Learning by leaps and bounds

From a learning standpoint, when babies are carried they see more, they hear and smell more. If they are given things to touch and taste besides just a few baby toys left in the corner of a crib or playpen, they will learn by leaps and bounds. They will spend less time crying and more time being in the real world.

The parents will know the child better, and the child will know the parents better. They will be building a partnership based on trust.

SandraDodd.com/attachment
photo by Sandra Dodd, at a fabric store

Owning one's own self

Roya Sorooshian (not-yet Dedeaux) wrote:

When I was ten, my mother told me that she was going to take me out of school. At the time, I was apalled. Now, I credit that moment as the biggest turning point of my life. Not because of what we did instead of going to school, but because of the power my mother gave to me when she showed me that she did not have to abide by anyone's standards - not when she knew she could do better. She gave me to myself, forever.

—Roya Sorooshian
(Roya Dedeaux)

SandraDodd.com/teens/
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Fun and wonderful

Once someone chose the subject line "Battle with candy", in a discussion, and one response was (from me):

The candy isn't fighting back. It's a battle with fear and control, if it's a battle at all. But it's not a battle with candy.

Also me, there:

A focus on what is fun and wonderful is better than a focus on discomfort. Candy can be fun and wonderful. A parent saying "no" and calling joy "strung out" isn't nearly as fun or as wonderful.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Cally Brown

The value of joy

Parents and teachers Don't KNOW, when they look at a six-year-old, what fields of expertise will develop and be needed in the next twelve or twenty years.

The world is changing fast, and one of the best things kids can have is curiosity, openness to newness, and calm confidence that they can pursue their own interests.

If parents are looking at children's interests as school checklists, unschooling is escaping them. Often unschoolers look at children instead of looking more at their own beliefs, and their awareness of what learning looks like in the wild, and how valuable JOY is in a family.

The text was new in a discussion yesterday, but this is a better link:
How to Be a Good Unschooler
by Pam Sorooshian
photo by Christine Milne

Integration

Joyce Fetteroll, from "Why You Can’t Let Go":

As kids fit pieces in one area of the puzzle, those pieces are also unconsciously fitting into other areas. And even better, the areas the piece fits into can provide feedback. So one area can set off an alarm if a child is about to add a piece to another area that doesn't make sense.

As an example, learning about hawks will add pieces to the carnivore area along with lots of other areas too. The carnivore area will also get pieces from cats and dogs and T. Rexes and sharks. That will build up images of carnivore behavior. So if a child hears "Hawks eat rice," that piece won't make sense in the carnivore area. The child's brain will scramble around looking for words that are in both the sounds-like-rice area and the carnivore area. They'll probably say, "Oh, mice!" Or, if they come up blank, "That can't be right!" Whatever they do, they won't just mindlessly accept some fact. They want the areas to work and want the areas to meet their needs.

Yes, there's double-checking with curriculum too. Kids won't just accept some obvious error like 2+2=5. But with natural learning they're motivated to question and understand. They're trying to meet their needs, after all. Not someone else's needs. Not some future needs they might have.

If you think about how your kids are learning English, you can see a working image of this puzzle building. English is an area of the real world puzzle. The more kids use English, the more pieces they add to the English puzzle area. But English is also a tool kids use to build other areas of the real world puzzle.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/talk
photo by Karen James

Stillness comes and goes

Sometimes I get still. That's good, because sometimes I don't, and can't. If I were that zippy all the time, my body, mind and soul would probably wear out.

. . . .
When I was younger and I would change, I thought something was wrong with me. I was under the mistaken impression that personality and mood should be constants. Life is better when I think of those fluctuations as tides, or as the weather of the soul.

Cocooning and other stillness
photo by Teresa Phillips

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P.S. "The Missing Link" from yesterday's Wild Math is repaired.

Really being a partner

Someone made a side comment earlier: "I hadn't thought about the difference between 'treating someone as a partner' and really being their partner from one's core. Acting one way from a set of rules vs. working on oneself to be a better parent/partner/supporter."

That's what I meant. I'm sure I would feel nervous if someone I thought of as a friend said she was treating me as a friend. 🙂

But I do know that some people don't love words as much as I do, and aren't as analytical about words. I can watch athletes and think very little about the subtleties of what they're doing. Music, not so much. That I perceive in more detail.

SandraDodd.com/partners/examined
photo by Cecilie Conrad

Don't be arbitrary

Someone wrote that the best thing she had learned from me in unschooling discussions was "Don't be arbitrary."

The writing below came in my response to that.

---

Consistency isn't magic. If a parent isn't using judgment in individual instances, but is just going by rules, it's not better than being arbitrary.

