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)

Writing (without writing)

People with younger kids who "are not writing," think again. Are they joking with you and others? When they ask questions, do they think a bit so they can word the question clearly? Are they starting to choose one word over another, for some dramatic or emotional or humorous or feelings-sparing reason? Writers need to do those things.

When they answer questions about a movie they've seen, do they take their audience into consideration? Who wants the short version, and who wants the long one? Who would rather hear about the characters than the action sequence? Writers need to think of those things.

Seeing Writing
SandraDodd.com/writing/seeing
(with samples of unschoolers' writing)
photo by Rosie Moon

All that verbal stuff...

Pam Sorooshian, on writing:

Good conversation is really writing development. Sometimes I see parents who kind of shush their kids or get obviously bored when their kids are telling them a rather long drawn-out story (like retelling a movie plot). But retelling a tv or movie plot or telling everything that happened, in order, in a video game are really great for writing. In fact, all that verbal stuff—conversation, summarizing movies, persuading or arguing, playing games, etc.—is MUCH better for developing good writing than practicing writing in the artificial ways that schools do it.

—Pam Sorooshian

Other Just Add Light and Stir posts about writing
photo by Belinda Dutch

Real writing

Writing to real people for real purposes improves writing in real ways.


The quote is mine from a post to Always Learning,
but here's a link to go with it: SandraDodd.com/writing
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Cursive or joined-up writing

Here is a topic that doesn't apply to everyone. Nice!

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"But cursive is faster," you might think or say. That's what John Holt thought. He thought it because that was the justification given to him as a child when people taught cursive (though he was old enough to have used fountain pens not just for fun).

In his book Learning All the Time, John Holt tells of having taught fifth grade and having explained to them what he "knew" about cursive writing. But three of those ten- and eleven-year-old children could print faster than the teacher could write in cursive. They raced. They timed it more than once. He discovered he was the fourth fastest writer in the room.

SandraDodd.com/cursive
Brits use the term "joined-up writing" and theirs is a connected sort of italic script. Canadians use "manuscript writing", I think. Americans use "cursive."

Are you joking?

People with younger kids who "are not writing," think again. Are they joking with you and others? When they ask questions, do they think a bit so they can word the question clearly? Are they starting to choose one word over another, for some dramatic or emotional or humorous or feelings-sparing reason? Writers need to do those things.

When they answer questions about a movie they've seen, do they take their audience into consideration? Who wants the short version, and who wants the long one? Who would rather hear about the characters than the action sequence? Writers need to think of those things.

SandraDodd.com/writing/seeing
(with samples of unschoolers' writing)
photo by Christina Kaminer Yarchin

Clearly

Writing is thinking clearly. For unschoolers writing will be helped by a kid having the confidence that if someone asks him about a movie or the lyrics of a song, that person will listen to his report, and to his opinion, and if he's misheard the words or misunderstood the plot, that they will help him understand it.

a nice match for Untangling Ideas, but the quote is from Seeing Writing
photo by Gail Higgins
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King of the Monsters

Sandra Dodd to Deb Lewis:

If I could describe all your writing in just a few words, it might be "Peace, humor and scary monsters." Dylan's life has involved a lot of Godzilla and that ilk. Scooby Doo and Godzilla.

Deb Lewis:

Yes, a lot of Godzilla, beginning when he was very little. And then any movie with a monster, or any book about monsters. And then all kinds of horror and science fiction. Godzilla was the gateway monster, though, and it started with a movie marathon on television. I couldn’t have guessed then, when he was three years old, that he would find a lifetime of happiness in horror! And I didn’t know then that his love of monster movies would lead to learning to read and write, finding authors, making connections to other cultures, (and more movies and authors) and connections to music, theater, poetry, folklore, art, history... It turned out to be this rich and wonderful experience he might have missed, and I might never have understood if I’d said no to TV, or to Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

Before Dylan was reading or writing really well, he’d meticulously copy the titles and dates of movies he wanted, and request them from interlibrary loan. All that writing, and all the time spent watching movies with subtitles helped him read and write better. I remember the feeling of joy and wonder, mixed with some sadness and loss when he didn’t need me to read movie subtitles to him anymore. I learned so much about learning.

There's Even MORE at
Montana to Italy via Godzilla
(an interview with Deb Lewis)
photo by Deb Lewis

People, writing, improvement (really)

Writing to real people for real purposes improves writing in real ways.

There are some people who haven’t been born yet who will, someday, read things Jo Isaac wrote, and other people here. It might be hard for them to find it, or it might not be. But good ideas, written well, can outlive the writers.

SandraDodd.com/realwriting
photo by Karen James

Words where they live

What writing needs is a large range of things that begin and expand outside of and away from "paper" or writing of any sort. A familiarity with the range of the language, of voice and tone (without knowing those words, it's easy), of funny words, scary words, plain and fancy words. That comes from listening to comedy, watching award-winning films, and YouTube videos, reading (or hearing someone read) comics, artsy menus, advertisements, legal notices, warning signs, brass plaques on government buildings. Tweets. Posts on yahoogroups or facebook. Post cards. Business letters and birthday cards.




SandraDodd.com/writing/seeing
photo by Sandra Dodd (for this post, of things I could see and reach without getting up)

Will they "catch up"?

Q: If they decide to go to school, will they be able to catch up?

