An unschooling high

Some years ago, this enthusiastic story was written by a mom named Alexandra:

Today I had an unschooling moment.

We had movie and tv restrictions before, and gave them up after reading here. Today, we were driving somewhere, and went down a road near where the tide comes in (we live near the Bay of Fundy), and after renting The Lizzie McGuire movie last week, and seeing the state of the tide, naturally I burst into "The tide is high..."!!—joined happily by my three daughters.

Sometime after the nth rendition of that song all together, I thought, here we are doing something happily all together, and from that space, anything can happen, questions, answers, laughter, silence. Thank you Lizzie McGuire, thank you people of the unschooling.com message board, I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like that....

(end of quote)

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Just today I was interviewed and mentioned all the writings that were lost when that message board was taken down, and AOL's forum before that, and the user group I used to access when *Prodigy was new. So many ideas, so much writing, poofed away. And I said that's why I wanted to collect and preserve writing now. Thank you, readers, for your appreciation of my hoarding at SandraDodd.com.

SandraDodd.com/list
photo by Sandra Dodd
The song was part of the credit sequence of that movie, and you can watch and hear it here: Lizzie Mcguire the Movie: The tide is high (and this version was by an English girl group called Atomic Kitten)

An Abundance of Beauty

Helping children discover and appreciate art can be difficult when the parents' idea of art has to do with galleries and oil paintings from other centuries. School creates a limited view of art, and culture reinforces that.

There is no topic or subject or pursuit that doesn't connect to or consist of art. Here's a linguistic example: "Artificial" once meant magnificently lifelike or cunningly wrought. It wasn't an insult until fairly recently (in linguistic time, which is slower than human time, but not as slow as geological time). I find beauty in the forms and histories of words.

For flat art, you can look at paintings, photographs and graphics at art.com (and buy prints or posters if you want). For things for children to play with (children, teens or adults), there are many links here: SandraDodd.com/art (interactive online, or physical fun at home).

I hope readers will contribute to a list of places to look for art, or things to see as art. I will name five and give links. Please leave a blog comment, if you wish, and name as many or as few as you like, with or without links. If you want to create a clickable link, directions are here: SandraDodd.com/hotlink. I wrote them myself, so don't be afraid. It's pretty easy.

My five:

the dashboards of cars

water

snacks

holiday adornment

game boards

(the image above is an art card made and given to me by Erika Davis-Pitre)

Changing, building, and understanding

JoyfullyRejoycing

SandraDodd.com/unschooling

Those sites exist so that people can explore unschooling, but reading those pages doesn't make anyone an unschooler. Only changing one's own thoughts and beliefs and actions and reactions, and building a relationship with one's children based on those understandings can make unschooling work in a family.

There is a "there there" tradition among women. I've referred to it as "teaparty" talk in the past, and then made a page to illustrate what I was talking about. It *sounds* like support, but it's really more like "let's all avoid real thought together!" Unschooling takes real thought, and a desire to change. Any desire to be supported in staying the same will be a problem.

SandraDodd.com/support

Less entertaining, but easier to read from a phone:
"Support" messages all in one list
photo by Jo Isaac
❖

Free tools

You need to do MANY things, as an unschooling parent. Free tools are being added to these collections just about every day:
Joyfully Rejoycing (Joyce's site)

SandraDodd.com/

LivingJoyfully.ca (Pam Laricchia's site)

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

Don't overcomplicate, don't oversimplify.


Paraphrased from a post on Always Learning; this site will work:
SandraDodd.com/howto/precisely
photo by Sandra Dodd

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2020 note:

In cleaning up old posts with more solid images and links, I replaced Always Learning, in the list above, with Pam Laricchia's site. Always Learning still exists, and at a better hosting site, but people aren't using e-mail as much as they once did. The Always Learning archives are open here if you want to read, and if you want to join and try to stir the discussion up, I would not mind!

Designing a parent

Dark thoughts or light? Worms or sky?

If you're making a decision in some moment... will you take the low road and have a low-energy, Eeyore moment? How much energy would it take to have a Pooh moment instead, or even a Tigger moment?...

If you were designing a parent for your child, wouldn't "happy" be pretty high on your list?

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 193 or 223,
which links to SandraDodd.com/peace/mama
and SandraDodd.com/morning

photo of sunrise in west Texas, December 20, by Sandra Dodd

Learning from Cartoons

Each family discovers the value of choices in unique and wonderful ways. Well, not every family–only those who actually do start giving their children choices, and in which the adults work to see the choices they are making as well.

One surprise is that programs the parents had thought were "stupid" have led to discussion and research on the autobahn, the metric system, classic movies, technology, international sports, geography, segregation, famous speeches, sportsmanship and ethics, live theatre, opera, oil and mining, hygiene, reproduction, Australian food, life cycle of frogs, hurricane formation, trust, cooperation, classical music, Vikings, religion, art, how different animals survive the winter, Galileo, Japanese mythology, cooking, geology… this list could be twice as long without leaving that section of my website.