There SHOULD be times when kids can be louder and wilder, and times when parents are especially generous, and times when everyone should chill, and it's not a good time to spend money.

"It depends" is a good answer. Decision making based on the reality of the moment is more valuable than "consistency" or arbitrary decisions.

SandraDodd.com/depends
photo by Nina Haley

Understanding

Joyce Fetteroll wrote, twelve years ago:

Natural learning is easy to understand. It's not so easy to feel confident that natural learning is as good as (let alone better) than institutional learning. Natural learning *shouldn't* test as well as school learning. It isn't geared to passing tests. It's geared to understanding. And understanding is hard to test for!

If natural learning were easy to trust Sandra could have put up on her website:

Create a rich environment. Support and feed their interests. Connect with them.

And none of us would still be sitting here nearly 20 years later, still explaining that it does work. 😉

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/simple
photo by Christine Milne

Busy, curious and open

People ask whether unschooling isn't like unit studies. Perhaps in the same way there are hexagonal and pentagonal patterns in nature it is. Mathematicians didn't design the patterns in flowers and starfish, but they see them and name them after the fact. I see, in retrospect, a "water unit," but the best thing I can see in the future is to remain busy, curious, and open to whatever comes along. Flexibility to pursue tangents and cowtrails, and continuing to see the wonder in everyday things will lead to learning experiences without prior planning.

A butterfly in the yard is more wonderful than a dusty butterfly pinned in a box, but you can control the one in the box better, as long as you don't want it to fly. At least it will be there when you want to look at it. The one in the yard is on his own schedule.

SandraDodd.com/puddle
photo by Collen Prieto
(Karner blue, Concord, NH)

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 something better

Sometimes I want to whine. Sometimes I do.

It never helps.

When making a conscious decision about how to respond or how to react, it will be rare that whining would be the best choice.

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
photo by Holly Dodd
on window-installation day

Service and nurturing

Service and nurturing can make parents better humans.

Not being served, or being nurtured, but being of service and being nurturing to others.

SandraDodd.com/service
photo by Chrissy Florence

Better?

"What will make the situation better?" That might be a good mantra for family changes. Anyone, no matter how young or frustrated, can think of each action in light of "Will it make the situation better?"


SandraDodd.com/unschooling
(quote from an outgoing e-mail)
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Changing; healing; hope

Often people have been resistant about the idea that unschooling involves anything more than just letting their kids play. They don't like to think it involves changing themselves.

Gradually, freedom for the children creates a new looseness in the parents, though. And as one increases, the other does too. When a parent hits a hard spot, where they feel jealousy and resentment, it's often a sign that there's a painful childhood memory that hasn't been laid out to dry yet.

When we're tempted to say "no," and we have that little internal conversation about "Why not?" that can be healing. When I'm there, I think of my mom saying no, and then I picture her having been open enough to say yes more, and I picture my childhood self having a thrill of freedom and approval. There was some freedom, and some approval, but I can imagine up a lot more of it, and shower it on my children.

Sometimes I picture my granny telling my imagined young-girl mom "Yes" a lot too, and I think maybe if my mom had had more freedom she would have more to spread around. And I hope my children will not have to think so hard when they say yes to their children.

Others have mentioned feeling lighter and less bound by "have to." It doesn't seem to matter whether they start with "educational" issues or general parenting issues, it all builds together. All the relationships get better.

SandraDodd.com/healing
photo by Janine Davies

One seamless whole

Tina Bragdon wrote:

More and more I am beginning to understand what you say about the power of our words, the semantics of them, and what they reveal about our thoughts deep down. I used to think long ago this was a bit nitpicky, but really can see what you mean when I really stop and think about it.

I think that awareness (for me anyway) is easier to come by with some of our loaded words like "lazy", "she-he always/never.." and such, but most of us weren't homeschooled let alone unschooled and as such don't realize the impact of being graded, sorted, and categorized from the age of 2-3 or so (ie-being regarded as "toddler", preschooler" and so on).

The more I take the word "teach" out of my vocabulary and am conscious of it the better it is for me and the easier it is to see my children's lives as one seamless whole and not divided by subjects.

—Tina Bragdon

The School in my Head

Mindful of Words

SandraDodd.com/subjects
photo by Holly Dodd

A world of partnership

In a world of choices, every choice that moves one toward positivity (hope, optimism, joy, sweetness, peace) and away from negativity (cynicism, anger, disdain, dismay, pessimism) is a solid step toward "better" (IF the person wants to be more positive).

In a world of partnership, when one partner is more positive, the partnership is more positive.

