Illuminating the world

I remember being in school and asking "Why do we need to know this?" I asked it, other kids asked it, and one answer I remember was when I asked my Algebra II teacher, when I was 15, why we needed to know how to figure out square roots. He said it was in case we wanted to figure out how far away stars were. I said, "Don't we have people to do that?"

I didn't care how far away stars were. I thought it should be left to those who really are curious or have a need to know. That need to know the distance of stars has never been good for anything at all yet, as far as I know.

It wasn't long after that (six years) that I myself was a teacher in that same school. Luckily for me and for all the world, I wasn't teaching algebra or astronomy. But still I would be asked "Why do we have to learn this?" Sometimes I gave a serious answer, and sometimes a philosophical answer. Sometimes I made light of it. Sometimes the honest answer was "You don't have to learn this, but I have to try to teach it so I can get paid." Or "Only some of you will need to know it, but they don't know which ones yet, so I have to say it to everybody."

Then one day, the question came phrased a new and better way: "What is this GOOD for?" The answer I gave then changed my life and thinking. I said quickly "So you can get more jokes." I think we were reading a simplified Romeo and Juliet at the time. I could've gone into literature and history and fine arts, but the truth is that the best and most immediate use of most random learning is that it illuminates the world. The more we know, the more jokes we will get.

To Get More Jokes
photo by Sandra Dodd
(click the photo if you don't know what it is)

All or nothing or...

Should people live in the water in the middle of the ocean, or should they live on land as far as possible away from an ocean?

Quickly! What's your answer?


This was a trick question just designed to make you think. But people really do ask the same kinds of questions of themselves sometimes. In some people's heads, "Don't believe everything you read" turns into "Don't believe anything you read."

In the middle are things like "Believe things that make sense and seem to work after you've thought about them and tried them out," and "Don't believe something just because you read it, but wait for it to be confirmed by other more trusted sources, or by your own research or observance."

By thinking in extremes, "There is more than one truth" becomes "All things are equally truthful." Just because there are many truths doesn't mean there's no such thing as nonsense.

SandraDodd.com/balance
The last bit was a paraphrase, to be courteous,
of the original statement from a few years before which was
"Just because there's more than one truth
doesn't mean there's no such thing as bullshit."

photo by Sandra Dodd

Useful, necessary, fun, or interesting

Deb Lewis wrote:

Along with the myth that a child will learn everything in school, and its companion fable that a child must go to school in order to learn, is the idea that there is some window of time for learning, and a child who learns slower or later will be behind forever. Anyone over forty who uses a smart phone knows that's not true. We didn't learn about digital assistants, mobile payments, GPS navigation, or apps in school. The truth is, a thing can only be learned after it's been discovered to be useful, necessary, fun, or interesting—and that can only be determined by the learner.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/holt/nevertoolate
photo by Cátia Maciel

Look, learn, and proceed

Karen James wrote:

I think advice of any kind can get in the way of unschooling if it is taken as truth without some reflection. Unschooling is really about learning without school. Radical unschooling includes all learning, not just academic learning. What encourages and supports learning in your child(ren)?
Look at that.
     Learn from that.
          Proceed from that.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/otherideas
photo by Christine Milne

My heart leaps

Susan May wrote:

Even though my mind believes in my childrens' abilities, my heart sometimes need some validation. And every time one of my children does something for the first time, completely of their own volition, my heart leaps and then pumps joy to every cell in my body. Each time this happens the truth: that children will learn all they need to, in their own time—becomes etched a little deeper in my bones. And this is where the magic lies—not so much in the "firstness" of each new skill or idea, but in the fact that they completely own these moments."

—Susan May

togetherwalking.com/tw-blog/life-is-lumpy
photo by Holly Dodd
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Using tools

When I was a kid, humans used tools and that made us human, but that's no longer "the truth." Chimpanzees can use a leaf as a sponge to gather water out of a hole. They will lick a stick and put it down a hole to collect insects (termites? ants? I don't know what). They will move things to climb up on to get something they can't reach.

Marty says he thinks maybe elephants will pick up a stick to knock something down that's higher than their trunks. If they haven't, they should.

So what, these days, are "tools"? My computer? Google? Wikipedia? Blogger.com? My new glasses? That electric teakettle I'm about to go and heat water with?

We talk about parenting tools, and people adding to their toolboxes, and those are all in the realm of thought (and action proceeding from thought, but without physical tools).

"Tools" (on the Thinking Sticks blog)

Little Tools for an Epic Life
photo by Amy Milstein

Clearly and plainly honest

Deb Lewis wrote:

A child who can't trust his parents, not because of any malicious intent on the part of his parents, but because of repeated false information, is at risk of not seeking help from his parents when he really needs it. Who will he turn to? It might be someone who does not have his best interests at heart.

Truth is a sensitive thing and a parent's fear might prevent her from thinking and being clearly and plainly honest.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/trust
photo by Kirby Dodd

Yes, but... it depends

Some statements are too definite. Sunshine melts snow.


