Don't make it weird.

For unschooling to work in that solid, twelve-or-twenty-year way, it should be about kids, and learning, and relationships and peace, not about being weird for the sake of weird, or being anti-government.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Cass Kotrba

Teaching is a problem.

"Teaching" is a problem, in an unschooling light. Learning is the goal, and teaching gets in the way.

SandraDodd.com/teaching
photo by Leon McNeill, of Holly Dodd looking at the original Bayeux Tapestry,
in France in 2005

Instead of schoolish ideas...

Rebeccas Justus, when she was new to unschooling, created an inspired and inspiring list of the differences between schoolishness and unschooling. There are two dozen sets. Here are a few to make your day lighter:

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instead of "Instill knowledge" :

Trust that learning is natural; trust that children are interested in life

instead of "Follow a schedule" :

Flow with the moment, with the inspiration

instead of "Memorize facts" :

Understand stories

SandraDodd.com/unschool/difference
photo by Jo Isaac

Learning gently

Don't have him around others who will tease him. That's the main benefit of homeschooling, being away from bullies. Don't bully or tease him and don't let anyone else do it either.

Unschooling really depends on helping kids gently get to their own learning in their own way. Wanting them to conform uniformly and on schedule isn't the way unschooling works.

An archived discussion with a bad name, but good info
photo by Jo Isaac

What John Holt didn't know

NOTE FROM SANDRA: I was speaking, not writing, so when you get past that stuttery beginning, it might flow.

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One thing that John Holt, when he was writing about Teach Your Own, he, too, had a curriculum in mind. He, too, was thinking, not "Teach a curriculum," but "Do this, instead of school, until school is out, and then you will be done, and it will be cool, you will have dodged the bullet, you will have missed out on the damage of school." That’s worthy all by itself.

But John Holt didn’t have any children. He didn’t actually do what he was writing about people doing. I respect him, I love his books, I am glad he did what he did. But then people come along, after that, and they do it. And then they shared that with each other, and then people did it better than they saw their families do it. Other families say, “Well, I wish I hadn’t done this; it was all right, but oh, I wish we had done this." And so entire lives of young people have been lived now since John Holt died, who didn’t go to school. And what those families discovered, that John Holt could not have known, is that if you live your life receptive to the learning around you, accepting of input, appreciative of the other people around you who know things, and of the resources around you, and trying not to be prejudiced against input like television and videogame and comic book, then what happens is, the parents' learning kicks back in. The parents, who probably had sort of calcified because of school, they soften back up, and they start to want to learn. And so they are learning along with their children, or in a parallel-play kind of way. They might all be in the same place all learning different things, sharing the good parts.

Family Bonding (recorded interview and transcript)
SandraDodd.com/familybonding
photo by Sandra Dodd
of Keith and Holly, 2015

Checking and comparing

Someone asked:

Do you still look at standards for certain grade levels only so that the state leave you alone or do you just wait until they say something and show them what your kid can do?

Sandra:

I used to look from time to time at APS (Albuquerque Public Schools) Expected Competencies, or the World Book list or something similar, but now I look maybe every two years.

In New Mexico they're not going to ask you to show what your child can do. And when you're with your child in busy learning-situations every day, you'll see the learning just take off!

That was my 2002 answer, when my youngest was 10. I quit checking "should be" lists at some point. We were fortunate to live where that was a good option.

SandraDodd.com/questions
photo by Gail Higgins

Ask yourself "why?"

Robyn Coburn wrote:

Every time you feel the urge to control a choice, you can ask yourself "why?" and begin to question the assumptions (or fears) about children, parenting, learning and living joyfully that you are holding on to.

—Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/option
photo by Sandra Dodd

Q&A—Agenda

Question:

Are we teaching anything or learning side by side or allowing them to self express?

Sandra:

Those aren't your only choices. They're learning, we're learning, we're all expressing ourselves, and when life is very rich and lush, learning grows like crazy.

Question:

Can you go into detail about the idea of making things available and having an agenda?

Sandra:

Is "making things available" a reference to dance and karate classes and social opportunities, or to toys and music and books and cash and games? We've tried to give our kids lots of access to people and places and things. The agenda was that they would learn and be happy.

SandraDodd.com/panel
photo by Cátia Maciel

Competitive efficiency

One problem that comes up is efficiency. The idea of the glory of efficiency can be a problem. Because people get competitive, we’re all keeping track of how quickly we got into university and how soon we got out. Or how many minutes we take to get dinner on the table. “Oh, well, I can do that meal in 30 minutes!” “Well, I can do that meal in 20 minutes!”

