Real people, real purposes

All the writing students do for teachers is pretend, practice writing. Every report written in school is a practice report, not a real report. Kids are writing about something that's already known, for people who don't really want to know. . . . . If you write about what you have done at your house, and what you thought about it, that's reporting about family relationships, child development, the results of different methods and ideas put into practice. . . . . Writing to real people for real purposes improves writing in real ways.

SandraDodd.com/realwriting
photo by Sandra Dodd
(my handwriting, but not my writing)

Reading (parts of) everything

"What unschooling really is" can't easily be defined, because some people use it vaguely, admitting they don't understand.

Parents need to understand their own unschooling clearly enough to defend it. It might take a while, and discussions can help people see it better, but discussions are about information and resources, so read everything you can find, and hold every piece of info up to the light, overlay the ideas on your own family and beliefs, and adopt slowly and carefully, any changes you make.

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What's above was adapted from a recent facebook post. I was referencing that particular discussion, and by "read everything you can find," I meant the links left there, which are mostly from my site and from Joyce Fetteroll's.

Reading everying you can find would work well with Just Add Light and Stir. If you're reading e-mail on a phone, click under "You can read this post online." There will be a randomizer, at the bottom.

Better yet, open the blog from a computer and use the randomizer or the image tags. Tags will let you see many of whatever you've chosen—posts good enough to repeat or re-run; gates; waterfalls; paths; cats doing cool things; kids doing cool things; dads; playgrounds.... The tags are a beautiful and soothing randomizing feature.

My favorite definition of unschooling is:

Unschooling is creating and maintaining an atmosphere in which natural learning can flourish.

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SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Cara Jones

Enjoy the landscape

Karen James wrote in 2012:

My nine-year-old son ran into the kitchen yesterday while I was fixing a snack for us to take back to our game of Minecraft saying he had finally figured out how to make a "logic gate" using redstone. He was jumping up and down, so thrilled with his accomplishment. I wasn't even sure what a logic gate was, nor how to make one. We quickly returned to the game where he proceeded to educate me by building trap after trap for me to trip, and invention after invention to me to use, all using this new skill he figured out. We played for over two hours together, at which point he stopped and said he wanted to see if his friend was available to play out back with him. I stayed at the game for a bit, building, and trying to figure out what he had done 😉

A good chunk of our days are filled with gaming, and I wouldn't change a moment of it. My son is learning so much, is healthy both physically and emotionally, and truly loves his life. What more could I hope for?! (And, BTW, inviting media into our lives was a stretch for me at first too. I know the fears. I read all the studies. But after a few years of living this life, I also know my fears were unfounded. But as Alexandra and Sandra say...don't go too fast. You'll see more. Enjoy the new landscape!)

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/videogames/
image by Karen James, Ethan and Nick, in October 2012

More dots to connect

If one thing makes you think of another thing, you form a connection between them in your mind. The more connections you have, the better access you have to cross-connections. The more things something can remind you of, the more you know about it, or are learning about it.

Flat representations can't show these connections. Neither could an elaborate three-dimensional model, because when you consider what a thing is or what it's like, you not only make connections with other concepts, but experiences and emotions. You will have connections reaching into the past and the future, connections related to sounds, smells, tastes and textures. The more you know about something, the more you can know, because there are more and more hooks to hang more information on—more dots to connect.

I got the idea for this kind of graph from Trust the Children: A Manual and Activity Guide for Homeschooling and Alternative Learning by Anna Kealoha.

Here's a simple mathematical example:

But being more "cross-disciplinary" about it, not limiting to just one area, we've played with them more like this:

And any of those can become "the center" and branch out to everything else in the whole wide world. But at the heart of this exercise is what is and what isn't: What IS a thing, and what is not the thing? What is like it and what is unlike it?

CONNECTIONS: How Learning Works
graphs by Sandra Dodd, when Holly Dodd was thirteen years old

When is the test?

[As a kid in school...]
I asked fewer questions when I heard "that won't be on the test" for the dozenth time.

Then when I was teaching, too many kids asked me "Will this be on the test?"

That's when I came up with the test being the rest of their lives, and whether they'll get jokes, or be interesting people, and with "Everything counts."