One trail went from a mummy cartoon to Egypt, to Pharaohs, to slavery, to the Civil War, to Abraham Lincoln, and to other presidents. The Simpsons' parody of Schoolhouse Rock led to a discussion on Thoreau and Walden.

text from page 141 (or 153) of The Big Book of Unschooling
and that page links to SandraDodd.com/t/cheesy and SandraDodd.com/t/learning
cartoon portrait by Gina Trujillo, my niece, based on this self-made photo

Enemies and monsters

Once I commented on one from a list of "truths" on a correspondent's blog:

This is not at all true. It has been claimed for years, but it’s nonsense.

18. Television turns you into a hypnotic state where the viewer switches off completely and is drawn into the world of the idiot box (well, that’s why it’s called that – an idiot box) for it doesn’t enable a two-way communication. Not even a silent one because you go numb.

If that were true, how much worse would books be? Plays?

I have collected accounts for twenty years of the learning that comes from television and video. People like to have enemies and monsters, sometimes, and “Screentime” is an easy boogey-man. SandraDodd.com/screentime/

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The blogger had already changed her mind about it before I commented, after having discovered my site, she said. I believe her. The post was a few years old when I objected.

SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Sara McGrath

Do more for and with your child

Someone wrote:

"My worry is that I am needing to do something bigger/more."

I responded:

If you don’t feel like you’re doing enough, do more.
Accept the uncomfortable feeling as you would hunger or sleepiness, and act on it, a bit. See if that helps. If so, do more.

Instead of offering suggestions, do things for him, and with him. There are lots of ideas on my site (and other places you could google up) but here’s a list Deb Lewis wrote a few years ago that I really like:

Things to do in the Winter
SandraDodd.com/strew/deblist

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Original text here (fourth comment):
"Bored" and "Lazy"—Amy Childs podcast episode from August 2014

The player isn't working at that link,
but you can listen at SandraDodd.com/boredom/

photo by Colleen Prieto

What "everybody knows"

A mom named Lorraine wrote, years ago:

The 1st biggie for me was the food issue. I read 'let them eat what they want' & thought people had lost their minds. So, I tried it! Dakota wanted a cookie before breakfast and I said okay, but I'm cooking breakfast. She ate it, and turned to me and asked if she could have another one? Sure, I say (knowing good and well she wasn't gonna eat any breakfast afterwards). So she eats it, then breakfast was ready and she ate what she always eats (two pieces of sausage & a piece of toast). "Well that is a fluke," I say to myself, because everybody knows sweets BEFORE A MEAL ruin your appetite. So I am more determined with my experiment (to prove you all wrong) LOL. Do you want me to embarrass myself here? 🙂 Ya'll were right. Ya'll's experiences and your willingness to share them made Dakota and Shelby's life brighter.

—Lorraine

SandraDodd.com/list
photo by Cátia Maciel

Accepting help (and cake)

Deb Lewis wrote:

I always get in trouble with analogies, but I'm going to try one here. If I wanted to make a cake, and had never baked or cooked before, a cake recipe that just said "do whatever seems best to you, use your imagination" probably wouldn't be that helpful. If my friend, who always had lovely cakes (devil's food?) had given me this recipe, I would have to assume cake just didn't work for my family.

It would have been much more helpful to have an ingredients list and a plan for putting them together.

Ok, kids are not cakes, and maybe there's no ingredients list for unschooling, but I would hope, before I pour a bottle of vinegar in my batter, someone who knows about cakes would stop me. I would hope, before I add a text book or take away TV, someone who knows about unschooling would stop me.

—Deb Lewis
(original, on Always Learning)

SandraDodd.com/witness
photo (and cake) by Sandra Dodd,
when this blog was ten years old

Exploring locally

Deb Lewis wrote:

I have found so many interesting things to do around our little town just by talking with people and asking questions. I ask everyone questions about what they like to do, etc. I have met so many people with interesting hobbies who have been happy to share what they know with my son and show him their collections.

The man who runs the local green house lets us help transplant seedlings. He grows worms too, and lets Dylan dig around in the worm beds.

The guy who works at the newspaper speaks Chinese and draws cartoons. He's given Dylan lots of pointers about where to get good paper and story boards, etc.

The old guy at the antique shop was a college professor and is a huge Montana History buff, whenever Dylan has questions, we go browse the antiques.

The lady at the flower shop keeps birds and lets Dylan hold them when we visit.

—Deb Lewis

some local particulars from Deb Lewis's "List of Things to do in the Winter"—a long list of things a parent and child could do if it's cold or they want to explore SandraDodd.com/strew/deblist
photo by Diane Marcengill

Top of the list

Lori Odhner wrote:

If parents want to give the best to their child, including warm clothes and good health care, an intact family should be at the top of the list.

Many of the maladies that claim marriages are completely curable.

—Lori Odhner

SandraDodd.com/divorce
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a bed with mosquito netting, in Queensland

Special and everyday skills

Notice and appreciate what your child can do well.

