Meeting needs

If the child isn't hungry, tired, afraid or feeling unloved, there should be no problem with curiosity and the desire to experience other things.

SandraDodd.com/maslow
image amended by someone in the U.K., 2013, uncredited, probably not an unschooler, but I like it!

Learn Nothing Day

Shhhhh.... don't scare him.

photos by Holly Dodd
Almogordo, 2009

Limits? Focus elsewhere.

Carol Brown, responding to the comment "Not being able to read can limit them":

They are also limited by their lack of height—but I'm not going to stretch them on the rack each night, to try and fix that.🙂 They are limited by not being able to drive—but I wouldn't let a 6 yo drive my car to the library! Reading is just one of many things they are limited by. I have found it is better to focus on the things they can do, or can nearly do, and help where they want help, rather than try to make / bribe / tempt / cajole / whatever / them into trying to learn things they aren't ready for. And many kids, especially boys, but some girls too, simply aren't ready for reading until later.

The main problem for a late reader is the negative input from others. Homeschool kids can be protected from a lot of that—providing the parents aren't the ones exuding the negativity!

—Carol Brown

SandraDodd.com/r/carolbrown
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp/Ripandeep Saran
(her boy, not one of Carol's)

Choosing fruit

Bernadette Lynn wrote:

My son isn't restricted in what he eats. He came into the kitchen yesterday to ask me if there were any biscuits (cookies), but stopped mid-sentence when he noticed a melon on the counter and asked for that instead. So he ate a whole honeydew melon, instead of biscuits (which we did have). It's the second one he's eaten since I bought them at the weekend.

The melon was sitting next to his uneaten Easter egg, but he ignored that.

—Bernadette Lynn

SandraDodd.com/eating/sweets
photo of Holly Dodd by Trevor Parker,
text added by Holly later

Watch and learn

It is my long considered opinion, my eventual conviction, that trying to control TV based on the mother's judgment of what the child seems to be learning is

1) saying more about the mom than the TV or the child

2) putting a value on TV that treating it like any other book or toy or piece of furniture can never create

3) betraying the claim to believe learning is everywhere

4) usually indicative of the parent's NOT watching TV with the child.

I have watched Ninja Turtles cartoons, and movies. I have watched Power Rangers, and analyzed plots and characters with kids.

Power Rangers would not have been my first choice.

Being with my kids and seeing the world from their viewpoint and trying to help them figure it out was my first choice.

SandraDodd.com/t/debate
photo from a workshop Rose Sorooshian ran at an unschooling symposium where she let people choose TV shows, and put up what could be learned from them

Everything else

Remember that if your “unit study” is the universe, everything will tie in to everything else, so you don’t need to categorize or be methodical to increase your understanding of the world. Each bit is added wherever it sticks, and the more you’ve seen and wondered and discussed, the more places you have inside for new ideas to stick. A joyful attitude is your best tool.

SandraDodd.com/latenightlearning
photo by Alex Polikowsky

"Self-regulation" (I object)

Sometime between 1795 and 1811, Jane Austen wrote (in Sense and Sensibility):

Elinor's security sunk but her self-command did not sink with it.

It's about the character masking her emotions and responses, when another young woman was trying to make her jealous.

I wanted to add "self-command" to the list, which was up to now

• self-regulation
• self-control
• self-discipline

None of those are as helpful as learning to make the better choice.

---

Another outside quote:

Because “self-regulation” sounds modern, therapeutic, and enlightened, it can obscure the lingering assumption that the child should eventually internalize adult priorities.

—ChatGPT, 5/14/25
🙂

SandraDodd.com/self-regulation
photo by Sandra Dodd

Playing as a game

I'm living without a piano these days, but this was true for years, mostly with Clementi, or Bach:

I have said that I play the piano like playing a video game. But what that means for me is that sometimes when I'm passing by the piano, I'll sit down with a piece of music I know fairly well and play it "until I die," which is the third mistake, just to see how far I can get. Or I'll play something harder and go until I'm just stuck, maybe go through that hard passage a few times, take a running leap at it, see how it goes, and then go back to doing whatever I was doing before. Laundry or whatever it was.

When I do that it feels like a timer, and a challenge, and a goof. It's an investment in keeping my fingers operational without "an hour of practice" or any of those thoughts. It's playing with the piano, more than playing the piano. It's a game. I don't have to.

—Sandra Dodd

SandraDodd.com/force
Image is the cover of a thin music book, published by Schirmer, 1967.

