Learn about learning

Focus on your kids. Learn about learning.

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Sandra Dodd

"Scatter it out and rearrange it!"

"Just Add Light and Stir" is my favorite blog. My "Thinking Sticks" blog is my second favorite. It has examples of the kinds of connections and trails and explorations that I hope unschoolers will come to find in their own lives.

ThinkingSticks.blogspot.com
I took the photo of a deer carcass owned by Bloxie (MD Polikowsky's dog), who arranged it artfully, with a wild turkey wing. Then after I took the photo, she rearranged it less attractively. When it snowed nearly two feet a couple of days later, she went and dug it out of the snow and arranged it on top. I did not wade out and photograph that. Sorry.

Click the photo to see more detail. I hope you can see why I photographed it.

The top of the Thinking Sticks blog says "Scatter it out and rearrange it!"
It was more about divergent thinking than a carcass, but still...

Your kindness makes you kinder.

Just as being kinder and gentler with a child makes one a kinder, gentler parent, being more attentive and concerned about a spouse or partner makes that person, in turn, more attentive and concerned.

It doesn't happen all at once, and you can't send them the bill. You can't count or measure it. It has to be selfless and generous. Your kindness needs to be given because it makes you kinder, not because you want any further reward.


From The Big Book of Unschooling, page 270 (page 311, in 2nd edition)
but here's an online cousin: SandraDodd.com/spouses
photo by Sarah Dickinson

True freedom and snake oil

Freedom should involve a respect for others, and a respect for logic. And a family might not feel they "respect the law," but the laws still do apply to them, no matter how twinkly-eyed they have become in their newfound "freedom."

So if someone is selling you "True Freedom" (or snake oil, or the elixir of the fountain of life), have respect for yourself and your family and take a pass on it.


from page 220 (or 255) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)
_

"Snake oil" might not be an internationally-known term, so here's this: Snake oil

Understanding is more important.

Respect and acceptance are more important than test scores and "performance." Understanding is more important than recitation.

page 72, The Big Book of Unschooling (79 in new edition)
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Christmas candy, still there

We have a can of candy that was under the Christmas tree this year. We didn't do stockings. We bought the candy kids liked in stockings, put it in this little one-gallon paint can (printed with Christmas candy art) and it was always under the tree from mid-December. I just opened it.

It has half of its original candy. Reese's and Hershey's miniatures. Everyone here likes that stuff, but it could last a long time more, because nobody here is "needing" that stuff. Not craving it. It's just candy.

SandraDodd.com/eating/sweets
photo by Sandra Dodd

Expectations

"I suspect that any time a parent new to unschooling starts thinking 'This isn't working' it is because they are holding on to an expectation.

"Expectations can get in the way of seeing what is really happening."

—Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/expectations or Attentes
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a house key in The Netherlands
__