Very random

Try to embrace "very random" so unschooling will work optimally! 🙂

Even for kids who are in school, the more parents talk and joke and wonder with them, the more learning will happen, and the better relationships will be.

Webs, nets, connections
photo by Cátia Maciel

Connecting the drops

Pushpa wrote once, of her child's fascination with rain:

Smelling the earth, feeling the rain, tasting the first drops, watching the glistening dew that remains after the storm, learning that the ants and other creatures scurry for shelter when the heavens part while she runs to soak up the magical showers has taught her many a thing about her world. And taught me that when its raining—it's time to connect the dots—and the drops!

—Pushpa Ramachandran

The full piece is sweet:
SandraDodd.com/connections/drops
photo by Sandra Dodd (in India)

Flexible uses

Creativity and intelligence are seen in the ability to use a tool or an object for something other than its intended purpose. If you see your child (or your cat) doing something "wrong," set rules aside long enough to consider principles.

Sleep is important. Curiosity leads to discovery and to new connections. Shade can come from things other than trees or roofs.

Let your mind leap and frolic.

CONNECTIONS: How Learning Works
photo by Belinda Dutch
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A grid over which to lay other things

If someone knew almost nothing in the world but trivia relating to popular music for the past 100 years, that would make a HELL of a good grid over which to lay other things. And I don't think a thorough knowledge of pop music (in any culture or language) over this particular past hundred years, which saw the proliferation of recorded music available in homes, the advent of radio broadcasts, movies with music, television variety shows, transistor radios, cassette players in cars, CDs, iPods and cell phones that store a ton of music could help but create a timeline of the culture. Wouldn't songs from Marx Brothers or Fred Astaire movies remind people of The Great Depression? Can anyone hear big-band swing music and not also think of the hairdos and costumes? Does "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy" not remind anyone of WWII? Knowing some of the context of Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers brings up LOTS of stories about where those songs were first heard.

The lyrics of some of the songs make specific mention of historical events, and that could help dating things, too, if a person were trying to figure out what came first.

Any hobby delved into deeply becomes another portal to the whole world—real and imagined; past, present and future.

"Trivial" connections are real
video from Young Frankenstein, 1974
Directed by Mel Brooks
Written (in part) by, and starring, Gene Wilder

Curiosity and flow

In early 2008, sharing some interesting connections that had happened at our house, I wrote:

That all 'just happened,' but it happened because we've been building up to it with our whole lives and our whole style of communicating and living together in a constant state of open curiosity.
. . . . Once you start looking for connections and welcoming them, it creates a kind of flow that builds and grows.

SandraDodd.com/connections/example
Photo by Cátia Maciel
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Patterns and dots

Find, consider, value connections.

Notice, contemplate, appreciate patterns.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Links and connections

Sarah Anderson-Thimmes wrote:

TV topics are a great conversation link between my kids and schooled kids. They can talk about favorite movies or shows or actors or musicians. These topics are much better than, "What grade are you in?"
. . . .

It connects us generationally. My kids can talk to their grandparents about shows they mutually like and they can watch them together. My grandparents don't go to the skating rinks and sledding hills and zoos with us, but they can watch Mary Poppins with my kids and laugh and bond together.

—Sarah Anderson-Thimmes

from a much longer list of Why I Love TV
at SandraDodd.com/t/learning

image is from The Simpsons,
and is in reference to a Leonardo da Vinci's
Vitruvian Man

Life, thought and learning

Parents new to unschooling tend to worry that some activities are good preparation for life, but others are frivolous and should be forbidden or discouraged. Life and thought and learning, though, depend on connections being made. And the more points of information about anything at all being made inside an individual, the more points there will be to connect.

SandraDodd.com/connections/jokes
photo by Irene Adams

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

From the inside

Debbie Regan wrote:

From the outside, unschooling may look like no chores, no bedtimes, no education, no discipline, no structure, no limits, etc. But from the inside, it's about learning, relationships, living with real parameters, partnership, navigating turbulence, making connections, joy, curiosity, focus, enthusiasm, options, following trails, fun, growing understanding, opening doors...

—Debbie Regan

SandraDodd.com/priorities
photo by Ve Lacerda
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Good reasons to be positive

Since my kids weren't going to have teachers at school to validate their interests or to introduce them to things I "hated," I decided not to hate anything, and to leave as much of the world accessible to my kids without them feeling they were messing with something I didn't like, or asking about something I disapproved of.

When I reject something from my life, it closes doors, in my head, and in my soul. I can't make connections there anymore. I have eliminated it from active play. It's not good for unschoolers.

Everyone has the freedom to be negative. Not everyone has thought of good reasons to be more positive.

