A puzzle to play with

Linda Wyatt wrote:

Algebra is the art of taking the information you have, the things you know, and using that to figure out the information you don't have, that you need to know. It's a puzzle. That's all. You "expose" kids to it by doing it, by playing with it freely and uninhibitedly. By finding things fascinating and wanting to figure out what you don't know. By experimenting. By needing it.

—Linda Wyatt

SandraDodd.com/math/
photo by Shonna Morgan

Fun coincidences

One day in 2019, a page came up that had a photo taken where I was sitting. A couple of the chairs were still there.

Keith and I aren't in that house anymore; Kirby and his girls use that table for art projects, mostly.

I hope something will show itself beautifully or humorously or sweetly to you today. Look for it!

Gratitude for Everyday Things
photo by Sandra Dodd (both of them)
SandraDodd.com/smalljoys

Quiet antiques

Look around you for simple bits of older art, technology and history. See and appreciate these quiet antiques.

SandraDodd.com/curiosity
photo by Holly Dodd
of a wrought-iron gate
in India

Sewers in games, literature, art...

In April 2013, Stephanie Meloche wrote:

My son is interested in underground sewers. He's building a large network of sewers in Minecraft right now. Do you have any ideas for links, books, resources for us? We thought of movies like Turtle Ninja and Les Misérables but what else? He's 11. Thank you very much!

There were six pages of responses. You'll be impressed, I think.

SandraDodd.com/sewer
image from a short video by "Duddrz",
"How to build super easy Sewers in Minecraft! tutorial"

Open portals

When books are an obsession, it's considered a virtue. When mathematics is an obsession it's considered genius. When history is an obsession, that's scholarly.

When rock and roll is an obsession or folk art, or dance… maybe not as easily impressive to the outside world. But as all things are connected, let your child see the world from the portals that open to him, and don't press him to get in line at an entryway that doesn't sparkle and beckon.


from page 189 (or 218) of The Big Book, which links to SandraDodd.com/obsessions/feedpassions
photo by Lynda Raina

Passing through the space between

Sandy Lubert wrote:

This place between schooling and unschooling, this place that we often refer to as deschooling, it really is a wonderful place to grow and learn. It’s the place where change occurs, where we unburden ourselves. It’s where we look at old definitions with new eyes and say, perhaps for the first time, “That definition just doesn’t work for me and my family.” ....

...I was privileged enough to watch my son, who is an artist, rediscover his passion. He had become seriously depressed at school and had completely stopped drawing, something he had previously done for hours at a time. As he grew more and more accustomed to the unfettered feeling of NOT being at school, NOT being told what should be important to him…as he began to heal, he started to draw again. His art had been gone from our lives for nearly a year, and I had no idea how badly I’d missed it, until it came back. So, in that place between schooling and unschooling, one of the many gifts I received was the return of my son’s imagination.

—Sandy Lubert

from "Unschooling and deschooling, and changes"
SandraDodd.com/sandylubert.html
photo by Karen James

Values

"Meredith Meredith" wrote:

If you value something, make it part of your life. If you value music, play music, listen to music, dance and sing. Invite the people you love to join you—maybe they will. If you value scientific thinking, think like a scientist. If you enjoy math, play with numbers and relationships. The catch is to live your own values without trying to foist them off on other people—because that's not a very good way of sharing what you love, and because personality matters. All your singing and dancing won't make your kids musicians if they're not so inclined—but they'll know a few things about music. If you push music at them, they may associate what they know with drudgery and unhappiness—and then you've failed and failed more utterly than if you never sang a note in their presence.

—Meredith Novak

Meredith
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Marty kid-art

Big world

Here is a peacock in India. Hema Bharadwaj took the photo:


This peacock lives wherever it wants to, in Albuquerque, and was photographed by Holly Dodd. Where it wants to live is wandering around the zoo. 🙂


Below is a picture I took of Holly and another zoo peacock in 2009.

click for more just-add-light-and-stir peacock images
What do you know about peacocks? What do you need to know? Does what you know touch geography? Art, biology, or animal behavior? History, mythology or fashion?

You probably don't "need" to know anything about peacocks, really, but I bet you already knew several things.


peacock images out on the net

Clear and free

There is quiet beauty somewhere near you. If it's hard to find, close your eyes and imagine some. Look at art, listen to music. Breathe a little more deeply, a little more slowly, and you'll be better for yourself and for those around you.

SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Irene Adams

The gentle way

Sue Elvis wrote:

Gradually I was discovering what was really important. And bit by bit, I rejected anything that led us away from that close and happy relationship that I knew was the most important thing in the world. I realised that a lot of what was causing our conflict was other people’s expectations and timetables: My children had to do this, that, and the other, not because it fulfilled their needs, but because someone (not very important) expected them to achieve this or that. Worse, sometimes this or that had to be achieved by a particular age. And sometimes I brought trouble upon myself: I simply wanted my children to do certain things to impress certain (not very important) people. . . . .
Eventually, I let go of all those expectations imposed on us from outside. I learnt to listen to my children. And trust. Now we are homeschooling the gentle way, the unschooling way. Our children are learning but not at the expense of our family relationships.

—Sue Elvis

Time to Unschool
You can hear Sue read the longer version aloud,
near the end here: Our Unschooling Story
Photo... maybe by Sandra Dodd, but I didn't note that.
The art is in Old Town, Albuquerque, near San Felipe church.

Games

Games can be family history, and art. Games can be culture and togetherness.

It's okay if games are old and made of wood, and seeds or stones. Some use cards, dice, markers. Don't worry about it if they involve computers, or smart phones and long walks.

SandraDodd.com/games
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran

I shouldn't have been surprised.

