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

Word tree

SandraDodd.com/words
Image by an engineering student in the UK whose Fiverr name was Spartali, in 2014

That was all!?

AJ wrote:

I'm amazed at how easily some things are learned. My five year old is learning to read. He was playing a computer game that had him putting together words to make compound words (sand + box gives you sandbox, etc.). He wasn't sure of a word, so I told him what it was and explained about how words ending in "e" work. Pointed out one or two more examples as they came out and presto! He understands Silent E.

Then I stood there not sure what to do. That's it? That was all it took to learn about Silent E?? But, but...it was a huge deal when I learned to read in school! There were many lessons. Drills. That song on the Electric Company. How could all of that fuss have been needed for something that took Mikey about 30 seconds to grasp? Ah, the wonders of learning something when you are ready and not before!

—aj (mamaaj2000)

SandraDodd.com/learning

"that song on the Electric Company"
photo by Karen James

Joyous but careful

How we use words with our children affects their future and our present, so be joyous but careful with your parenting word-power!

SandraDodd.com/words/
photo by Megan Valnes

Variable, thoughtful lunch

Some days lunch is medicinal—one child is sickly and could use soup or juice. One is off to a sports event, and carbohydrates are a good idea. One is sad, and would like comfort food. One is bored, and her sandwich could use a face.

Be as loose as a dancer, as variable as an actor, as thoughtful as a chessplayer, when you decide what to make for lunch sometimes!

SandraDodd.com/eating/peace
photo by Hinano

The words are from Little meals make big memories

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

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

Structure

In 1992, someone asked:

How do I structure our days
and how do I structure our learning time?

I think it should be "Woke up, got dressed, ate, played, ate, played, etc." In other words, I don’t think there should or can be any “days off” from child-centered "education."

If this seems wrong, try this experiment: Keep your child from learning anything for a few days. Make sure that from the first waking moment there is nothing learned, no new material, no original thoughts to ponder, etc. The only problem is that you would have to keep the children from playing, talking, reading, cleaning or repairing anything, etc.

from page 1 of Moving a Puddle

see also SandraDodd.com/structure
photo by Sandra Dodd

Clarity of thought

For clarity of thought and for value of discussions about unschooling (or anything), it's important to use words intentionally and carefully. If a parent can't tell the difference between "consequences" and "punishment" and doesn't want to even try to, she'll probably keep punishing her children and telling herself it's not punishment, it's consequences. That muddled thinking can't lead to clarity nor to better parenting.

Untangling confusion with words often takes the use of other words, which is why people whose primary interests don't involve language can become very frustrated with others who say "But 'principle' is NOT just another word for 'rule'."

SandraDodd.com/semantics
photo by Tara Joe Farrell

Real people

Even the nicest of words can be ruined if they're spoken in a condescending, treacly way. It's not bad for infants, and it's great for French poodles. It's that talking-to-a-French-poodle voice, and the thoughts that go with it, that should be avoided when parents are talking to their children.

Dan Vilter shared this story on the AlwaysLearning list in 2001:

At a park day, we were having a discussion about the usefulness of praise and sincerity. The unschoolers in the group were trying to point out the fallacy of over and insincere praise, and indirectly about treating your children as people first. After much talk getting nowhere, one of the other unschooling parents turned to me and in the French poodle voice started thanking me for all the things I had done for the group that day. Something like,"Oh Dan, thank you for bringing the stove for hot cocoa. You did such a good job setting it up and heating the water! You're so strong carrying that big jug of water all by yourself!" Everyone had a good laugh and the point was succinctly made.

—Dan Vilter

"Treating them as people first." That's it. See them as people, who hear you and are thinking, and treat that respectfully. In her book Whole Child/Whole Parent, Polly Berrien Berends, uses the term "Seeing Beings."

SandraDodd.com/tone
photo by Denaire Nixon

Real learning is bigger

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

The idea that learning to read is learning to sound out or recognize words, that learning to write is learning to draw the letters correctly, that learning math is learning to carry out algorithms by rote—such ridiculously low goals. As if that is what kids are capable of. Those are not real reading, writing, or math.

—Pam Sorooshian

What Teaching Can Never Be (chat transcript)
photo by Cátia Maciel

Thinking, clearly and confidently

Writing is thinking clearly. For unschoolers writing will be helped by a kid having the confidence that if someone asks him about a movie or the lyrics of a song, that person will listen to his report, and to his opinion, and if he's misheard the words or misunderstood the plot, that they will help him understand it.

a nice match for Untangling Ideas, but the quote is from Seeing Writing
photo by Jihong Tang

Words might kinda hurt you

Heather Booth wrote:

One of the things that helped when I started unschooling was becoming aware of the words I used. The clearer I became in my thoughts and the more aware of the impact of my words, the better I was at being an unschooling parent. I want to discuss with my group the power of words. "Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch" and "Say yes more" are great phrases to get you going in the right direction but if you are still saying "have to" or "junk food " or "screen time" then you're stuck in negative thoughts.