Becoming more open
photo by Gigi Polikowsky

Talking, laughing, doing, watching...

Sylvia Woodman wrote:

One of the most frequent questions I hear is, "What does a typical day look like in your house?" It's hard to know how to answer since what we are doing is what we have always done. We live our life, have fun, try new things, talk about them. Mostly, the learning happens almost "under the radar"—people talking, laughing, doing stuff, watching things, tasting things, and making connections that make sense to them.

—Sylvia Woodman, 2014

SandraDodd.com/sylviawoodman/learning
photo by Sylvia Woodman

Warmth and connection

Gail Higgins wrote:

I didn't foresee that the benefits of unschooling would extend to these years when my children were grown. Our home has quieter times now than when the kids were young but is most often a place for laughter and love and warmth and connection. Sometimes, like today, it seems bursting with trust and happiness and contentment while on other days those elements are just quietly evident as we go about our lives.

I am aware of families where it is common to have drama and anger and jealousy and I am grateful to have helped create a home filled with peace and connections with occasional bursts of silly fun.

—Gail Higgins
just as her kids were grown

Eighteen on 18
(SandraDodd.com/milestones/gail)
photo by Gail Higgins, another year

Thoughts can flow

The clearer your mind is of trauma and fear, the more easily your thoughts can flow, and connections can be made.

Don't think of your brain. Think of your mind and of your awareness. A little tiny brain can hold a LOT of information. A big fat one can fail to do so. It's not size, it's peace and use.

SandraDodd.com/awareness
photo by Cally Brown
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More dots to connect

If one thing makes you think of another thing, you form a connection between them in your mind. The more connections you have, the better access you have to cross-connections. The more things something can remind you of, the more you know about it, or are learning about it.

Flat representations can't show these connections. Neither could an elaborate three-dimensional model, because when you consider what a thing is or what it's like, you not only make connections with other concepts, but experiences and emotions. You will have connections reaching into the past and the future, connections related to sounds, smells, tastes and textures. The more you know about something, the more you can know, because there are more and more hooks to hang more information on—more dots to connect.

I got the idea for this kind of graph from Trust the Children: A Manual and Activity Guide for Homeschooling and Alternative Learning by Anna Kealoha.

Here's a simple mathematical example:

But being more "cross-disciplinary" about it, not limiting to just one area, we've played with them more like this:

And any of those can become "the center" and branch out to everything else in the whole wide world. But at the heart of this exercise is what is and what isn't: What IS a thing, and what is not the thing? What is like it and what is unlike it?

CONNECTIONS: How Learning Works
graphs by Sandra Dodd, when Holly Dodd was thirteen years old

Learning

Learning is about connections. And others can't make those connections for you. You bring learning in; it is not inserted.

Some people learn better by seeing, watching, touching, than by being talked to anyway. Some want to see diagrams in a book, or maps. Some want to hear about it from others who have done it, seen it, know it.

When unschoolers provide as much different input as they can, each child can learn in his own way.

Principles of Learning (chat transcript)
photo by Cátia Maciel

Cross-Connections

If one thing makes you think of another thing, you form a connection between them in your mind. The more connections you have, the better access you have to cross-connections. The more things something can remind you of, the more you know about it, or are learning about it.

SandraDodd.com/connections
icy-web photo by Cathy Koetsier

Holly and the Hippie Shirt

The article's real name is "Art, Aging and Spirituality— Connections between Things and Ideas." I wrote it in early 2001, when Holly was nine years old.

I will quote the end, and usher you toward the full article:

We all are preparing for our unseen futures, and I was prepared to homeschool. I am prepared to discuss the social history of the 70's musicals Holly is frolicking with now, in a shirt I made when a brand new India print bedspread could be bought by a barefooted hippie for $4. She is surprisingly prepared, at the age of nine, to understand it.

That was written for a local homeschooling newsletter, so I apologize for the neighborhood particulars. Those from Albuquerque, or who attended the University of New Mexico, might've perked up. ***

SandraDodd.com/HippieShirt
photo by Sandra Dodd

Whole life and whole person

"I’m so incredibly grateful my kids *live* in the world where *everything* is connected. It’s wildly and joyfully healing, and more importantly, it’s raising thoughtful, compassionate, and, really smart kids—not book smart. Whole life and whole person smart."

—Jen Keefe

SandraDodd.com/connections/
photo by Cátia Maciel

Pathways and connections

"I learned early on that being excited with my kids about whatever they are excited about opens pathways and connections that are magical—not just for their learning but for our relationship and their relationship with the world."

—Jen Keefe

"Following their Interests": SandraDodd.com/jeninterests
photo by Ester Siroky