Some are already ahead. Maybe their handwriting won't have as much use, or they might need to learn mathematical notation and practice writing numbers by hand if they've been using computers and calculators and phones to to do calculations and to communicate.

So in a way they can be way ahead, but give the appearance of "being behind," because kids at school are using paper and pencil, rather than computers.

Another way to think about school is that when someone moves from a very different culture—Kenya, Japan—where the writing system or culture or language are extremely different, they catch up in a year or two. Someone from the same culture and language shouldn't have much problem.

SandraDodd.com/faq
photo by Stephanie Cone-Early
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When I grew up

When I was in first grade I decided I wanted to be a teacher.

All through school I paid attention to what teachers did and how, and why (when I could figure that out, which was pretty often). And I asked the other kids what they liked about teachers and what they didn’t. So I learned LOTS and lots about how learning works and what factors work for different kinds of people.

When I was older, 13/14 or so, I wanted to become a missionary (still teaching-related), or to work at a magazine. And it seems all those rolled together are what I’ve become. I write, and I help people have happier more peaceful lives, and it’s all about learning. So in a natural-learning way I’ve been working up to this always.

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I wrote the above in an online exchange for Mothering Magazine in 2007.

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Recently, I remembered another writing-related profession I had seriously considered for a short while in my late 20's. I had read that the Hallmark Cards company was hiring writers, in Kansas City. I thought I could do that! I knew nothing about Kansas City, and decided I didn't want to move, but while I thought about applying, writing mushy or funny or inspiring words to go with an image sounded easy and fun.

When this blog was already ten years old, I remembered the greeting-card thoughts, and saw that Just Add Light and Stir is much like a greeting-card collection. Some are funny, or mushy, and many are inspiring. Some are seasonal, and some are about babies. With over 4,680 posts, I guess I have inadvertently written some greeting cards.

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The top section was originally published in 2021, with a video. The permission to use that video was forgotten about and the organizer said no, when I reminded her. That post said "...with over 4,000 posts" but today there are 4,687. Thank you for reading.

Just Add Light and Stir on my site
The snowglobe image above was by an artist at Fiverr in 2017.

Happily and directly, see your children

This is the end of something about a collection of pessimistic statements by parents, about kids:

How many millions of times more than on my puny little collection have parents said those things to and about their kids as though saying it made it true?

But just hearing what we say can change us.

Hearing the negativity and the implied threat and the explicit insults can help us become softer, and more flexible and more thoughtful and original.

Speaking or writing without thinking is a little like driving a car with a blindfold. Others get hurt, we get hurt, the car gets wrecked.

Speaking or writing without thinking is like operating a relationship with a blindfold, with ear plugs, going "LA LA LA LA, I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO MYSELF!!" all the whole time.

How can one see her own child directly without hushing, pulling out the earplugs, and looking at him?

—Sandra, of
SandraDodd.com/ifilet

If I let him, he would never...
If I let him, he would always...
If I let him, he would do nothing but...
photo by Sandra Dodd

words, thoughts, and seeing

Speaking or writing without thinking is a little like driving a car with a blindfold. Others get hurt, we get hurt, the car gets wrecked.

Speaking or writing without thinking is like operating a relationship with a blindfold, with ear plugs, going "LA LA LA LA, I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO MYSELF!!" all the whole time.

How can one see her own child directly without hushing, pulling out the earplugs, and looking at him?

If I let him...
photo by Sandra Dodd
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La la la la, I'm not listening

Speaking or writing without thinking is a little like driving a car with a blindfold. Others get hurt, we get hurt, the car gets wrecked.

Speaking or writing without thinking is like operating a relationship with a blindfold, with ear plugs, going "LA LA LA LA, I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO MYSELF!!" all the whole time.

How can one see her own child directly without hushing, pulling out the earplugs, and looking at him?

SandraDodd.com/ifilet
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Inspired and inspiring

About writing, like dancing, there's technically proficient and then there's inspired and inspiring, and they're not always both in the same place in the same time.

There's more about real writing at SandraDodd.com/realwriting
photo by Karen James
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Relax into the next step

Leah Rose wrote:

I have come to see that it helps peace and learning to notice when we are clinging or tightening around an identity, an idea, or even a hope. I think that's why breathing and baby steps are such useful suggestions for new unschoolers. Both help us to stay in the moment, to relax right where we are rather than leaping ahead or getting mired in "shoulds." They help us cultivate soft, open ground upon which we can rest with joy, and know enough confidence to take the next step.

—Leah Rose

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Note from Sandra:
That quote is the bottom of longer writing by Leah, on how she moved from rules to "no rules" which wasn't the best direction, and found a better path in living by principles.

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Leah's writing is about the sixth quote down, at
SandraDodd.com/rules
photo by Karen James

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)

Real vs. acting, or practicing

Writing done in school is practice writing, mostly. That "math" done in school is the calculations of other people's math. It's all at least two steps from "real world," while saying "this is the real world."

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That is from a discussion about the depth of being, rather than of acting like a child's partner. Examples were used, and tangents were taken. The longer collection is at:
"Partners," examined

photo by Holly Dodd

When is writing "real"?

Somewhere between writing nothing and being a wealthy professional author, many people write in the middle ground, and others' lives are changed.

Other Voices
The quote is from SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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