Word tree

SandraDodd.com/words
Image by an engineering student in the UK whose Fiverr name was Spartali, in 2014

Partnership, joy and fun

Chris Ester wrote:

What bothers me most... (about a questionable definition of unschooling) is that it is all about the parent and their level of comfort. Focusing on what the parent can 'bear' at the possible expense of the child irks me....

Thank you Sandra, et al. for the clarity that you provide. The talk of partnership and joy and fun with clearly stated principles in mind is challenging to the status quo and stretches many of us, but it is certainly much more helpful.

—Chris Ester

Appropriating the word Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
(a tied game against Keith;
newer than the writing)

Random words, or CHOSEN words?

In an unschooling discussion, once, someone commented just this:

Evidently this is a place to choose one's words extremely carefully.

I responded:

YES!!
Yes, it is.
This group is a place to choose one's words carefully.

One wonderful thing about that is that if one practices that here, and sees the value in it, maybe she will begin to choose her words more carefully when speaking to her children, or her partner. Her other friends and relatives probably wouldn't mind if she chose her words carefully when speaking to them.

And in other groups, too—a humor group, or Korean drama group, Viking crafts group, puppy-training group—wouldn't it be best to choose one's words carefully?

SandraDodd.com/mindfulofwords
photo by Sandra Dodd

Understanding without pressure

Lyle Perry wrote:

Knowing facts and understanding facts are two very different things. School (for the most part) requires knowing facts and the ability to state those facts on demand, but doesn't necessarily require understanding the facts. I think most people make it through school memorizing enough facts to keep the teachers happy, but have very little understanding of those facts until much later in life, if ever. There's not enough time for understanding in school. The schedule doesn't allow for it.

Unschooling gives a person the time to understand, without the pressure of memorization and schedules. It's learning in an un-pressurized atmosphere.

—Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/lyle/definition
uncredited image, floating around
Facts about the YMCA (some of which you might already know)

Quickly, slowly, connections are made

Joyce Fetteroll, in "Five Steps to Unschooling":

Forget the linear approach to learning we grew up with. For instance, we learned that the way to learn is to read "all the important" stuff about a subject gathered and packaged for our convenience in a textbook and then move on in line to the next package of information.

Sure, sometimes an interest will cause kids to gather up a huge chunk of learning all at once. This is easy to see. And easy to overvalue as the "best" way to learn.

More often kids will slowly gather interesting tidbits, making connections as things occur to them to create a foundation. They'll add pieces here and there over the years to build on that foundation. This is not so easy to see going on. And very easy to undervalue.

So, if we can train ourselves to see that process we can help it along by valuing the times when they see Thomas Jefferson on Animaniacs and then later on the nickel and then still later on Mount Rushmore. Those moments will establish a feeling of recognition and familiarity. Then the more tidbits they gather about Jefferson, the more interesting he becomes. And the more interesting he becomes, the more they want to know about him.

It took at least two years and a lot of posts by very patient unschoolers (and a lot of questions by other newbies who were equally confused) for me to finally "get" unschooling. Hopefully, these five steps will make your transition to unschooling easier than mine was!

—Joyce Fetteroll

"Five Steps to Unschooling"
by Joyce Fetteroll, published in Home Education Magazine in 2000
photo by Sandra Dodd, 2011
(Adults keep picking up trivia and making connections over the years, too.)

Lighten up

Holidays can be stressful, and often involve hard work. Look for joy and sparkles out of the corner of your eye. Spot beauty and look twice.

Be as magical as you can be.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo (click it) by Sandra Dodd

Partner and friend

Janine Davies wrote, in the midst of a longer account:
For me, that all begins and ends with being a good mum in the eyes and minds of my children, and going forward being remembered as a kind respectful and happy mum—someone they could trust implicitly, and who was their partner and friend.

Hopefully they will then carry that forward to how they treat their children, regardless of what the current trend is, or fears they have, or the current scaremongering circulating. Even if they don't have children of their own, my hope is that they treat and speak to all children that they come in contact with throughout their lives with the same respect and kindness that they afford their partners and friends, and that they treat them like the people they are.

—Janine Davies
(read the rest)

Being a Happy Mom
photo by Sandra Dodd

Sparkly, happy, random thoughts

Humor is a great warm-up for any thinking. If one's mind can jump to get a joke, it will be easier for it to jump to synthesize any ideas, to make a complex plan, to use a tool in an unexpected way, to understand history and the complexities of politics. If a child can connect something about a food with a place name or an article of clothing, parents shouldn't worry that he hasn't memorized political boundaries or the multiplication table.

