Facilitator and companion

I’ve been credited with the description below, but it was written by Joyce Fetteroll and tweaked by Pam Sorooshian and me before it was published at the UnschoolingDiscussion site, on googlegroups:

Although unschooling is often described as a homeschooling style, it is, in fact, much more than just another homeschool teaching method. Unschooling is both a philosophy of natural learning and the lifestyle that results from living according to the principles of that philosophy.

The most basic principle of unschooling is that children are born with an intrinsic urge to explore — for a moment or a lifetime – what intrigues them, as they seek to join the adult world in a personally satisfying way. Because of that urge, an unschooling child is free to choose the what, when, where and how of his/her own learning from mud puddles to video games and SpongeBob Squarepants to Shakespeare! And an unschooling parent sees his/her role, not as a teacher, but as a facilitator and companion in a child’s exploration of the world.

Unschooling is a mindful lifestyle which encompasses, at its core, an atmosphere of trust, freedom, joy and deep respect for who the child is. This cannot be lived on a part-time basis. Unschooling sometimes seems so intuitive that people feel they’ve been doing it all along, not realizing it has a name. Unschooling sometimes seems so counterintuitive that people struggle to understand it, and it can take years to fully accept its worth.

—Joyce Fetteroll, aided by
Pam Sorooshian
and Sandra Dodd

SandraDodd.com/unschooling
photo by Clare Kirkpatrick

Not just for kids!

The way adults tend to learn things is the way people best learn—by asking questions, looking things up, trying things out, and getting help when it's needed. That's the way pre-school kids learn too (maybe minus the looking things up), and it is the way "school-age" kids can/should learn as well. Learning is internal. Teachers are lovely assistants at best, and detrimental at worst. "Teaching" is just presentation of material. It doesn't create learning. Artificial divisions of what is "educational" from what is considered NOT educational, and things which are "for kids" from things which are NOT for kids don't benefit kids or adults. Finding learning in play is like the sun coming out on a dank, dark day.

SandraDodd.com/unschooling
photo (and words) by Sandra Dodd

Access to information

Little by little, years ago, I started to see that each little idea that had changed my own family had the potential, if I could explain it clearly enough, to change another family. Just a little was enough. As more and more families shared their successes and joys, the world changed. As more information was gathered and put where others could find it, the rate of change increased.

When I was first unschooling, we waited two months for a new issues of Growing Without Schooling. There was no internet discussion at all. When that began, a few years later, it was user groups, not even e-mail or webpages yet. Today someone can get more information about unschooling in one day than existed in the whole world when my oldest was five. I'm glad to have been part of honing, polishing, clarifying and gathering those ideas, stories and examples, and keeping them where others have quick access to them.

Interview with Sandra Dodd, Natural Parenting, 2010 (Section #5)
photo by Sandra Dodd


in French

Casually more attentive

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

You can casually be more attentive without forcing yourself on him. Do it in a thousand different ways by thinking of him throughout the day and doing some little thing for him. I just went to my daughter's room and got a pillow off her bed and put it under her head (she's on the couch nearby). She smiled sleepily at me and said, "I love you, Mommy." She's 18.

Maybe just take him a soda into his room - or a monkey platter of little things he likes. Show him by your little actions throughout the day that you love him.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Cátia Maciel

Passing through the space between

Sandy Lubert wrote:

This place between schooling and unschooling, this place that we often refer to as deschooling, it really is a wonderful place to grow and learn. It’s the place where change occurs, where we unburden ourselves. It’s where we look at old definitions with new eyes and say, perhaps for the first time, “That definition just doesn’t work for me and my family.” ....

...I was privileged enough to watch my son, who is an artist, rediscover his passion. He had become seriously depressed at school and had completely stopped drawing, something he had previously done for hours at a time. As he grew more and more accustomed to the unfettered feeling of NOT being at school, NOT being told what should be important to him…as he began to heal, he started to draw again. His art had been gone from our lives for nearly a year, and I had no idea how badly I’d missed it, until it came back. So, in that place between schooling and unschooling, one of the many gifts I received was the return of my son’s imagination.

—Sandy Lubert

from "Unschooling and deschooling, and changes"
SandraDodd.com/sandylubert.html
photo by Karen James

Late stage, looking back

Kelly Lovejoy wrote, in "The Three Stages of Unschooling," 2004:

My son Cameron (16) and I recently started sitting in on a college Sociology class. He asked for and received electric guitar lessons for his birthday. Mondays he goes to a nearby school and takes African drumming lessons. He's taking a weekly film class starting in March, and we'll be sending him to a weeklong film school in Maine in May. Duncan (almost 8) just started karate lessons. Ben (my husband) has just finished a class (with tests and all) that's required before he can put on Lt Col (Air National Guard) and is now in NJ for three weeks of "rah-rah" and classroom training and tests for the two new drugs he will be selling. I'm going to a one-day intensive "Bee School" to learn to take care of my Christmas present: two beehives.

