine. I didn't think it would last ten years, but it has, and others have let me have some of their photos, for the pool from which I choose.

Without it being planned, the past seven photos are from Moldova, England, the eastern U.S., Northern Ireland, The Netherlands, Brazil, and the western U.S.

The week before that, Oklahoma, The Czech Republic, California, France, my home town of Española, New Mexico; more California (thank you, Karen James!)

There have been, and will be, photos from many other places, too. I hope you will continue to be soothed and amused by these images, from unschoolers, of what they're seeing, or being.

For reading, thank you.

photo by Colleen Prieto

More snow photos, mostly; mentions, maybe

If you're at a computer, or in webview, try this for fun: Mosaic