Everything Counts (other posts going there)

image by Bill Watterson
If you're on facebook, you can click that image to see the original discussion. Other unschooling moms had thoughts on it, too.

Surrounded by words

My children learned to read without being taught. If my children were the only children in the history of the world who learned without being taught, it would still be a fact that some children have learned to read without lessons—that a child can learn to read without lessons.

But my children are not the only ones. There are many. There were many even before schools existed, though it was harder without being surrounded by talking video games and movies with subtitles and printed boxes all over the kitchen, and signs on every street and building and shelf.


Always Learning post, Sandra Dodd, 2010
photo by Denaire Nixon

Chaotic, random, effortless

"School is to unschooling as foreign language class is to learning to talk. The first is orderly, thorough, hard and hardly works. The second is chaotic, random, effortless and works like a charm."

—Joyce Fetteroll
July 2018

SandraDodd.com/definitions
photo by Rosie Moon

Encouragement back and forth

An unidentified reader wrote:

I wanted to say that this blog, out of all the blogs in the blogosphere, encourages me the most. It lets me know that my actually natural inclinations as a parent (to love, to focus on relationship, to care for the inside more than the outside) are what I should be listening to. It is so easy in this world to get mired down in how we *should* do something. I admit to falling for this time and time again. I just wanted you to know this blog to be a true inspiration for how to be not only a "good" unschooling parent, but just a good person. Thank you.

That was late 2013, but I came across it again in 2024. It's one of those I saved here: Feedback—Just Add Light and Stir

SandraDodd.com/feedback
photo and quote by Sandra Dodd; image by Holly Dodd

Paths and choices

"Your role isn't to set up a path for them to follow but to set up the environment for them to explore."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Sandra Dodd

More important

Melissa Raley wrote:

My daughter asked me to play a computer game with her and I told her that I "had" to clean the kitchen first. I got halfway between the computer and the kitchen, stopped, turned around, went back, told her I was sorry that the kitchen could wait, and played her game with her. She was so happy that I didn't care if the dishes rotted in the sink! 🙂 She only played for about five minutes but, I know that it will stick with her, that I found HER more important than the housework.

—Melissa Raley

SandraDodd.com/chores/relationship
photo by Jo Isaac

An interested and interesting adult

Someone wrote to me: "I’m starting to see why you admire John Holt. Will you tell me more about him?" I responded:

I admire his courage and his writings. ...

He wasn't married. He didn't have kids. What he learned he learned from other people's kids in classrooms and when visiting in their homes, and he was SO interested in kids that their lives were different just for his being there, so what he saw often was how a child is in the presence of a really interested and interesting adult. That's the part I want to emulate.

Because John Holt was SO interested in children, every time he interacted with one, he saw a child interacting with a fascinated adult. THIS is one of the things unschoolers need to remember. When the adult brings boredom, cynicism, criticism and doubt to the table, that's what he'll see and that's how he'll see it, and it will be no fault of the child's whatsoever.

SandraDodd.com/johnholt
photo by Sandra Dodd

Be there, listening

Deb Lewis wrote:

Once you’re really listening to your kids and not your sense of injustice, you’ll find that answering them and interacting with them is intellectually rewarding and stimulating and fun. It’s not something you *have* to do. It’s something you *get* to do for a very little while. You can’t change this need your kids have right now. You can only change how you see it, how you think about it and meet it. And that’s good because that’s entirely in your power to do.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Sandra Dodd
in Northern Ireland, years ago

Learning what they know

"How do you know they're learning?" The people who ask that question are looking at the world through school-colored glasses. Those same parents knew when their children could use a spoon. They knew when the child could drink out of a cup. They knew when walking and talking and bike riding had been learned.

Here's how I learned that Kirby knew about the Huns: He was waiting for me to give him a ride, while I was talking on the phone to a local mom who was considering homeschooling. We were discussing unit studies, and I said they weren't necessary, that people just keep learning their whole lives. "You can't finish China," I said, and Kirby commented dryly, "The Huns tried that."

