photo by Marty Dodd, in Anchorage
Showing posts sorted by date for query /look. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query /look. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Friday, August 22, 2025
Direct seeing
photo by Marty Dodd, in Anchorage
Thursday, August 21, 2025
History at your house

You could have a checklist scavenger hunt in your house. Do you have something from each decade of the past hundred years? I nominate this glass, from my stuff, for the 1960's, though it might be '50s.
You could look for things from different continents, at the same time. And things made of different materials—glass, stoneware, tile, wood, particular metals, bamboo or rattan, cardboard (other than a plain cardboard box), rubber (real rubber), vinyl, different types of cloth.
You could photograph them and make a blog post or a little scrapbook.
Normal or exotic?
The good stuff
like pulling a bouquet of flowers out of a wand
photo by Sandra Dodd
and here's the other side of it
Thursday, July 24, 2025
To avoid learning...
If you want to avoid learning, it's best not to look, or read, or wonder.
Don't even click links.
photo by nobody; avoid photos
photo by nobody; avoid photos
Thursday, July 10, 2025
Fun and learning
I'm sure on any given day I could look at what we're doing and say "We haven't done much today" and I could choose to freak out about it and panic. But when I look back over a week or a month I can see the rich tapestry of fun and learning that is our life.
—Robin ("Blue Skies")
Robin's Typical Days
Robin's Typical Days
photo by Sarah Dickinson
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Sounding off
It seems to me that "phonics" essentially serves the purpose of "teaching" a child to read before he's ready and fully grasps context and meaning. I know that I can read Spanish, which is a much more consistently phonetic language than English, complete with accent and everything, and literally not understand one bit of what I'm saying.I remember being tested separately for "reading" and reading comprehension. If one can't understand the words and phrases, then isn't it just decoding with an internalized phonics decoder ring?
Turning script to sound is one trick, but the reading that people want will turn marks to meaning. The same way that musical notation (and a musician who can decipher and play or sing it) can bring music into the air, so can the written word becoming lively language again.
Patti discovered, as many unschooling parents have, that while some children appreciate phonics hints, or figure phonics out on their own, others learn to read in their own other ways.
SandraDodd.com/r/patti
photo by Sandra Dodd
The photo was taken of the insde of a church door in Durham, in England. "The draught is dreadful" cannot be read easily with American phonics (or sight reading, or look-say). But it's cute, and it's alliterative, which is an ancient tradition in the English language, and in the naming of the alter-egos of comic-book super heroes.
Sunday, June 1, 2025
How much does unschooling cost?
If a child is in a private school, unschooling won't "cost that much," meaning no one will send you a tuition bill and a steady stream of fundraising requests and tell you what clothes and shoes you have to buy.
If both parents are working and decide one should quit work and stay at home with the children, will it "cost" a full-time income? In one way of looking at it, perhaps. But counting potential is a trap.
If a family values love and relationships, unschooling can pay off in a jackpot of closeness and joy that could hardly be possible with school in the equation, and could never be bought back with a thousand hours of expensive therapy down the road. (Maybe factor in the time savings of not spending a thousand hours sitting and talking about what you could've done differently, in addition to the cost of it.)
photo by Sandra Dodd
Saturday, May 31, 2025
What about "Educational" Materials?
Resistance to things that look schooly or educational makes sense—we're promoting letting all those things go completely, especially at the beginning stages of unschooling, and we talk about how beneficial that can be for helping people to help them understand that learning happens all the time, that much of what is "taught" in school is learned naturally by unschoolers in the course of living their complete schoolishness-free lives.
I don't think it makes sense to criticize unschoolers for being anti-schoolishness. That goes with the territory.
image by WordCloud, of words by Sandra Dodd
In 2013, someone said my facebook posts were negative. In those days, WordCloud could generate artsy data from a facebook URL (or any URL or document). The posts were candid (they were already there). The size is based on the number of times words were repeated, in that sample of 293 posts—a year's worth. Looked pretty positive!
Friday, May 30, 2025
Along the way
Karen James wrote:
I've climbed big hills (physically and metaphorically) like this for a couple of decades now. I don't look up and think "That's going to be exhausting." I look up to get a sense of where I want to go. Then I start walking. As I walk, I listen to my breathing. I watch my progress. I notice the beautiful details along the way. I look up every once in a while to celebrate how far I've come. I haven't made it to the top of every hill I've wanted to climb, but I don't let that negatively influence my next attempt.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sunday, May 25, 2025
Look in a new way
There's more to unschooling than just not doing school. To make it flourish we need to look at ourselves, our relationship, the way we look at the world in a new way to clear out the thinking that's holding us back.