Parts of a longer, fast-paced story of twelve-year-old Holly Dodd, who asked me this:

"Will you read me the whole Bible?"

"Sure. Now? I think I have one right in here." I did. I asked if I should start with the best parts or just start at the beginning.

She ignored that, and said "Are you going to trick me and read Lord of the Rings?"

"Don't you think you would know the difference?"

"I don't know." . . . .
(more commentary ensued)
She might or might not come back for more, but she made more intelligent comments and asked more questions that actually meant something than some people would be willing to ask in a year of Sunday School. And she made connections with Lord of the Rings, homeschooling, language, journalistic integrity, Strongbad, poetry and the Wizard of Oz.

Holly and the Bible
The image used to be on the Metropolitan Museum of Art site, and linked on my page, but they let theirs slide away. I lifted a copy from the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive. The artist wasn't identified, but the subject is Toah, an ancestor of the prophet Samuel.

Slowly, all of a sudden

Sandra Dodd:

Move gradually into unschooling ideas—VERY gradually if your partner isn't interested.

Until you understand it better yourself, you can't explain it to anyone. And until someone is interested, he can't hear an explanation. Same as with kids. It needs to be related to an actual curiosity or interest for it to make any sense at all.

Karen James:

I didn't try to explain unschooling to Doug (my husband). I did a good variety of things with Ethan, and shared the cool connections I saw happening.

For example, when Ethan drew a self portrait with three rows of three stick figures and said, "Nine Ethans! Three threes are nine," I simply shared with Doug how cool it was that Ethan discovered multiplication through drawing self portraits.

I didn't need to explain how that worked. In time, by sharing these kinds of experiences, the benefits of learning naturally became clear and cool and convincing all on their own. (I framed that drawing. It was a big a-ha moment for me too!)

SandraDodd.com/gradualchange

Original, on facebook (where not everyone goes, I know)
art by Ethan, photographed by Karen James

Another benefit of unschooling

Sandra Dodd, 15 November 2017

Grateful for not having needed to help kids with homework all those years.

Jen Keefe

We were out to dinner last night and the family seated behind us were trying to collectively complete the older daughter's algebra homework. It seemed stressful, but the dad was trying to make it better by ordering bottomless rootbeer floats and fries (which I thought was so nice). Still, I looked at my husband and said "November gratitude: no homework!"

Sandra Kardaras-Flick

Until now, I hadn’t considered the whole homework thing. Wow, something else to be grateful for. So cool!

SandraDodd.com/homework
Art by Dave Coverly
Speedbump.com

Light art (and spooky)

For young children, costumes and decorations can make them feel powerful, or beautiful, and a little afraid—in a fun way, if the adults and older kids help keep that fairly balanced.

I have candy to hand out when the time comes. We have some decorations. I have a lifetime of memories of trick-or-treating when I was little, seeing or being a little way into houses I might never be in again, getting candy and treats from strangers—some of them dressed up, too, and smiling at me.

I have memories of taking my own young children door-to-door, and of driving them to a special place or two beyond walking distance some years.

Young families will be welcome here this year, and older kids and teens, too.

Airy and bright
photo by Janine Davies

When to say no

Sandra Dodd, response in 2000 to: Can anyone explain to me "unschooling"?

It's like "just say no."

Just say no to school years and school schedules and school expectations, school habits and fears and terminology. Just say no to separating the world into important and unimportant things, into separating knowledge into math, science, history and language arts, with music, art and "PE" set in their less important little places.

Most of unschooling has to happen inside the parents. They need to spend some time sorting out what is real from what is construct, and what occurs in nature from what only occurs in school (and then in the minds of those who were told school was real life, school was a kid's fulltime job, school was more important than anything, school would keep them from being ignorant, school would make them happy and rich and right).

It's what happens after all that school stuff is banished from your life.

Several Definitions of Unschooling
photo by Rosie Moon

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.

---

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.

The Fabric of Life

When learning is recognized in the fabric of life and encouraged, when families make their decisions based on what leads to more interesting and educational ends, children learn without effort, often without even knowing it, and parents learn along with them.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/allkinds
scanner art by Sandra Dodd; click it for more info

False positives

Cynicism feels like intelligence.
Pessimism can feel like energy conservation. Eeyore never jumps up and runs. Eeyore never bothers to plan ahead.

When people are very cynical, they seem to think that if all the things they think are stupid are eliminated, what's left will be non-stupid. Smartness. Cleverness. Art. Good music. But once so many things are eliminated, what's left is a cynical person who has rejected half the world, and has the memories of all the details of that negativity.

SandraDodd.com/cynicism
photo by Brie Jontry

Mixtures, swirls and solutions

"Yesterday" in 2004:

I still see "subject areas" everywhere, but I haven't taught those categories and prejudices to my children. Science has much more to do with history than geology has to do with microbiology, but in school geology, biology, astronomy and physics are all "the same thing," and history is different altogether. Yet the best parts of history involve the knowledge cultures had and how they put it to use, whether in shipbuilding or iron tool use, medicine or communications.

Holly asked yesterday about when people discovered the world wasn't flat. I told her there was no one date or century because people discovered different things at different times, and some were shushed up when they said the world was round, or that the sun didn't orbit around the earth. I also told her, "Ask your dad, because he's really interested in the history of science."

I noticed when I said it that I had "named subject areas," but I didn't feel too bad. She's twelve, and reading, and after all "the history of science" was never part of my schooling. A science teacher wasn't certified to teach me history, and vice versa. Only outside of school did I figure out that scientific discoveries were history, and that music was science, and that art was history.

SandraDodd.com/schoolinmyhead
photo by Kelly Halldorson