A respected child

I really believe unschooling works best when parents trust a child's personhood, his intelligence, his instincts, his potential to be mature and calm. Take any of that away, and the child becomes smaller and powerless to some degree.

Give them power and respect, and they become respected and powerful.


This is a good one to read in context: How to Raise a Respected Child
photo by Sandra Dodd

Something about math

Unschooling is simple but not easy, and it's not easy to understand, but when math is a normal part of life then people can discover it and use it in natural ways and it becomes a part of their native intelligence. All that's left is for them is to learn the notation, later, when they need to.

Mathematics (written for a German magazine; the translation is linked there)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Simply and beautifully excel

Ronnie Maier wrote this. I love the phrase "simply and beautifully excel."

With unschooling, kids aren't all expected to have the same sort of intelligence. Verbal and logical intelligences aren't valued more, so kids with other intelligences aren't at risk as they are in school. For example, a boy with kinesthetic intelligence might be a discipline case in school, or labeled with dyslexia or ADD, or simply made to feel stupid. As an unschooler, that same boy might learn his ABC's while jumping on the trampoline, start reading while playing video games, or simply and beautifully excel in some physical pursuit. Most importantly, he will never be made to feel he's less for being who he is.

—Ronnie Maier

SandraDodd.com/intelligences
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Patterns

Logical-mathematical intelligence applies not just to straight-out numbers, but to seeing and thinking in patterns, and of being scientific and analytical. Clarity of thought is logical/mathematical as surely as being a numerical whiz is.

SandraDodd.com/intelligences
screenshot of a FlipPix Art game in progress
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Happy growth

Deb Lewis wrote:

Resign yourself to the possibility that people still won’t understand and may still be critical. And take comfort in knowing that time will soften even your most vocal family critics. If they have children, they will notice problems in school, sorrows in their children, joy and learning and intelligence in your child, peace and happiness in your family. The critical comments will get quieter the more your lifestyle proves itself through the happy growth and learning of your children.

—Deb Lewis

Becoming Courageous
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Interesting byways

Ronnie Maier wrote:

What matters is that they are bright, happy, interesting, accomplished, engaged and engaging. Unschooling doesn't only work for kids of "above-average intelligence," or kids whose parents are teachers, or kids who can recite the alphabet while twirling a baton, or any other limiting factor.

Unschooling works because the unschooled individual has the time and support to follow the interesting byways that lead to real learning.

—Ronnie Maier

SandraDodd.com/socialization
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a lost-and-found potato
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Respect for the wholeness of children

When humor exists at the expense of children's dignity and self esteem, when humor is an indicator of the jokester's true feelings about the wholeness and value and intelligence of chidren, that undermines children's worth and their chances of being seen, heard and respected as the full and important humans they are.
. . .
Yes, jokes are funny, and yes, people need to have a sense of humor, but people also should have a sense of their own beliefs and courage and the future of mankind. Is that overstating it? Maybe and maybe not.

SandraDodd.com/notfunny
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Mathematics

Mathematics could use a better name. Seriously. School has gone and made that one all scary. In addition (she said mathematically), it's not called the same thing in all English-speaking places. "Math" in some places, and "maths" in others.

But it's about measuring and weighing and sharing. It's about making decisions in video games (buy the watering can? risk danger to collect coins?) and it's about how fast music goes and which ladder to use to get onto the roof. It's almost never about numbers themselves, and it's never about workbooks (except for workbook manufacture and purchase).

I went to look for a different word for "mathematics," and I didn't find one. One Old English word was "telling." For arithmetic: "cyphering," or sums. So I went looking for modern, philosophical definitions of mathematics that had nothing to do with school, and I have collected all these bits and pieces for you: Mathematics is a science dealing with the logic of quantity and shape and arrangement; structure, space, and change; logic, transformations, numbers and more general ideas which encompass these concepts.

Structure and transformations? I use those things. Shape and arrangement? That covers art, and music. Flowers in vases and books on shelves.

Unschooling is simple but not easy, and it's not easy to understand, but when math is a normal part of life then people can discover it and use it in natural ways and it becomes a part of their native intelligence.

Unschoolers and Mathematics
the image is a Holly photo
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