A nest for learning

My definition for unschooling is creating and maintaining an environment in which natural learning can thrive. The environment I’m talking about—what we sometimes call an unschooling nest—is not just the physical home, it’s the relationships within the family and the exploration of the world outside the home by parents and children both. The emotional environment is crucial.

SandraDodd.com/parentschange
photo by Denaire Nixon

Exploration and fun

Create an environment filled with exploration and fun, so that learning will happen. Parent should learn enough about learning to create a learning life.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Sandra Dodd
Lego figure assembled by Alicia, Emilio and Elisa

Is unschooling productive?

In a life where the goals are partnership, good relationships between parents and children, and an atmosphere of constant curiosity, exploration and learning, just about everything is "productive." If things are going well, then life is "producing" partnership, relationship-building, exploration and learning.

Playing, and happiness

The quote is from a discussion on my facebook page, about the idea of "productivity." "Productivity" questions

photo by Roya Dedeaux

Calm, happy, trusting

Someone commented that responses to her questions had hurt her feelings. I wrote:

When he is calm and happy and trusting, THEN you will feel better—not because of things we wrote, or didn't, but because you will BE better. You will see it in your son's eyes.

Don't make it about you. Make it about his range of exploration and his choices and his learning and his happiness. You can live on the interest, if you invest enough in him.

(at Radical Unschooling Info, on Facebook)
photo by Amy Milstein

"I feel it in my fingers..."

Karen James, on math:

I took the leap and we began homeschooling, with me trusting that like walking, talking, reading, writing, and all the other things he had managed to learn through his play and exploration and with our active support, he would come to have a meaningful understanding of math too. When I came to a greater understanding of unschooling, I suspected we had not made a error in judgement. As I have watched Ethan's relationship with math grow and deepen, I knew we had not.

What I didn't realize when I was worrying about how to bring math to Ethan, was that Ethan had already found math. He found it on his fingers. He found it in the seeds of an apple I had cut open. He found it in the peas spread over the tray on his high chair. He found it in every repeated drop of his cup or spoon. He found it in the music we listened to. He found it in the timing between jumps on his jolly jumper. He found it in the balance he needed to take the next step. He found it in the distance between steps. It was everywhere already, and he was already finding the art in it. I just needed to stop my worrying and start having fun.

So I have.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/math/found
photo by Belinda Dutch

The title isn't from the quote, it's from a 1967 Troggs song.


In 2023, Ethan James is newly grown up and working at a video game company, at least for a while.

Exploration

It's interesting to see what seems dangerous from place to place and family to family.

Be near your kids, let them explore, be ready to help. Remember to breathe!

SandraDodd.com/danger
photo by Tara Joe Farrell

It shows.

"Much of what they're learning as unschoolers is the 'true grit' of living: communication, interaction, observation, exploration, etc... and it shows!"

—a mom named Sandy

SandraDodd.com/siblingpeace
photo by Sandra Dodd

Happy to be where he is

Peace is a prerequisite to natural, curious, intellectual exploration.

What is peace, then, in a home with children? Contentment is peace.

Is a child happy to be where he is? That is a kind of peace. If he wakes up disappointed, that is not peace, no matter how quiet the house is or how clean and "feng shuid" his room is.

Peace, like learning, is largely internal.

There is more at Contentment is Peace.
drawing by a younger Kes; photo by Janine Davies

Learning, exploration, peace & love

It's worth looking into the concept of process vs. product. People learn from figuring out how things work. One doesn't need to build a computer just to mess with computer repair or examine parts. Someone can play with yarn and needles and do a simple scarf without being made to feel like a failure for having no interest in making sweaters and socks.

Unschooling is about learning, exploration, peace and love.

SandraDodd.com/flitting
photo by Sandra Dodd

Happy, having fun, and learning

Colleen Prieto wrote:

I am quite pleased that everyone in our little family feels quite free to be enthusiastic, passionate, and extremely into whatever we're into at the moment. All things Star Trek, cemetery exploration, birding, keeping track of the Yankees, Minecraft, and photography are things that right now are taking up most of our time. I don't think we're obsessed and I don't think we need to be more well-rounded and find "moderation." I think we're happy and having fun and learning , and that to me is all good.

—Colleen Prieto

"Too Much"
photo by Sadie Bugni

Things

I love this photo of Karen Lundy's kitchen utensils, laid out artfully and photographed.

I like things. I like tools. The similarities and differences in things has always interested me—the patterns and departures, in objects, people, games, songs, foods, trees, and ideas.

Some people think "I have too many things." Some want things they don't have. Few think "I have the perfect number of things."

I miss things I used to have, sometimes. Attachments are not ideal, but things can be art, comfort, tools, toys, and portals to history, stories, science, exploration and possibilities.

Be at peace with things, when you can be.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Karen Lundy
__

Investigation and exploration

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

I do not refer to unschooling as “child-led learning” and I encourage others not to use that term because I think overuse of it has led to some pretty serious misunderstanding of what unschooling is really like.

The term, “child-led learning,” does emphasize something very important — that the child is the learner! I couldn’t agree more. However, it also disregards the significant role played by the parent in helping and supporting and, yes, quite often taking the lead, in the investigation and exploration of the world that is unschooling.

—Pam Sorooshian

(Read the rest at the link below.)

Unschooling is not “Child-Led Learning”
photo by Karen James

Calm and open

Unschoolers' support of their children's interests not only creates more peace at the time, and better relationships, but it keeps the world calm and open to them, for their dabbling, curiosity, and exploration.

from a facebook discussion about learning
photo by Sandra Dodd

Curiosity, exploration, acceptance

What cannot bend can break, so ease up on solid knowledge, in favor of curiosity, exploration, acceptance—all the things that create a learning environment.
original, on facebook, about food restrictions

SandraDodd.com/curiosity
photo by EsterSiroky
__

A dynamic tapestry

Karen James wrote:

What I've discovered about my son's learning (about my own as well) is that it's a tapestry of experiences that weave themselves over time, with some threads longer than others, with some threads connecting in surprising places, with gaps that aren't holes but rather spaces that make way for new connections and patterns to take shape. It's dynamic and forever growing and changing. One simple exposure to something today can lead to some bigger exploration years down the road. Or something that seemed all-consuming one moment can be a mere whisper of influence the next.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Car keys and money

"Look for ways to be a helpful partner to your kids—you've got the car keys and the money, you can facilitate their exploration of the world."

—Deb Rossing

SandraDodd.com/attentiveparenting
photo by Ester Siroky, from inside their RV
__

Exploration

Wander. Explore. Investigate. Explore art, form, shadows. Explore stories, ideas, words.

Exploring (with Deb-Lewis words)
photo by Ester Siroky
__ __

Which came first...

Which came first, curiosity or learning? Exploration or knowledge?

If you're lucky, and open to it, they will tumble and leapfrog over one another in all the best times of your life.

Exploring
photo by Gail Higgins
__

Thinking and wondering

"Sometimes people just want to wonder, rather than *know*. Or maybe they will want to know in the future, but right now they're just thinking on it and wondering." —Tam Palmer

SandraDodd.com/exploration
Laughing and wondering might help, too.
photo by Colleen Prieto
"Barn Swallow fledglings — Rye, NH"

Look for this!

"Don't look for 'behaviors.' Look for learning and thinking and pondering and excitement and happiness!"

—Robin Bentley

SandraDodd.com/exploration
photo by Sarah Clark