Unschooling isn’t like that at all, even in the long term it’s not about the completion of a project at all. It’s about becoming the sort of people who see and appreciate and trust that learning can happen. And who can travel with children, not just drag them along or push them along, but who can travel with children along those interesting paths together not until you get there, but indefinitely.

And for beginning unschoolers that sounds also a little esoteric, a little foofy. And not solid. They want to know what do I do when the kids wake up in the morning? So, the beginning information is very often, “What do I do?” But the information that will get people from the beginning to the intermediate is why. Why do we do this?

SandraDodd.com/parentschange
photo by Colleen Prieto

As understanding grows

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

It usually takes a long time before people new to unschooling stop looking for new rules to replace old ones. The more people are discouraged from skimming a surface understanding of unschooling, discouraged from relying on meaningless reassurances that going through the motions of unschooling with crossed fingers and assurances everything will be fine, the better for their kids.

Unschooling is a paradigm shift for most everyone. That shift doesn't happen by acting like other unschoolers. It comes slowly, bit by bit, as understanding of what unschooling is grows.

—Joyce Fetteroll

From Always Learning; third post down

or at the current groups.io site
photo by Jihong Tang

Learning/problem solving

Don't discount the learning/problem solving that is going on while our kids play video games. I can't think of anything else that he does that engages his mind so thoroughly and completely—that gets it moving and thinking and wondering. And that can only be a good thing.🙂

—Stephanie E.

The rest of Stephanie's account is great; I had a hard time choosing a short quote: SandraDodd.com/game/gamecube
photo by Sarah Peshek

Learning how

Sara P. wrote:

This is still an ongoing process for me. I had to re-train myself in a lot of ways. I had to learn a new language. I had to learn to SEE again. I had to learn how to communicate. I had to learn patience. I had to learn how to put others first. .....WOW! Sometimes an old thought will creep in. Sometimes I find myself answering a question in *teacher tone*...but it is so few and far between, and I am so quick to catch it that nobody ever notices except me! LOL!

—Sara P.

SandraDodd.com/change/stories
photo by Denaire Nixon

Unusual but doable!

If a family is looking for rules and passivity, they can create a lifetime of it. If a family wants joy and learning, the creation is a bit more difficult and unusual but doable!

SandraDodd.com/zombies
photo by Amber Ivey

Seeing; doing; being

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

In the newer days years ago, what helped more than anything else was to actually see my kids and what they were actually doing. I would try to see the world from their eyes and see how they lit up and give them more of that. Just being with them and enjoying them for who they were regardless of what they were doing, watching tv, playing dress up, whatever helped keep my energy focused on them, rather than on fear of what they weren't or weren't doing.

—Jenny Cyphers

original writing, at Always Learning
photo by Sadie Bugni

Webs, nets, connections

The terms "web" and "net" have both been commandeered by the internet. The idea of a grid or web or matrix to represent the connections involved in learning and memory is a good one, though—of many "dots" connected in all directions.

The photo here is of the two-dimensional web—very flat—of a garden spider, outside my house this week. Black widow spiders make a web that's three-dimensional, but has no pattern. We have those in our yard, too.

The webs on which our own mental models of the universe are based are more complex—with past and future, emotion and theory, alternative stories and secondary theories. We have sounds and songs, scents and tastes to remember, and can sort things by temperature or texture, in our minds and imaginations.

Rejoice in the random!

SandraDodd.com/random
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Feral preferences

From a discussion of kids' programs, in 2004:

Hate isn't a good thing to harbor or defend, or to expect your children to have. Learning to see things without a rush of emotion is good for people, and it's good to model that for children, too.

Hatred itself (hating, strong negativity) is harmful to the hater and to the environment.

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"Hate" is a set of biochemicals that will not let love and open acceptance in until hate settles down, so moms hoping to build a peaceful learning nest for children should be using the best materials they have, physical or emotional or otherwise. Hate, jealousy, resentment and those sharp and separating emotions are not nesting materials.

"I hate to play!"
Links at top there have the original post and earlier comments.

Open gates to peaceful places
photo by Cátia Maciel

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

Living in a learning world

"My kids think learning is what life is for. And I agree with them."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/learningworld
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Inside the learner

Nothing on paper is learning.
Nothing recited is learning.
Nothing in a conversation is learning....

Learning is putting information together in one's own head so that it makes new and different sense. It always and only happens inside the learner.

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Open, joyful, fearless

If you want to unschool, life is better lived around learning, and relationships. Living in a relaxed home, where at least one parent is open to and joyful about all the world has to offer, will do more for a child's well-being than any amount of fear or control of foods a parent perceives as harmful.

—Lisa J Haugen

SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Sandra Dodd (in India, a while back)