Owning one's own self

Roya Sorooshian (not-yet Dedeaux) wrote:

When I was ten, my mother told me that she was going to take me out of school. At the time, I was apalled. Now, I credit that moment as the biggest turning point of my life. Not because of what we did instead of going to school, but because of the power my mother gave to me when she showed me that she did not have to abide by anyone's standards - not when she knew she could do better. She gave me to myself, forever.

—Roya Sorooshian
(Roya Dedeaux)

SandraDodd.com/teens/
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Languages, words, history

Whole language involves language as communication, rather than separate parts (writing/reading/spelling). First language, then details later.

With unschooling, children will learn from the language you use and they use, from the words they see around them, from using games and computers, from signing greeting cards or playing with words. There's no need for any school-style structure at all. For those who have wondered about phonics and reading and spelling, please don't press that on your children.

Some languages are simpler than English in that the letters and sounds match pretty consistently. French and Spanish come to mind. German. But because of something that happened in 1066, and because of the history of The British Isles, and because of the isolation of some English speakers and the migration of many others, English has complexities and a crazy-large vocabulary. Our basic grammar and language are Germanic. The majority of our vocabulary is from French (look up 1066 if you don't remember what happened) and Latin, though the everyday words we use are from Anglo Saxon, which had borrowings from half a dozen Germanic dialects.

If that was a painful paragraph to read, never mind it. If that paragraph was fun for you, then you can help your children spell by looking up what language a word is from and figuring out why it looks the way it does in written English.

SandraDodd.com/phonics
photo by Caroline Lieber

Wild math

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Wild math looks different than domesticated math. It looks more like conversations, using numbers to figure out something the child wants to know, video games, allowance, weighing things in the grocery store, finding the best deal among several choices—that is not as a lesson but what you would normally do—board games, figuring out "how long until?" when she asks, budgets, doing a rough estimation of the items in the grocery cart to see if you have enough money, baseball statistics, crafts, origami, wrapping presents ...

There's a list at "A Few Words About Math"

Look at the things on there that naturally come up in your life. Don't look at the ones that don't! It isn't a checklist to see how many you can complete! It's meant to show you that there's more math in life than school math lets you see.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/math/
photo by Christine Milne

Thinking about that

A formal question came:

I would appreciate any insight that you could give in how to communicate more amicably with family and friends who are not necessarily “believers” about the choice to unschool and/or homeschool.

Sandra:

Some good and useful answers are “We’re going to try this for a while,” and “If this stops working, there’s a school right down the road.” If relatives or friends warn you or remind you of things they’re worried about, it would be courteous and sensible to say “Thanks, I’ll think about that,” and smile.

If someone asks a question about socialization, you could ask “What do you mean?” They probably don’t know what they mean, and trying to articulate their real question will probably bring them to see that they were following a script, and to consider (probably for the very first time) what “socialization” in school really is.

If someone asks about algebra, you might ask how they use algebra in their everyday life. Nod and listen. Maybe say “I'll think about that,” if they have thought of an example of everyday use.

When the question is “what about writing?” you could say “Do you mean penmanship or composition? Storytelling?” If they say “book report,” you could say “Like reviews on Amazon or GoodReads?”

SandraDodd.com/school/say
photo by Ida Marie Stenild Coltau

The Discovery Moment

Carol Brown (Cally) once wrote:

We have been homeschooling for almost 18 years, and one of my favourite memories is of a day shortly after I removed my 5yo from school, where he had spent a very long seven weeks. We were going home from a friend's, accompanied by her daughter, also five, who was going to stay the night. We passed a school, where arborists were trimming some very large trees, hanging from ropes and chainsawing branches. We stopped and watched for about 3/4 hour.

This was when I truly started to realise what homeschooling was all about.

It was about learning all the time; it wasn't about learning being restricted to certain hours (all the school kids had missed out as they were long gone!)

It was about living with my kids and enabling them to learn - by stopping and watching, rather than going home to get dinner which was already going to be late.

It wasn't about curriculum or age-appropriate learning objectives, it was about observing and living life.

I was interested, they were interested, and when we went home, and had our very late dinner, it was wonderful to hear them excitedly telling dh all about it.

It's about living and learning joyfully.

—Cally

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Cally Brown
(different trees)

Ancient, recent and future history

Sorting out news from "current events" from history isn't as easy as it once was, with the internet and with so many sources and resources. Some history isn't very old at all, while other history is archeology and paleontology.

If you think of it all as stories, people, places, things, trivia and connections, it won't matter what label school might have put on it. Have fun with history!

SandraDodd.com/history
photo by Sandra Dodd

A problem with chess...