—Heather Booth

Weed Away Words
photo by Sandra Dodd

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To any non-English speakers who don't get the title, we have an old saying that "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." The post's name is in the rhythm of the end of that; it has scansion.

Fifteenth Anniversary!

Images and parts of the text are links.

First post, with some nice comments, from 2010:

This would need more candles now, but...



May the richness and riches of this trove of words and photos seep into your soul and give you sweet dreams and good ideas.

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With this, there are 5,343 posts. A few were deleted in the past for lacking longevity (announcements, temporary info). Some have been repeated for being especially good. They are labelled four ways, to keep it from being one big label/tag, so if you would like to see some "greatest hits," these are clickable, and are called

again (72 of those)

again! (147)

re-run (151)

repeat (136)

For today, then, if those are excluded, there are 4,837 non-repeated posts. Still around 5,000.

Most posts link to an unschooling page or two on my website. Most of those pages link back to this blog (from a little link in the upper right corner).

If you would like to help fund the maintenance of that site (from which most of the quotes come), there is a donation link at SandraDodd.com (which can also be accessed from this image on most of the unschooling pages:


The donation link is halfway down there. It's PayPal, debit or credit.

I can accept checks or Christmas cards to:

Sandra Dodd
8116 Princess Jeanne NE
Albuquerque NM 87110     USA

(If cool foreign money, save it there; consider photo request below!)

Also useful would be photos for the collection from which I try to pull a match for a text. Not all get used and some get used very late, but it's nice to have a variety. Send just a few you love, so I'm not overwhelmed, and tell me how to credit you (full name or truncated how). Those can go by messenger or by e-mail to Sandra@SandraDodd.com (and larger files are fine).

SandraDodd.com
tree art by Bo King
cake photo by Sandra Dodd
photos by many different people at the repeat/again links

P.S. I want the website to last a long time, so if I'm not able to collect funding assistance someday, maybe find Holly Dodd or Vlad Gurdiga and see if they need financial help keeping it going. It's a bit less than $20 a month these days; might go up as things might do. Thanks.

Helping one another grow

Of her birth family, Rippy wrote:

My family used to regularly travel to India to a Sikh ashram where we were encouraged to examine our thoughts and words. The philosophy there was that helping one another grow into more loving, mindful people is one of the greatest acts of service one can do.

—Rippy Dusseldorp Saran

Kinder and More Compassionate

Purely learning

Facebook Memories showed me that someone on another continent had quoted me, years ago:

Learning does not teach us, but from learning we learn.

I still haven't found her source, but in looking I found its "wordier" cousin posted here in 2011:

Mastering ideas about learning

As some of my articles are being translated (now into Japanese, French and Italian) I see how much of my writing and thinking is about language itself, and so some of these ideas won't translate. But sometimes, that fact is very good. Some of our confusion about teaching and students and study and learning, in English, has to do with the words we use, and if the problems don't exist in other languages, that's wonderful for them.

In Romance language (Italian, French, Spanish and so on) our "teacher" translates to something along the lines of "maestro," a word we have too in regards to music direction. And we have the English cognate "master" which is more currently left in "master of arts" and other college-degree titles. Once that meant a person was qualified to teach at the university level. That meaning is gone in the U.S., pretty much.

Considering the word family from which "maestro" comes (and not knowing all its connotations in other languages), the English verb "to master" means to learn. It means to become accomplished in the doing of something. Whether mastering horseback riding or blacksmithing or knowing and controlling one's own emotions, it's not something someone else does to you or for you.

So for any translators or bilinguals reading here, have sympathy for English speakers who can't get to natural learning without disentangling all the graspy words and ideas about teaching and education and their implications that learning is passive and teaching must be done to a person.

SandraDodd.com/wordswordsother
photo by Sandra Dodd

Dangerous thoughts

The words of Pam Sorooshian:

People should shush the tapes in their heads and think for themselves. Be brave.

The VERY first thing that really shook me up in listening to unschoolers was at a talk Sandra gave—she said it was okay to think dangerous thoughts. I decided to try it.

I've been thinking, "What if....." ever since. I'm addicted to thinking dangerous thoughts.

From a 2009 chat/interview with Pam Sorooshian;
transcript: SandraDodd.com/chats/pamsorooshian
photo by Marty Dodd
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Sounding off

Patti Schmidt wrote:

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.

More of Patti's story of children learning differently:
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.

What about "Educational" Materials?

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

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.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/stages/materials
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!

Changing sensibilities

Common sense among unschoolers is (and should be, needs to be) more particular and rarified than everyday "common sense."

Does it seem like common sense, after a few years of unschooling, that it's good to let people sleep if they don't need to be anywhere? And that the nicer you are to them, the nicer they're likely to be to you and to others? It seems like common sense to me that learning is learning regardless of the source, and that what's engaging and fun has value.

SandraDodd.com/change (though these words aren't there)
photo by Sandra Dodd