—Joyce Fetteroll
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Being objective yourself
When information is good, well-presented, profound or entertaining, be grateful!
image by Aaron Williams
Thursday, April 24, 2025
Optimistic happy people
Surround yourself with optimistic happy people. Do not engage in conversation when people are complaining about their children or husbands. If a friend comes to complain about her kids I try to turn around and point out to them how that characteristic could be good or some other great thing about their children. Or I change the subject.
Look at what you have, not what you do not have. If all you focus is in negative things that is all you will see. If you always look for the positive slowly you will, more and more, see the positive and the beauty around you and that will become who you are.
—Alex Polikowsky
photo by Cathy Koetsier
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Reflections and shadows
The effects of different factors on lives and situations can change appearances and perceptions. Life keeps moving, and we can miss things by not looking, not noticing.
Days and moments can flow too quickly, too loudly, exhaustingly, for parents, and for growing kids. Try to appreciate the lights and shadows and patterns.
photo by Sandra Dodd
The swirls are reflections from the car windows. Stripes are light through a slat gate. Row of spots is sun through the decorative top row of the cinderblock wall.
Something looks like this:
light,
patterns,
reflections,
shadows
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Learning by watching
My son spends a lot of his time playing video games. I have accepted that this is his passion... and maybe very well play a part in his career path. but lately he's also been watching videos of other people playing video games on YouTube! Please help me see a reason that this is not just a waste of time... I know you'll have a good way to look at this latest passion.
An idea:
Musicians watch videos of other musicians. Athletes watch videos of other athletes. Chess players have even been known to watch other people play chess with something approaching awe and rapture. Woodworkers watch woodworking shows. Cooks watch cooking shows. Dancers watch better dancers and learn like crazy!
Don't worry about what kids choose to do. Make sure they have lots of choices, and don't discriminate between what you think might be career path and what might "only" be joyful activity and self-expression, or what might seem to be nothing more than relaxation or escapism. Let them choose and be and do.
photo by Sandra Dodd
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Soothing touch and gaze
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.
photo by Destiny Dodd, I think
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
As kids deschool...
Joyce Fetteroll's advice for helping kids deschool when needed:
The best thing you can do while they're deschooling is let them play. And help them play. Make play dates. Make sure they have things they enjoy playing with. *Be* with them. Find out why they enjoy something so much. When they feel free—rule of thumb is one month for each year they've been in school, starting from the time when you last pressured them to learn something—be more active about running things through their lives: movies, TV shows, books, places to go: ethnic restaurants, museums, monster truck pulls, walks in the woods, funky stores ....
Look for the delight in life and it will infect your kids. 😊 As long as it's *honest* interest and delight! If it's fake interest to get them to pay attention to something you think would be good for them, they're going to notice and avoid it. It's the tactic they've been awash in since kindergarten: "Learning is Fun!"
—Joyce Fetteroll
photo by Cátia Maciel
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Snakes and wild berries

When a science-minded kid loves to take the dog down by the river and look for wild berries and snakes, some parents say, "My kid just wants to play. He's not interested in learning. He'll never learn science just playing."
Each little experience, every idea, is helping your child build his internal model of the universe. He will not have the government-recommended blueprint for the internal model of the universe, which can look surprisingly like a school, and a political science class, a small flat map of the huge spherical world, a job with increasing vacations leading to retirement, and not a lot more.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Saturday, March 15, 2025
Unschooling and other marvels
- You can do it at home!
- Your kids are there!
- It makes all of life a peaceful learning lab.
Unschooling is a subset of homeschooling. Unschooling is the radical, philosophical end of homeschooling. Unschooling is living a rich life and letting learning drop into your lap and into your ears and mind while you laugh and listen to music and play games. Unschooling is seeing the magic in every day, and the joy in yourself and the people around you. If your children don't go to school, why should you bring school home? Be free! There is nothing in school that isn't also in the real world. (And if there IS, why would you be needing to know it if it doesn't exist outside?) Use primary sources, not textbooks. Look at real nature, not photos of nature in a book.
"Unschooling and other Marvels"
photo by Laurie Wolfrum
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Look directly; just look
photo by Sarah Peshek
Saturday, March 1, 2025
The distant future...
photo by Colleen Prieto
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