Cameron said the other day, "For Unschoolers, we sure are taking a lot of schooly classes!"

That got me thinking...especially since we are one of those families that discovered unschooling after years and years of schooling.

I think that there are three "Stages of Unschooling."

continued here:
SandraDodd.com/kellylovejoy/stages

SandraDodd.com/stages
photo of Cameron and Kelly Lovejoy, the year after the article
(photographer credit lost; sorry)

A bigger big world

It is strangely possible to learn from the whole wide world without participating in its pervasive school aspects. It's a little like polarized glass—where you change the angle a little and it all looks CLEAR!! Tilt it back and it all looks dark.

It's a big world and school does not own it.

And the big world is not just right now, as is. It's all its history, all its future, all its imaginings and myths and fantasies and alternate endings. School presents a little package of one version of history, a little package of one summary of science, etc., and leaves all else out.

the whole wide world and what schooling isn't
photo by Sobia Itwaru

Slipping through the cracks?

Lyle Perry wrote:

Deschooling is all about letting go. Letting go of your schoolish ideals, and even more important than that (in my opinion) is letting go of your expectations for your kids. When you expect something, it's so easy to set those expectations too high, and that can lead to feelings of failure, for both you and your child. No two kids are alike, and they should not be treated as though they are just another face in the crowd, and that is what happens in school.

There is no one-size-fits-all educational system that works, contrary to what any public school advocate will tell you. How many times have you heard about children "slipping through the cracks" at public school?

With unschooling, no child slips through the cracks, because the cracks don't exist.

—Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/lists/lyle
photo by Janine Davies

Learn and be an example

Colleen Prieto wrote:

Realize your unschooling life and someone else’s unschooling life won’t look exactly just the same, and that’s because your kids and their kids, your partner and their partner, your house and their house, your interests and their interests… they’re not the same either. But still read, talk, and think about what you are doing, and listen to what others are doing. Learn from the example of people who have been there/done that, and be an example for those who will come after you on the unschooling path.

—Colleen Prieto

From Colleen's writings at the bottom here: SandraDodd.com/video/doright
photo by Sandra Dodd

Seeing what learning is

When a newcomer was very confused, Meredith Novak wrote:

The basis of unschooling comes from seeing learning as a substantial human drive and seeing that learning depends absolutely on the perceptions of the learner. The second part is what makes everything tricky - you can't control what someone else learns. At best you can work on seeing the world from another person's perspective and try to create an environment which helps that person learn.

It can help a lot to think about how people learn via their hobbies. In a way, that's what real life unschooling looks like: people learning through hobbies. It usually involves a lot of playing around - and the playing around parts are just as important to learning as the parts where you need to go look something up, or network with another hobbyist, or take a class or workshop to improve a skill.

One of the common parenting/educational myths is that it's possible to imbue children with "good habits" by making them do certain things over and over. It Seems like it Should work... but when you look at adults there's no evidence it does. The results are pretty random. It's not a strategy that helps people learn about the world.

—Meredith Meredith
July 2012

SandraDodd.com/meredithnovak
photo by Carolyn Vandenbusch Neves

Better, without regrets

Do your best to do your best.

You won't regret making more positive choices.

---

SandraDodd.com/better on my site
and
"Better" on Just Add Light and Stir
photo by Renee Cabatic

One thing leads to something else

Mary Ellen (nellebelle) wrote, years ago:

Up to now, we have never had any video games in our house. It wasn't that I purposely avoided them, it was just something we'd never done and the girls had never asked for. I had a vague idea in my head that they were negative along the lines of TV and other electronic media. Generally, when video games make the news it is not positive. I had never before questioned these ideas. Lisa had mentioned playing a race car game at her friend's house. We decided to give the girls a Nintendo64 for Christmas. This morning I played Crusin World with Lisa. The game is full of famous landmarks. It is not totally realistic, but does match many real aspects of the countries you race through. While cruising Germany, I mentioned the autobahn. I don't know too much about it, except that people drive really fast there. This led us to consider mph vs. kph, which led to the metric vs. US system of measurement. I told Lisa that I had bought some stuff to help learn the metric system because I wanted to understand it better. She said, "We can learn it together".

It never ceases to amaze me how doing one thing can lead to learning about something else.

—Mary Ellen(nellebelle)

"Everything I really need to know I learned from video games and cheesy cartoons."
SandraDodd.com/t/cheesy

image respectfully lifted from
Launchbox Games Database

Learn and share

Karen James, to a worried mom with a young teen daughter:

Try not to worry. I know that's hard. I'm a worrier, myself. But when we worry about another person, it becomes a burden for them on top of what they are already experiencing. Just be with her, as fully as you can. If she's telling you she's bored, she's inviting you into her experience. Join her. Learn about her. Share yourself with her too. You'll likely learn a lot about her (and yourself) in the process, and I'm confident it will be enriching and rewarding for you both.

