Exploring locally

Deb Lewis wrote:

I have found so many interesting things to do around our little town just by talking with people and asking questions. I ask everyone questions about what they like to do, etc. I have met so many people with interesting hobbies who have been happy to share what they know with my son and show him their collections.

The man who runs the local green house lets us help transplant seedlings. He grows worms too, and lets Dylan dig around in the worm beds.

The guy who works at the newspaper speaks Chinese and draws cartoons. He's given Dylan lots of pointers about where to get good paper and story boards, etc.

The old guy at the antique shop was a college professor and is a huge Montana History buff, whenever Dylan has questions, we go browse the antiques.

The lady at the flower shop keeps birds and lets Dylan hold them when we visit.

—Deb Lewis

some local particulars from Deb Lewis's "List of Things to do in the Winter"—a long list of things a parent and child could do if it's cold or they want to explore SandraDodd.com/strew/deblist
photo by Diane Marcengill

Patient, generous, kind

Sometimes an antique is still in use.

If you remember how exciting a little mechanical ride could be when you were a child, try to keep some coins on hand to indulge your young children.

If you don't have young children, consider keeping coins for offering rides to other children whose parents are tired or don't have what makes those little rides go.

If you don't remember being very young, for just 20p (or 50¢, or your local equivalent), if you're lucky and open to growth, you could live vicariously through another young person.

Patience, generosity and kindness make a person better.
A patient, generous, kind person makes the world better.


Plus or minus
photo by Sandra Dodd, 2011, in Bristol

Choices, priorities and locations

Laying "have to" on our kids, or on ourselves or on outsiders is less useful and healthy than looking at rights and choices and priorities and locations.

Can you jump on the bed?

Depends whose bed, which bed, where, when. Is someone sleeping? Is it an antique? Who owns this bed?


SandraDodd.com/etiquette
(original, in a discussion on facebook)
photo by some realtor, once,
in a house that's now Holly Dodd's

Handle life carefully

The fewer things you say or do to make things worse, the better things will be.

SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Marty Dodd

Local treasures

In your town are things, places, crafts, traditions, that are not universal.

What is local and "everyday" can seem boring, dusty, even embarrassing maybe. "Those old buildings," with their uneven floors, dusty corners, antique windows, are gloriously exotic to people from two thousand miles away, or ten thousand miles away.

We might be limited to photos for a while. It's that crazy year, 2020, and it might be the best time to start appreciating where you are, and what is special about your own town.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Sandra Dodd

Change a few little things

Stop thinking schoolishly. Stop acting teacherishly. Stop talking about learning as though it’s separate from life.

SandraDodd.com/deschooling
photo by Marty Dodd, of an beautifully cast and enamelled antique slot machine

No assembly required

My favorite definition of unschooling is providing an environment in which learning can flourish. School prescribes what should be learned, and in what order. Then they build an assembly line, and put all the students on it. The reward those who get through easily, and punish others. School at home is like an assembly line for one.


Learning for Fun: Interview with Sandra Dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd, in an antique shop,
in Ashford, Surrey
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Ideas and trivia

Learning isn't in fancy books or computer games, it all happens in the ideas children have, in the trivial facts they fit together to come up with their view of the world—past present and future. You don't need a lesson or a unit to show a child what's wonderful about woodgrain, ice crystals on the windshield, or birdsongs. Five seconds worth of pointing and saying "Look, these trees were not native to North America" might possibly lead to an hour long discussion, or a lifelong fascination. Bringing something interesting home, browsing in an antique shop, listening to new music on instruments you've never heard—all those build neural pathways and give you a chance to be together in a special place.

Quote from the 1998 article "All Kinds of Homeschooling"
photo by Holly Dodd
of art by Holly Dodd
which happened to catch a rainbow
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The flow of history

What is new now might be an antique before your children are grown.

Try to ride the gentle flow of time and progress.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Amber Ivey

Trash or treasure?

You can use antique shops or junk stores, charity shops, thrift stores, as museums to visit with your children. Many things are neither trash nor treasure, but can be interesting examples of art, technology, geography, politics, function and design.

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In deciding which link to use with this image, I settled on the history page, and noticed a paragraph I wrote over a decade ago. Now, two deaths and a Nobel prize have entered the story:

History can be nearly current, like comparative pop/funk of the '80s— is Prince really all that much greater than Michael Jackson? Is it because he plays guitar? What about the history of the guitar? Does Minneapolis create better musicians than Gary, Indiana, or does it even matter? Is Bob Dylan evidence for Minneapolis? One thing leads to another. Thinking about Minneapolis can lead to thoughts of U.S. history, of early 19th century border fortifications, the Mississippi River, the French in Canada, and in Louisiana. You can let your mind float downstream (or up). "Hiawatha" would've been set in that area, and Longfellow wrote that and many other things of childhood, and parents, and night time.

SandraDodd.com/history
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Treasure-ish

One country's trash is another country's mysterious antique treasure.

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd

Knuckles, the past and the future

Thirty days hath September,
All the rest I can't remember.
The calendar hangs on the wall;
Why bother me with this at all?

That's a rhyme that goes around, in protest of a longer and more complicated thing kids used to be pressed to memorize. Some of those kids are still alive, but the antique "hath" remains.


Times change, though. People don't flip through calendars on the wall so much as they ask Siri or Google, or look at the calendar on the iPad. Phones know what date it is, and what time zone you're in.


Go to this page to see how to calculate month lengths with your knuckles: SandraDodd.com/months
image by Andrew and Glenda Sikes
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Quietly better

The fewer things you say or do to make things worse, the better things will be.



SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Marty Dodd
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Giving, learning and growing

Parvine Shahid wrote, on the topic of "Service":

Being with my children, giving them in each moment all I can, learning and growing with them, changed my understanding of "service."

I have chosen to give, help and serve my children. I feel being with them has contributed towards a new understanding of the word as well as a way of building a connection with them. I can also see how it can be extended to others.

I realize how much weight a word can carry, how changes in my own feelings have lightened that weight and thrown a new light on the word itself. Service now stirs up and brings great feelings of joy.

—Parvine Shahid

SandraDodd.com/serviceResponse
photo by Sandra Dodd (click for more info)
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Transformation through choices

Choices have transformed our lives.
Limitations do not transform lives. They limit lives.



SandraDodd.com/limits
photo by Sandra Dodd
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The talking will start

I can’t predict what will be discussed the next time you set out some engrossing bowl of shells or foreign coins, or a box of buttons, or the antique Tinker Toys you got at the garage sale, but if you sit there long enough, the talking will start and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.


Leaning on a Truck
photo by Sandra Dodd

Something old. . . something blue

Something old, something new,
something borrowed, something blue."

—traditional English saying about what brides should wear

"And all of this is true because it rhymes."

—Vitruvius, in The Lego Movie

Look for beauty, truth and humor. Connect the dots!

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Learning

How will they learn to learn?

By learning.

SandraDodd.com/faq
photo by Sandra Dodd
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The past, the future, and the right now

I love history, and I like to think about the future, but it's important to bring yourself back, very often to the very now.

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

It helps a lot to try for better moments not days. Don't judge a day by one upset, judge it as a bad moment and move forward. A little bit better each moment. A little bit more aware.

SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Change a few little things

Stop thinking schoolishly. Stop acting teacherishly. Stop talking about learning as though it’s separate from life.

SandraDodd.com/deschooling
photo by Marty Dodd, of an beautifully cast and enamelled antique slot machine
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