Light show

Alex Polikowsky wrote, years ago:

We are all for fun stuff. We get to go to places with our homeschooling friends like theme parks and museums and have it all to ourselves. We get to play all day because for unschoolers playing and learning go hand in hand.

My kids are happy. They have fun. They learn everyday.

We have time to have many animals the kids want.

We have time to play games as a family.

We have time to run in the yard and explore places together. We have time to have fun.

Our lives are not separated between school life and home life. Most things we do, we do it because we like it and because we have fun doing them.

—Alex Polikowsky
(source / interview, 2009)

Alex's children are both at the University of Minnesota, studying engineering, so she had time to visit me and explore and play games. We had fun. She took the photo above on her way home.

Meanwhile, some of our other unschooling friends saw the northern lights, too, and shared images: Colleen Prieto, New Hampshire

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Gail Higgins, North Carolina

I slept through all of that, and failed to leave a post; sorry!

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More by Alex Polikowsky
top photo by Alex Polikowsky, from a plane, October 10, 2024—
wingtip light and slight reflection from the window

Accepting and Supporting

I think parents only have so many vetos they can use with their kids before the kids start ignoring them, and I think maybe those vetos should be saved for important things down the line, if they're used at all.

Every negative message to a child is a scar on that relationship. Not enjoying the same thing is fine, but HATING what they enjoy ("hating" much of anything) is a loss to joy, not an addition to joy.

Accepting and Supporting
photo by Colleen Prieto

Generous, selfless decisions

Live your life in such a way that other people will trust you. When you make decisions, make generous, selfless decisions so that others benefit. When you say something, do your best to say what is fair and right and true. When you write, write things you don't mind people taking out and sharing.

SandraDodd.com/integrity
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Rest, recovery, and plenty of time

Rippy Dusseldorp, for still-new unschoolers:

For your family, the most important thing now is to deschool. Avoid anything schoolish, unless your children really want to use those types of resources. This is their rest and recovery time from their years of schooling. It's important not to rush them and to give yourself plenty of time to deschool as well.

—Rippy Dusseldorp

slightly edited from SandraDodd.com/response
photo by Colleen Prieto

What peace feels like

If we raise the level of peace our children expect, they will know what peace feels like.

Adults need to know what peace feels like too, though, and some feel it for the first time when they really start to understand unschooling.

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Colleen Prieto

Learning as much or more

Unschooling doesn't mean not learning — it means learning without the trappings of school. It's not unlearning or uneducating. It's only unschooling — it points out a contrast in approaches to learning. My unschooled kids are learning as much or more than their schooled friends (and that includes home schooled or institution schooled).

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/unschool/moredefinitions
photo by Colleen Prieto

Slowly becoming wise

As children grow, parents age. Learning with them and from them and near them is learning we didn't expect.

Becoming a better parent is becoming a better person.

Unexpected Benefits of Unschooling
photo by Colleen Prieto

Gratitude and abundance

If unschooling parents can move away from hatred and fear, and toward gratitude and abundance, their children's lives are profoundly better. (And the parents' lives are, too.)

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Colleen Paeff

Thinking more clearly

This picks up in the midst of something, but endure the first two sentences and it will make sense.

'How do "we"' is a problem. The person is asking (I think) whether WE will support HER limiting her child. Each of us acts after consideration of what we know and believe, what our priorities are, what other factors (partners, grandparents, home-owner/landlord, religion, local laws)... But I acted with and toward my children as a partner in the way, in each moment, that seemed sensible and helpful to me, as much as was in my power in that moment. If I didn't do great, I would plan to do better in future moments. If I was happy with my actions, I'd try to remember what I was thinking so I could do that again in the future. But there wasn't a "we" except me and the child I was dealing with.

SandraDodd.com/radiation
photo by Colleen Prieto

This "thing"

A mom in 1995:

Do you use books at all, Sandra?

SandraDodd:

What do you mean "use books"?

That mom:

As in curriculum, textbooks, etc.

SandraDodd:

I use books like crazy—we need to look at what you mean by "use."

. . . .
SandraDodd:

A lot of the problem with discussing all this is philosophical—the definitions of "learn" and "know" and things like that.

If we talk about what we "do" and "use" and "are" instead of what's happening in and with our children we dance around the "thing" without seeing the "thing" (and the next philosophical problem is: what is this "thing"?)

SandraDodd.com/chats/definitions
photo by Colleen Prieto

P.S. In the days of text chats, there would be ten or twenty people in the chat, rolling over each other. I wasn't saying I used a lot of texbooks; I was still responding to her first question. Reading chats is a bit different, but for those who didn't get to be in any, there was overlap and lag and confusion, and they were fun, too.

