Your own certain knowledge

Vague interest can turn to trust in others' accounts of learning and of parenting successes. Trust in those stories can give us courage to experiment, and from that we can discover our own proofs and truths to share with newer unschoolers, who might find courage from that to try these things themselves. Faith in others can only take us a little way, though, and then our own children's learning will carry us onward.

Some ideas become theories. A few theories might turn to convictions. Some early thoughts will be abandoned; others will gain substance. After much thought and use, what is left will be what you believe because you have lived it.

SandraDodd.com/knowledge
photo by Cátia Maciel

The turning point of unschooling

Recovering from school is only part of a parent's deschooling process. Trust is involved, but it's an evolving trust. First one might read about or even meet some older unschooled kids and see that they're doing well. But it seems they can distance their own families a bit by thinking "Well that's fine for her kids—but mine might not be as [insert one:
    special
      bright
         gifted
            open
               calm
                  creative
                     sociable] as hers are."

The turning point comes when one sees the natural learning start to shine from her own child. Then she goes beyond trusting other unschoolers, and starts trusting natural learning.

"Of your own certain knowledge…"
or
Seeing the light with your own eyes

photo by Erika Ellis

May Flowers

An American riddle:

If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?

Ah, wait. It's one of those riddles that can only be spoken, and not written.

Well the answer is "Pilgrims," but if it were written the right way it would be "Mayflowers." There was only one ship called "The Mayflower," though, because that's why they were named, to tell them apart.

If you don't get that joke, that's okay. You probably know lots of jokes I wouldn't get, or that only work with a certain accent, or knowledge of local town names, or knowledge of two languages.

The more you know, the more jokes you can get!

To Get More Jokes or "Thinking and Learning and Bears"
photo by Janine Davies

Becoming solid

When people first come to unschooling, when they want to be unschoolers, they're basing this on something they read that resonated, or someone they met that they'd like to be more like, which is the way I came to it, but I don't think it will really stick, and be solid in that family or in that person's way of being—in their behaviors and their thoughts—until they see that in their own children. Until you're doing it not because you think it will work, or because you've heard it will work, or read it will work, but because you've seen it work.
. . . .Until people get to that point in unschooling, they could relapse. They could easily forget that they wanted their kids to be more like someone else's kids.

But once they get to the point where their confidence in unschooling is not faith in other people, but certain knowledge, direct experience of their own children learning and being at peace, and of the parents learning to see the natural learning that happens when kids just draw for hours, or just play video games for hours, or ride their bike, or play with the dog—when they start seeing those things as equal in learning value, to things that look academic, then it's hard to relapse from certain knowledge.

20:45 in the sound recording of the interview at this link
photo by Emma Marie Forde
P.S. By the time you get to that point, you probably won't want your kids to be different, but the comparisons are normal before deschooling, and can fade as unschooling ideas permeate and pervade.

The turning point of deschooling

Recovering from school is only part of a parent's deschooling process. Trust is involved, but it's an evolving trust. First one might read about or even meet some older unschooled kids and see that they're doing well. But it seems they can distance their own families a bit by thinking "Well that's fine for her kids—but mine might not be as [insert one:
    special
      bright
         gifted
            open
               calm
                  creative
                     sociable] as hers are."

The turning point comes when one sees the natural learning start to shine from her own child. Then she goes beyond trusting other unschoolers, and starts trusting natural learning.

"Of your own certain knowledge…"
or
Seeing the light with your own eyes

photo by Erika Ellis

Your Own Certain Knowledge

Vague interest can turn to trust in others' accounts of learning and of parenting successes. Trust in those stories can give us courage to experiment, and from that we can discover our own proofs and truths to share with newer unschoolers, who might find courage from that to try these things themselves. Faith in others can only take us a little way, though, and then our own children's learning will carry us onward.


Some ideas become theories. A few theories might turn to convictions. Some early thoughts will be abandoned; others will gain substance. After much thought and use, what is left will be what you believe because you have lived it.

SandraDodd.com/knowledge
photo by Leon McNeill