—Karen James

A gentle approach to boredom
SandraDodd.com/boredom/karen
photo by Sandra Dodd

Random words, or CHOSEN words?

In an unschooling discussion, once, someone commented just this:

Evidently this is a place to choose one's words extremely carefully.

I responded:

YES!!
Yes, it is.
This group is a place to choose one's words carefully.

One wonderful thing about that is that if one practices that here, and sees the value in it, maybe she will begin to choose her words more carefully when speaking to her children, or her partner. Her other friends and relatives probably wouldn't mind if she chose her words carefully when speaking to them.

And in other groups, too—a humor group, or Korean drama group, Viking crafts group, puppy-training group—wouldn't it be best to choose one's words carefully?

SandraDodd.com/mindfulofwords
photo by Sandra Dodd

Kids first, positively

In a social group, if a mom gets comfortable, she can spend years just chatting with those other moms without paying much attention to her own children other than keeping them fed, clothed and safe. If they're in school, that's not so bad.

If they're unschooled, though, the bulk of her time and energy should be with, on, about THEM, and the family, and the relationships. Unschooling should be better than school; if it's not, the kids would be better off in school.

Any unschooler who wants to do just the bare minimum of what she "has to do" to be considered (by whom!?) an unschooler is NOT unschooling well or right. It needs energy, activity, interactivity, flow, sparkle, joy.

People who come [to a discussion group] with ANY amount of Eeyore attitude, and those who defend that, are dragging people under and I don't want to condone that or provide a forum for anyone to drag potentially joyful people into a hole, justifying complaints, collecting negativity.

---

Please don't try to turn your unschooling into social groups. Don't look for "a tribe." Don't put your loyalty toward an unschooling group, or a conference. When that group becomes complacent, or negative, then you will, too.

Find a way to unschool confidently, even if all your other friends buy a curriculum or put their kids in school.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Annie Regan

(source, on facebook)

Big world

Here is a peacock in India. Hema Bharadwaj took the photo:


This peacock lives wherever it wants to, in Albuquerque, and was photographed by Holly Dodd. Where it wants to live is wandering around the zoo. 🙂


Below is a picture I took of Holly and another zoo peacock in 2009.

click for more just-add-light-and-stir peacock images
What do you know about peacocks? What do you need to know? Does what you know touch geography? Art, biology, or animal behavior? History, mythology or fashion?

You probably don't "need" to know anything about peacocks, really, but I bet you already knew several things.


peacock images out on the net

Never heard of such a thing

Christine Macdonald wrote that she and her daughter had walked to the grocery store once to pick up milk they needed for a recipe:

I had brought a ten-dollar bill (no wallet) I told her we'd have about six dollars left and she could get whatever she wanted with it—she wanted a pomegranate or three artichokes (neither of which we had enough money left for) I told her we could come back later with my wallet and get them or get them now skip the milk and come back later for the milk to finish our cake. She said come back later for the artichokes. When we were at the checkout I said why don't you just get a candy bar or something for the walk home she said no thanks. A mom behind me in line was shocked at the idea of a kid not wanting candy if offered said she never heard of such a thing.

—Christine Macdonald

SandraDodd.com/eating/sweets
photo by Jihong Tang

Epiphanies

Ah-HA!

I recently saw how far I've come.

I knew that. Now I *know* that.

I am pretty sure I understand now!

Those quotes are from a collection of just a few of the unschooling epiphanies reported over the years. Not one of them is anything akin to "Yeah, I read that, but..." They're not about reading at all. They're about seeing, about realizing, about having acted in a new way after months or years of the percolation of ideas through a mind and heart open to learning.

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Sandra Dodd

Touch

A mom once wrote, of babies:

Not only have they never seen, touched or experienced anything in our world—they also have no way of communicating thoughts, feelings or desires with anything more than frustrated cries, screams and babbling.

I responded:

There is touch. There is gaze. Have you never just looked into the eyes of your child, communicating? Have you not touched them soothingly, and felt them touch you back sometimes? They can tell the difference between an angry look and a gentle look.

Parents who didn't know touch was a real way to communicate could practice on babies, and then use it with older children, and partners.

For children to learn language, they need opportunities to hear words, and for people to pay attention to the sounds they make. Mimicry is good, with babies. Even before they can articulate consonants, they can probably copy your voice going up or down, and you could copy them back. Singing little made up two-note songs can be a good tool for communicating with babies. Copying touch is good, too. (Don't return rough touch with rough, though.)

SandraDodd.com/babies

Paws it!

I remember having younger video-game playing kids, and asking "Does this game pause?" Or one of them, knowing which were "pausable," would just demand of a sibling "Pause it!", if there was a reason to interact, a question to ask, or something to say.

With my own thoughts and actions, it's good to know when I can "pause it" if someone needs me.


SandraDodd.com/being

photo by Crystal, Sorscha's mom, years ago,
for If you give a cat a Nintendo...,
a tongue-in-cheek directory page