Seeing gifts

Colleen Prieto, April 2013

We just watched a documentary called Lost Castles of England. My 10 year old loves Star Trek and so he was particularly thrilled that it was narrated by Leonard Nimoy. 🙂

We paused - oh - probably at least 25 times during the documentary to look up things ranging from "When was the Bronze Age?" and "What exactly is Stonehenge anyway?" to "Who were the Normans?" and "How exactly big is England?" and "They killed the garrison... What's a garrison??"

We also paused a bunch of times as he described how he's going to be getting up early tomorrow to start work in Minecraft right away - he plans to build a motte-and-bailey timber castle, as described in the documentary. He asked me to keep the documentary in our Netflix queue so he can refer to it as needed for the particulars.

When the show ended, he stood up from the couch and proclaimed "That was AWESOME. And the whole time it was Spock. Spock just GIVING you interesting history stuff!!!"

It hit me right away that he didn't say "Spock teaching you history" or "A show teaching you history" or anything about teaching at all. He doesn't see things in terms of Being Taught. In his mind, he received a gift of new knowledge and facts this evening. A gift given by Spock, which made it all the better. 🙂

—Colleen Prieto

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Note from Sandra:
Colleen's son, Robbie, is twenty years old, as I share this. The story above has been on the page about "learning" for a long time, quietly helping others.

What Teaching Never Can Be
photo by Sandra Dodd

Snowbanks and socks

Colleen Prieto wrote:

I was thinking the other day about husbands and chores and how many people I've heard say that it shouldn't be their job to pick up after their husband. I never thought of picking up my husband's things as being my cleaning up after him - I've only thought of it as cleaning our house. Does it matter whose laundry or dishes they are? Does he shovel only his own side of the driveway and leave me to climb snowbanks to get to my side of the car? Dividing things yours-and-mine, even socks, in one's internal thoughts doesn't seem to add much happiness.

—Colleen Prieto

quote from Chores, Serving others as a gift, tales of kids helping out voluntarily
but another good link would be
Why 50/50 is a problem
photo by SandraDodd
of Ester Siroky's kitchen, one day

Let life change you, in a good way

Colleen Prieto wrote:

Both my husband and I have, through unschooling, gotten into the wonderful habit of immersing ourselves right alongside our son, in his interests, for as long as he's interested. And we've learned and grown and enjoyed ourselves quite thoroughly in the process.

It is definitely funny, in a good way, how life changes you if you let it.

—Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/change.html
quote and photo both by Colleen Prieto
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Look directly

Look at your child directly, and not through the lens of other people's fears. See the joy and learning and doing and being. Be with your child in moments, not in hours or weeks or semesters.

Screentime
photo by Colleen Prieto

Others' regrets as springboards

When we're helping new unschoolers, or those who are undecided about whether they want to even try to unschool, those who've been around a while, we see their responses and fears through the filter of what we know of other people's regrets, false starts, delays...

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(Read more about why experienced unschoolers sometimes seem pushy, at the link below.)

SandraDodd.com/ifonly
photo by Colleen Prieto

Rejoice

Connections and parodies, comparisons and contrasts—learning is all about seeing what is like what, and how an image, idea or object can apply or fit where.

Don't be afraid of happy connections and rearrangements. Rejoice!

Webs, nets, connections
Robbie Prieto's nativity scene, once upon a time;
photo by Colleen Prieto, his mom

Comfortably and happily

Just like ALL learning, learning how to live comfortably and happily are really wonderful things. It takes a focus on turning away from what you know you don't like and turning towards something else—that something else that creates happy learning and living. Unschooling really is a shift in thinking and then acting on it.

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/unschool/definition
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Windows

Windows can frame surprises!

Part of being able to balance yourself in the world is to be ready to appreciate the unexpected, and also to be grateful for a same-old, uneventful view.

Sometimes, leave your curtains open and your soul prepared for anything.


Not My Windows
photo (wild turkey out the window) by Colleen Prieto, in New Hampshire

"O" is for Options

This photo is the background for the only "O" on the Learn Nothing Day logo.

Colleen Prieto wrote:

Our son knows that if he wants something, his Dad and I will do our best to make it happen. He knows he doesn't have to second-guess himself before expressing what he wants - and he knows that he doesn't need to feel guilty or ashamed for thinking "ice cream (or anything else) sounds really good right now" and saying it. He knows that his desires won't be judged and he won't be told "it's too cold" or "you just did that yesterday" or "don't you have enough of that already" or any other such thing - whether his desire is for a particular food, or more time with a video game, or another drive out to the beach, etc.

—Colleen Prieto, at Options

The photo first appeared here in November 2019: Growing newness
Thank you, Karen James.

Our touchstone was learning.

Our touchstone was learning. Learning happens. We looked for new experiences for our kids, when we could. We didn't have much money when they were little, but there were free things to do in our city, and fun things to do at our house.

Peace and fun and learning, in various permutations, got us a long way.

Learning happens.
photo by Colleen Prieto