So, on my mental checklist, I note Kirby identifying the Huns, using the word in a sentence, knowing a dab about Chinese history. But was I testing? Was he reporting? Neither. He was just making a joke. And it was sufficient for me to discover what he knew.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Jihong Tang

Be amazed

When someone asked"What are some good ways to teach a 3 1/2 year old during a grocery store visit?" Joyce Fetteroll responded:

Don't teach. Just look at *everything* with new eyes and you'll see how amazing:

automatic doors and scanners and scales and deli ticket machines are and all the different kinds of fish and lobsters and

how many different sounds you can hear when you close your eyes and

the man wearing a polka dot bow tie and

how high up the cereal is stacked (lift her up to get one🙂) and

whether there are more tie shoes or slip ons on the people in the store and

how you can draw pictures on the inside of the glass doors of the freezer after they're opened and they frost over and

whether the different coffee beans and candles and apples smell different and

whether she likes blueberries or raspberries or blackberries better and

how many different kinds of circle cereal there are and

how the different types of potatoes feel and

whether people say Hi when you say Hi to them and

how many different kitties or different types of pets there are on the products in the pet food aisle and

whether the stories in the Weekly World News are true or not (well, maybe for an older kid since at 3 *anything* is possible) 🙂 and

whether you recognize the Muzak version of the song playing and....

Just live life amazed. 🙂

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/discovery
photo by Sandra Dodd, 2009, Norfolk, UK
__

Food without evil

When food is given the status of a religion (the place where sacrifices are made to ensure a positive outcome and long/eternal life), then there IS the necessity of a devil/Satan/"the dark side." When food is just another casual part of life, kids will choose melons over biscuits/cookies and chocolate eggs sometimes.

SandraDodd.com/sacrifice/
photo by Trevor Parker, later edited by Holly Dodd
(click it)

A whole, happy human

Health is much more than input/output. You cannot, by a dietary chart, create a whole, happy human. It is possible, by dietary restrictions and by shame to take a potentially healthy person and make them sad and avoidant of those foods and the people who were providing them.

from a discussion on limiting food
photo by Sarah S.

Learn-Nothing-Day Eve

Learn what you need to learn before midnight. Have a great holiday and vacation! Hope it's smooth and peaceful, relaxing and restorative.

New Logo Credits (2020, new)
image created of photos by thirteen people, all credited at the link above.

On changing

A mom named Sara P. wrote:

This is still an ongoing process for me. I had to re-train myself in a lot of ways. I had to learn a new language. I had to learn to SEE again. I had to learn how to communicate. I had to learn patience. I had to learn how to put others first. .....WOW! Sometimes an old thought will creep in. Sometimes I find myself answering a question in *teacher tone*...but it is so few and far between, and I am so quick to catch it that nobody ever notices except me!

—Sara P

SandraDodd.com/change/stories
photo by Marin Holmes

Honest enthusiasm

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Think in terms of nurturing your own enthusiasm about life rather than nurturing their enthusiasm. Don't jump up and down about George Washington if he puts you to sleep. Be honest in your pursuit of what interests you. Let them see that you think something is really cool. Not to get them interested in something you think would be good for them but an honest "Wow! I love this stuff!" And ask questions about life. Be curious. Because it's the questions that are important. Anyone can look up the answers but not everyone can ask the questions.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/talk
(includes a link to a French translation)
photo by Marin Holmes

Trivia

Carousels, merry-go-rounds... American-made carousels go counter-clockwise. In the UK, they call that "anti-clockwise," and theirs go clockwise.

Is that worth knowing? Maybe not, but I think it's interesting.

Where I live, in the U.S., horses don't have names on them, except at Disneyland, pretty much. The "King Arthur Carrousel" in Disneyland was made in Canada, over 100 years ago—before Disneyland. I don't know whether the Canadian builders used two "r"s in the name, or if Walt Disney liked the alternative spelling. If you think any of this is interesting, you can read more here, about the one at Disneyland.

I took the photo above, at a fair in England. Lol is a nickname for Laurence, there (and old guys are named Laurence, not so many young kids), so that horse was named after someone who was called "Lol" instead of "Larry," and not named after laughing out loud.

How many small facts and connections can one person hold? I don't think there's a limit.

It's easier to learn a thing if you already know something else kind of like it. Connections!

It's All Information
photo by Sandra Dodd