In a home with a mother, when the mother is more positive, the family's life is more positive.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd
of Kirby, Keith and Marty
35+ years ago

Out of order

The past few days have been glitchy, but I was calm, from years of practice.

Yesterday's post was lacking a link to something I think you might enjoy. My question and the beginning of the response are here, and it should link to the rest (but scroll up, there):

Sandra: why does freeze frame sound like the Ramones or Devo ChatGPT: If by "Freeze-Frame" you mean the 1981 hit by The J. Geils Band, I can hear why it might remind you of both Ramones and Devo, even though it isn't really either one. A few things overlap:...

If I had a graph of the order in which I've learned different kinds of music, it would seem glitchy, too. I'm still figuring out lots of things I missed while I was more involved in traditional music, English ballads, madrigals, and medieval and Renaissance Christmas music. Some of that was singular, or duets. Some was leading groups of people. Keith and I spent years immersed in the Society for Creative Anachronism, and weren't paying much attention to what was new and current.

Keith was in high school, listening to The J. Geils Band, The Doobie Brothers, Steppenwolf and Jethro Tull, while I was at the University of New Mexico, playing in the first iteration of their early music program (then called "The Keller Consort"). I listened to albums, but not much radio. I was "studying" Elton John, Cat Stevens, and Joni Mitchell.

Keith and I have been a couple for over 45 years and have done vocal and instrumental music together, and shared each others' old favorite music. He didn't know anything about Donovan, and I think he knew Paul McCartney and Wings better than he knew The Beatles. I couldn't tell Steely Dan from The Doobie Brothers.

It still works if things are learned out of order. When I was little, I could read music before I could read words. Music is in and around me.

I'm still curious, and I'm still learning.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Holly Dodd

P.S. Keith still goes to SCA events and does music. I wandered off.

Fear of media, and of newness

Yesterday I sent an extra post by accident. The one about TV wasn't ready, but it still works. I had planned to make a webpage with photos of more poster boards with people's notes about what they had learned from different shows. When I've done that, someday, I'll post it again.

It's hard for people to conceive of how fearful people were of television viewing, or of video games, just two or three decades ago. I myself missed out on the days when reading novels had been considered a trashy activity. I knew, somewhat, about adults' fear of comic books, when I was a kid; teachers would confiscate comics and not give them back, sometimes.

Time has passed and these days the scary edge of unfamiliar technology is AI, such as Chat GPT and Claude. Alexa is getting in there more. Google's AI has recently started having longer exchanges if you ask questions. I hope Google AI will get better; that one I don't trust as much.

My experience with Chat GPT is that if you ask a philosophical question, or tell a story, or start a conversation, you might have a lot of fun. Start with something you know and care about.

If you use one of these links, it will open at the end of the exchange. Scroll up if you want the beginning. Some of the questions I've asked have been

• why does freeze frame sound like the Ramones or Devo (I kept my original question format—not really formatted...)
  
  
• Was "Encino Man" a direct take-off on "ET the Extraterrestrial"?
  
  
• What rock or pop singers have voices that could have performed in a 19th century music hall without amplification?

Mostly I like to explore musical topics, but I asked about why my front-yard apple tree has so many apples though it didn't last year; cooking questions and ideas; which kinds of intelligences are best served by exchanges with AI; mysteries about a new medication I'm taking that's to be mixed with juice—about which juices weren't working well, one way or another (settled on tangerine juice); various details about the UK series "Shetland"; taxidermy and the series "Vera"... I've gotten feedback and ideas on traditional ballads (I used to collect and sing them in my teens and 20s), and fairytales/archetypes/psychology of identity. It's a way for me to bounce ideas around and get input on trivial topics, usually, and the discussions are fun.

If the thought of that scares or offends you, think about why. Consider asking Chat GPT or Claude why. Google's AI probably doesn't know.

It's a tool and a toy and you'll still be safe at home. Be brave, about learning.

If you wonder something, and you don't have friends who know, or who would let you roll the question around until you were tired of it, consider AI like a Magic 8 Ball, or a Ouija Board, if those are less scary. It's way better than either.

Fear itself
photo by Catherine Forest
of Watersprite Lake

Every area of life

Janine Davies, responding to this quote:

Unschooling can make life better. Really, fully unschooling becomes more philosophical and spiritual than people expect it to.

—Sandra Dodd

I have acknowledged my experience of this before now when I first really 'got' and fully applied radical unschooling, and now with each day, month, year, this becomes stronger and stronger in my experience.

It's exhilarating to me, the transformative power of unschooling. It is the thing that has finally drained negativity out of my life and pushed me daily further and further away from it, and further and further towards positivity in every area of my life.

—Janine Davies

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Holly Dodd