Part of a longer list in a discussion of skills:

ability to apply logic and reasoning
ability to pick up language skills easily
identify plants
sense weather
finding one's way without a map
reading maps
making maps and giving directions
connecting people
hosts a good party
good at collaborating
good at directing
good with kids
good with babies
storytelling
ability to listen
remembers details
good with numbers, proportions and formulas
singing


That list was by "Tandosmama," and there are others on this page:
SandraDodd.com/skills
photo by Holly Dodd (click to enlarge)

Being, in balance

Sandra, about Always Learning (the discussion list referenced):

I think finding balance is probably the hardest thing. It's easy to make an extreme caricature of "being an unschooler" rather than finding a way to live unschooling. Someone recently assured us she was "doing it," but having someone else say "that's it, you're balanced on that bicycle" is worthless if the bicycle falls over. There's doing, and there's being, and there's "it," and the reason this list exists and thrives is that those ideas (doing, being, "it") live in the realm of philosophy, of the examination of ideas, of the weeding out of error and fallacy.

Half of me says "bummer" and half of me says "cool!" and so at the balance point of those two, we continue to discuss unschooling.

SandraDodd.com/control
photo by Linda Wyatt

Saying "Yes" Again

A mom named Sara came back after lapsing toward "no," and wrote:

I'm a huge believer in fresh starts, and I decided to just hit my personal reset button and start fresh. .... I have begun with something very simple, which is saying yes instead of no. . . . .

I took a deep breath and started over, with YES. I kept a little list of all the things the kids asked for (they didn't see me doing this). Can we have some jellybeans? Yes.

Can we watch a movie? Yes

Could you get me a pickle and a napkin in a bowl, and can I eat it on the couch? Yes. (Shushing the mom-voice in my head that wanted to say we NEVER eat on the couch, you know that. I just said 'sure' and got the pickle, and then another when she asked for a second one.)

Can we play a computer game? Yes.

Later I was looking at my list and I thought, wow, I'd have loved to have a day like that when I was a kid. Jellybeans and a movie and pickles and computer games.

—Sara, 2007

SandraDodd.com/yesagain
photo by Sandra Dodd

Smooth and soft

Cass Kotrba wrote:

I am stunned, amazed and very grateful for the wisdom I have learned and continue to learn on this list.* It is amazing the impact it has had on all of our lives. And it has been surprising to experience how much our emotions impact our health. Even her skin, previously dry and bumpy, has improved. Radical unschooling has helped us be smooth and soft, inside and out.

—Cass Kotrba

* The Always Learning discussion is the list on which that appeared.
The original is here.

SandraDodd.com/stress
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Everything you've ever learned

Think about everything you’ve ever learned. Make a list if you want. Count changing the oil in your truck, or in your deep fryer. Count using a calculator or a sewing machine. Count bike riding and bird watching. Count belching at will and spinning with your eyes closed if you want to. Think about what was fun to learn and what you learned outside of school.

Okay, maybe not everything, but if you think of twenty or thirty things you learned joyfully, easily, and if you can think of who helped you learn them, and what they did, it will boost your confidence. While you're in those thoughts, if gratitude arises along with some of them, maybe do some follow-up. Are some of those who inspired or assisted you still available to thank? Is there someone who would benefit from hearing some of what you've remembered? I bet there will be something in your memories that's worth passing on within or outside your family.

The first part is from SandraDodd.com/deschooling
and the second part is new.

photo by Holly Dodd

Winter picnic idea

Deb Lewis, as part of a long list of things to do in winter:

We've gone on picnics on the coldest of cold days. There is a big shelter, open at one end with a big fire pit that was built by the snow mobile club up at a campground near us. We've gone there on cold days with thermoses full of hot soup or stir fry, built a fire, had fun.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/strew/deblist
photo by Brie Jontry

In the winter...

"When you have snow, or can get to snow, snowshoeing is wonderful because you don't need any special skills to strap on the shoes and go have fun."

Deb Lewis wrote that, at the beginning of a very long list called "Things to do in the Winter." Most activities are indoors, and could be done by people even near the equator, except for the snowshoe part.

SandraDodd.com/strew/deblist
photo by Sandra Dodd, of old Tonka trucks in the yard

Like Riding a Bicycle

Vickie Bergman, some of her nice analogy about unschooling being like riding bikes:

Your own bicycle is powered by your own legs, steered by your own hands. It stops when you stop, goes where you want to go. But it's not that you are always responsible for your own movement. You are not just left to figure it out for yourself. When you prefer to have some level of assistance getting where you want to go, you also have tandem bicycles and bike trailers available to you. You get to choose if you want help and what kind and how much. And your parents are ready to help whenever and however you want them to.

No matter which kind of bicycle you are on, there is no separation between you and the outside world. No window to look out. You can smell the real world, hear the real world, stop and touch the real world. You are part of the real world. There are paths to follow if you want to, but your rides are not limited to the paths.
. . . .

That is unschooling. It is not a model of education, but a way of life. It is recognizing that people learn from living, and there is no need to separate learning from living. Unschooling lets a family live together, learn together. It is built on trust among family members, and trust in human nature. Trust that children have a strong desire to learn about things, even if those things may not be on the short list of school subjects. Trust that, with your acceptance and support, your child will follow his own path, leading exactly where he wants to go.

—Vickie Bergman

More at: SandraDodd.com/bicycle
photo by Vickie Bergman