Some people play chess well,
     but it's not for everyone.

In 2006, a mom wrote:

I still can't play chess or behave well.

My response:

Hey!
I don't like chess because there's no storyline, no characters. 🙂 And when in the ancient days I was in school, my worst grades were always in conduct. I failed to make the Honor Society in high school not for grade average, but for... conduct. 🙂

I wouldn't have changed it. They rewarded dullness and conformity. They honored meekness.

— Sandra

SandraDodd.com/lists/excision
scanned image by Sandra Dodd
Scanner Art

Part of being human

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

Unschooling is at its core an understanding that learning is a part of being human. It is a recognition that school undermines that by saying that learning needs to be organised, structured and handed down. School argues that certain things are so hard to learn that they must be taught. If you unschool partway you are mixing up your messages. If you unschool math and science and reading but structure nutrition and media studies you are arguing that while a rich and engaging life may make the three "r"s obvious they won't help you to deal with the difficult studies of food and televisions and video games and computers.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/unschool/marginal
photo by Sarah S.

Understanding

Joyce Fetteroll wrote, twelve years ago:

Natural learning is easy to understand. It's not so easy to feel confident that natural learning is as good as (let alone better) than institutional learning. Natural learning *shouldn't* test as well as school learning. It isn't geared to passing tests. It's geared to understanding. And understanding is hard to test for!

If natural learning were easy to trust Sandra could have put up on her website:

Create a rich environment. Support and feed their interests. Connect with them.

And none of us would still be sitting here nearly 20 years later, still explaining that it does work. 😉

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/simple
photo by Christine Milne

Who needs to know what?

In a discussion about things unschooling parents have learned from their kids, I told a story involving my Uncle Billy Jack, a fun guy I didn't see much:

When I was a kid, 10 or so, my mom's youngest brother (who was probably 24, 25 at the time) asked me "What's the capital of South Dakota?"

I said "I don't know, what is it?"

He said "I don't have to know—I'm not in school."

That moment is branded in my brain.

I went and learned it [Pierre, SD] when I got home, and haven't forgotten, though it will NEVER matter to me in any way whatsoever. It's trivia disguised as "knowledge." But the idea that there were things kids needed to know and adults didn't care anything about stayed with me.

---

Unschoolers see their kids learning all kinds of things joyfully, for fun. I'm definitely NOT opposed to trivia. Trivia means "it won't be on the test." Without tests, everything can be entertaining trivia.

SandraDodd.com/trivia
photo by Alex Polikowsky

No guarantee

Someone wrote:
I guess I need more reassurance so it doesn't seem like such a huge gamble.

I responded:

Would school seem like less a gamble to you?
Would buying a curriculum seem like less a gamble?
Moving to a fancier neighborhood, or to a country not involved in any wars?

I cannot make my children's lives good. I can't ensure their success. I cannot make a tree grow. I can water it and put a barrier near so Keith doesn't hit it with a lawnmower, and ask my kids not to climb in it while it's young.

I could destroy that tree, all kinds of ways. I could do it damage. I could neglect it. But I can't predict where the next branch will grow, or whether it will double in size this year or just do 1/3 again of its height. Not all years' growth are the same.

I could mess my kids up and make them unhappy and keep them from having access to things, but I cannot make them learn. I can't make them mature. I can give them opportunities and room to grow, and food and water and a comfortable bed.

I can't guarantee anything for anyone else, nor for my own family. I know what does damage, and I know what might help.

from the page "Huge Gambles (or small gambles)"
SandraDodd.com/guarantee
photo by Cátia Maciel

About Teaching and Learning

List five things you learned after the age of twelve that you learned totally outside of school.

Try to think of three friends who make a living at things they learned outside of school (list by occupation/skill).

—Two of seven questions on a 1997 handout
for an "Intro to Unschooling" workshop

SandraDodd.com/introduction
photo by Sandra Dodd

Reading, thinking and doing

Alysia Berman wrote:

It took several years before I stopped having those fears creep into my thoughts every once in a while. I can finally say that after about nine years of reading about, thinking about and doing unschooling those fears don't enter my mind anymore.

I tell people that I'm amazed every day by what my kids know and learn. It seems miraculous. It's not, really. It's normal. I see it as miraculous because I was indoctrinated to believe that none of this could happen outside of school and without teachers.

—Alysia Berman

---

At first, it's not easy to see learning.

After a while, it shows easily.

This Friday, see if you can step away from learning, just for a while.

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Jo Isaac

One seamless whole

Tina Bragdon wrote:

More and more I am beginning to understand what you say about the power of our words, the semantics of them, and what they reveal about our thoughts deep down. I used to think long ago this was a bit nitpicky, but really can see what you mean when I really stop and think about it.

