Naming things

Seeing new things and learning their names is the way babies and toddlers learn their native languages and how they learn about the world. It works for people of any age.

Each model of the universe requires identification, sorting, relationships between things, and other patterns. Whatever seems trivial in one context is of central importance in another.

Names and words and labels and descriptors have a glory about them.

Naming Things elsewhere here
photo by Denaire Nixon, of a young red-footed booby

Sorting, comparing, naming, learning

For the parents, deschooling is learning about learning.

For the parents AND the children,

Sorting through things is learning.

Sorting through ideas, and songs, and art, is learning

Comparing things is learning about them.

Contrasting things is learning about them.

Categorizing things is learning about them.

Naming things is learning about them.

Naming radical unschooling is learning about it.

SandraDodd.com/hsc/radical
photo by Sandra Dodd, in Holly's candid kitchen

Keys to knowledge

One of a child's best tools is to learn to ask "What's that?" It's one of a baby's keys to knowledge. "Sa-sat?" said one of my kids. Hundreds of times, pointing. "Sa-sat?" Another said, "Aht-dat?"

With names for things, categories form. Some small furry animals ARE "dog" and others are not. "Not" needs another name.

On naming, a researcher named J. Doug McGlothlin wrote, "A child possesses a natural desire to call an object by its name, and he uses that natural desire to help him learn the language. He receives real joy from just pointing out something and calling it by name. He never thinks it is stupid or silly to say something that others might consider obvious. For him, it is delightful."

SandraDodd.com/words/words
photo by Cass Kotrba
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Art Supplies

Deschooling usually involves seeing everything in a new light, or re-naming things we see all the time. If someone thinks of "art" as a school course or in "an art room," breathe that away; shake that off.

If you think of "real art" as oil paintings and marble sculpture, expand your definition.

SandraDodd.com/art
photo by Janine Davies
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"What's that?"

In reviews or analysis of...projects, new words certainly came up. The great thing was we were naming things they had already mastered or begun to understand, in discussing why something worked well, or didn't, or why a ball thrown fast against the wall could come back and hit you really hard. And so we came to words about physics, and force, and vectors, pulleys, gears, and materials. Anatomy lessons came free with sprains, scrapes and bruises. Biology just bubbled up when stickers or insects or rusty nails punctured skin. In the course of answering questions and trying to explain what went wrong or what might work better, we used new words. Science lessons for their own sake, or vocabulary lists, would have done little good (and some harm) but naming what they had already done, felt, tried and accomplished was just a bigger-kid's "What's that?"

SandraDodd.com/words/words
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Two things, two words

I wrote "two things, two words" as a title but most things have more than one name, most words mean more than one thing, and "two" is too small a number for this. I've brought a photo by Lisa Jonick to help you consider this. If you try to say in one word, or two, what the photo shows, you will leave out three or four important parts. What is the glass? Mirror. Window. Barrier. What is the cloth? Backdrop. Projection screen. Drapery. Is the tree touching the cat? Not really, but it envelopes him and his eyes turn to tree. Behind the cat is the reflection of mountains. It seems to be a continuation of his back. And as this is not "a photo of the mountains," the mountain seems to be inside the house, with the cat. Lisa saw this, photographed it, saved it, shared it. There will be many things in your life that you see, or fail to see. Seeing, thinking, naming, all have to do with thought, and categorization, and learning. Take a moment to see what you see richly, and deeply.

SandraDodd.com/mindfulofwords
SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Lisa Jonick

Flower Bath

I lifted the title of this post from Lydia Koltai's name for this photo she took. Naming these posts is fun but sometimes difficult, as I try not to duplicate even those I've borrowed from years ago. I like to hope that someone who doesn't open the e-mail, or read the text, might still be inspired by the title. "Flower bath" qualifies in that way.

Combine things that haven't been combined at your house. Do something that has never been done in your life before.

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/courage
(The words above are Sandra Dodd's, new today,
but the link is to "Becoming Courageous," by Deb Lewis.)
photo by Lydia Koltai
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