The more that fun, divergent thought is discouraged, the more quiet and dark those minds will be. The more that sparkly, happy, random thoughts are encouraged, the brighter that home will be.

SandraDodd.com/connections/jokes
photo, sign, found uncredited, "out there"

Fifteenth Anniversary!

Images and parts of the text are links.

First post, with some nice comments, from 2010:

This would need more candles now, but...



May the richness and riches of this trove of words and photos seep into your soul and give you sweet dreams and good ideas.

---

With this, there are 5,343 posts. A few were deleted in the past for lacking longevity (announcements, temporary info). Some have been repeated for being especially good. They are labelled four ways, to keep it from being one big label/tag, so if you would like to see some "greatest hits," these are clickable, and are called

again (72 of those)

again! (147)

re-run (151)

repeat (136)

For today, then, if those are excluded, there are 4,837 non-repeated posts. Still around 5,000.

Most posts link to an unschooling page or two on my website. Most of those pages link back to this blog (from a little link in the upper right corner).

If you would like to help fund the maintenance of that site (from which most of the quotes come), there is a donation link at SandraDodd.com (which can also be accessed from this image on most of the unschooling pages:


The donation link is halfway down there. It's PayPal, debit or credit.

I can accept checks or Christmas cards to:

Sandra Dodd
8116 Princess Jeanne NE
Albuquerque NM 87110     USA

(If cool foreign money, save it there; consider photo request below!)

Also useful would be photos for the collection from which I try to pull a match for a text. Not all get used and some get used very late, but it's nice to have a variety. Send just a few you love, so I'm not overwhelmed, and tell me how to credit you (full name or truncated how). Those can go by messenger or by e-mail to Sandra@SandraDodd.com (and larger files are fine).

SandraDodd.com
tree art by Bo King
cake photo by Sandra Dodd
photos by many different people at the repeat/again links

P.S. I want the website to last a long time, so if I'm not able to collect funding assistance someday, maybe find Holly Dodd or Vlad Gurdiga and see if they need financial help keeping it going. It's a bit less than $20 a month these days; might go up as things might do. Thanks.

Bright and sparkly

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

Intellectually, I got unschooling all the way from the very beginning. The part that took more time was relationships and wholeness. When I got THAT, that is when things started happening in the direction that made unschooling work great!

The way I see it, often, is that there are multiple facets that make unschooling work best. The two biggest facets that go hand in hand for me are the absence of school and school think, combined with real working relationships with my kids. People can go and do one or the other and not let them overflow into each other, but it won't be as bright and sparkly, with the facet analogy.

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Karen James

Sounding off

Patti Schmidt wrote:

It seems to me that "phonics" essentially serves the purpose of "teaching" a child to read before he's ready and fully grasps context and meaning. I know that I can read Spanish, which is a much more consistently phonetic language than English, complete with accent and everything, and literally not understand one bit of what I'm saying.

I remember being tested separately for "reading" and reading comprehension. If one can't understand the words and phrases, then isn't it just decoding with an internalized phonics decoder ring?

Turning script to sound is one trick, but the reading that people want will turn marks to meaning. The same way that musical notation (and a musician who can decipher and play or sing it) can bring music into the air, so can the written word becoming lively language again.

Patti discovered, as many unschooling parents have, that while some children appreciate phonics hints, or figure phonics out on their own, others learn to read in their own other ways.

More of Patti's story of children learning differently:
SandraDodd.com/r/patti
photo by Sandra Dodd

The photo was taken of the insde of a church door in Durham, in England. "The draught is dreadful" cannot be read easily with American phonics (or sight reading, or look-say). But it's cute, and it's alliterative, which is an ancient tradition in the English language, and in the naming of the alter-egos of comic-book super heroes.

What about "Educational" Materials?

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Resistance to things that look schooly or educational makes sense—we're promoting letting all those things go completely, especially at the beginning stages of unschooling, and we talk about how beneficial that can be for helping people to help them understand that learning happens all the time, that much of what is "taught" in school is learned naturally by unschoolers in the course of living their complete schoolishness-free lives.

I don't think it makes sense to criticize unschoolers for being anti-schoolishness. That goes with the territory.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/stages/materials
image by WordCloud, of words by Sandra Dodd

In 2013, someone said my facebook posts were negative. In those days, WordCloud could generate artsy data from a facebook URL (or any URL or document). The posts were candid (they were already there). The size is based on the number of times words were repeated, in that sample of 293 posts—a year's worth. Looked pretty positive!