I think that awareness (for me anyway) is easier to come by with some of our loaded words like "lazy", "she-he always/never.." and such, but most of us weren't homeschooled let alone unschooled and as such don't realize the impact of being graded, sorted, and categorized from the age of 2-3 or so (ie-being regarded as "toddler", preschooler" and so on).

The more I take the word "teach" out of my vocabulary and am conscious of it the better it is for me and the easier it is to see my children's lives as one seamless whole and not divided by subjects.

—Tina Bragdon

The School in my Head

Mindful of Words

SandraDodd.com/subjects
photo by Holly Dodd

Out of order

The past few days have been glitchy, but I was calm, from years of practice.

Yesterday's post was lacking a link to something I think you might enjoy. My question and the beginning of the response are here, and it should link to the rest (but scroll up, there):

Sandra: why does freeze frame sound like the Ramones or Devo ChatGPT: If by "Freeze-Frame" you mean the 1981 hit by The J. Geils Band, I can hear why it might remind you of both Ramones and Devo, even though it isn't really either one. A few things overlap:...

If I had a graph of the order in which I've learned different kinds of music, it would seem glitchy, too. I'm still figuring out lots of things I missed while I was more involved in traditional music, English ballads, madrigals, and medieval and Renaissance Christmas music. Some of that was singular, or duets. Some was leading groups of people. Keith and I spent years immersed in the Society for Creative Anachronism, and weren't paying much attention to what was new and current.

Keith was in high school, listening to The J. Geils Band, The Doobie Brothers, Steppenwolf and Jethro Tull, while I was at the University of New Mexico, playing in the first iteration of their early music program (then called "The Keller Consort"). I listened to albums, but not much radio. I was "studying" Elton John, Cat Stevens, and Joni Mitchell.

Keith and I have been a couple for over 45 years and have done vocal and instrumental music together, and shared each others' old favorite music. He didn't know anything about Donovan, and I think he knew Paul McCartney and Wings better than he knew The Beatles. I couldn't tell Steely Dan from The Doobie Brothers.

It still works if things are learned out of order. When I was little, I could read music before I could read words. Music is in and around me.

I'm still curious, and I'm still learning.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Holly Dodd

P.S. Keith still goes to SCA events and does music. I wandered off.

See the light, lightly

If we concentrate more on politics and the awfulness of school, we're not paying attention to our kids. I won't sacrifice my family on the altar of social change. My family will be a light, not a bonfire.

SandraDodd.com/issues/choice
(A Downside of Choice)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Seeing and enjoying children

Katherine (Katherand2003) wrote:

To see children through school eyes is like continually longing for a fish to climb a tree. It's a view that insists on an improbable future or that looks mostly for a child's potential, perhaps never able to enjoy the present moment.

To see children as they are is to have the capability to enjoy them now. Without that view, I think unschooling is hard or impossible.

—Katherine

SandraDodd.com/normal
photo by Colleen Prieto

Games, toys, museums, trips, books...

I cringe when I hear/read/see a mom thinking unschooling will take less effort and cost less than having children in public school. Anyone unschooling to save time and money is going the wrong direction. It might cost less in absolutely-required expenditure compared to buying a curriculum or paying private school tuition, and most unschoolers I know are content with plain or used or funky clothes (compared to school uniforms or required fashions and name brand things that might get stolen or lost at school). But if parents don't want to spend ANY money on games, toys, museums, out-of-town trips, books, whatever it is the kids might be interested in, then I think that's not the best the parents could do as unschoolers.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Cátia Maciel

First day of school

Concerning Kirby Dodd and driver's ed, twenty+ years ago:

Finally, when he went, he was nearly seventeen. That was his first day of school, ever. He took an apple and gave it to the teacher saying, "I've never been to school before; I understand this is what people do."

On that first day there was a pre-test with a question booklet and a separate answer sheet. Kirby was circling the letter and then writing out the right answer.

When the teacher asked if everyone was through, Kirby had three more left and said he was still writing. The teacher said "writing?" So Kirby's only problem with driver's ed was his total unfamiliarity with the traditions involved with test-taking. He got seven out of ten. He missed one about hydroplaning, which he said wasn't worded well to get the answer they wanted. I doubt that many of the other kids were analyzing the construction of the test questions.

SandraDodd.com/driversed
photo by Sandra Dodd
(previously used with other text)

A new kind of change

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Unschooling is *much* harder than school at home because it takes a great deal of self examination and change in ourselves to help our kids and not get in their way!

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/math/phobia
photo by Christine Milne