It depends. It depends how cold it is otherwise, and how long the sun shines. The day that photo was taken, even the icicles weren't melting in sunshine. And if the ground is warm and the air is warm, snow can melt in the dark.

When you make a statement, think about whether it could easily be made more solid, more reliable.

• Sunshine can melt snow.
• Sunshine might melt snow.
  
• If it warms up today, that snow might melt.

Thoughts and words, tweaked just slightly, can keep truth safe. For clarity and trustworthiness, remember "it depends."

SandraDodd.com/depends
photo by Sandra Dodd

Truth and kindness

Some things I've said when others were critical or questioning, about unschooling:

"This is working for now. If it stops working, we'll do something else."

"Thanks. I'll think about that." (Or you could say "We thought about that," or "I think about that all the time.")

Mostly people want to know you heard what they said, and that you have thought about what they're suggesting. It doesn't hurt to say that you have, or that you will.

—Sandra Dodd

What Can I Say to Doubters and Critics?
photo by Julie D
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Thoughtful decisions

Joyce Fetteroll's response to a parenting question:

Should you teach your child to always tell the truth?

"Always" and "never" are rules meant to stop thinking. Support your child in becoming a thoughtful decision-maker, not a thoughtless rule-follower.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Original, and more, on Quora
photo by Daniel Moyer Artisan
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I do believe...

Here's a fairy door. That is clearly what it is.

Are fairies real? We all know that word, and there's that door.

"What aspect of some particular subject involves objective truth? What is folklore or mythology? What literature or fantasy has come about based on that subject or item? Consider dragons, or India, or snakes, or rainbows. Checklist Abe Lincoln, the discovery of fire, or the depths of Lake Superior. Plot WWII, Japan, electric guitars, or Egypt."

Disposable Checklists for Unschoolers
photo by Rosie Todd
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Listen, honestly

Robyn Coburn wrote:

How do we as parents show that we respect our children, that we are parenting respectfully? One big way is by genuinely listening to them. One way is by being honest with them about our own feelings, and telling the truth about events, or unexaggerated truthful reasons about why things can or cannot occur.

—Robyn Coburn

Thoughts on Respect
photo by Cass Kotrba
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Starting to soften

Karen James wrote:

Being Ethan's mom changed me. I surprised myself in good ways. In learning to give to him, I grew to really like myself. The walls started coming down. I started to soften - to have compassion for myself.... I challenged myself to continue to do better, because I now knew I could. I had a found confidence in that new truth. Honesty and humility too. All good things for learning to really flourish.

As I became happier with myself and the world around me, I would say that real learning started to happen. From my experience, when trauma heals, learning begins to become more fluid again. Richer. More meaningful. More lasting.

—Karen James

More words and/or photos by Karen James
photo by Karen James
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Be open to learning

When something someone heard from a friend or read on a blog is stated adamantly as TRUTH, rational thought has been batted away. Some people have the fervor of conversion upon them, having heard that there is an easy way to SAVE their families from disease and death, to make their children smarter, and better behaved; to make themselves strong and beautiful into old age. It is partially fountain-of-youth stuff. It is partly an attractive excuse for controlling children (and spouses, sometimes).

The quote is from a page about food as a religion, but it's really about control
(being too easily influenced, and then trying to pass it on)
photo by Amy Milstein
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Ages and stages

Yesterday I bent over and picked an inch-tall tumbleweed sprout from a crack in a sidewalk. It was a tiny bit of community service.

The wind is blowing here, and all the big tumbleweeds will pass through chain link fences, or barbed wire, and scatter themselves into thousands of seeds. It happens every year.

A tiny baby hardly resembles adult forms, or the changes that take place in old folks. Where you are now is young compared to where you'll be later. Those changed old folks are always saying you will miss having those young children, and I found it to be true. It also irritated me for someone who was sleeping in a quiet, clean home to tell the baby-sticky, frazzled younger me that these were good days I would miss.

"Truth" is irritating, when we're sprouts, sprigs, teens, new parents, but just as the winds blow, people express the wisdom they gained as they aged and discovered that they missed having children in the house, as those other older older-folks had told them that they would.

"Results" (a half-random link)
tumbleweed photo by Holly Dodd
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Truly worthless

Truth can still be worthless, and a worthless statement might still be true. Cosmic. So profound I need a nap.

I think this illustrates the commutative property of cosmic profundity.
I wrote it in a collection of worthless statements, here.
Photo by Sandra Dodd, of a miniature golf hole in Rochester, Minnesota.
Miniature golf is not worthless, but that's not real water.

Electric guitars, or Egypt

What aspect of some particular subject involves objective truth? What is folklore or mythology? What literature or fantasy has come about based on that subject or item? Consider dragons, or India, or snakes, or rainbows. Checklist Abe Lincoln, the discovery of fire, or the depths of Lake Superior. Plot WWII, Japan, electric guitars, or Egypt.

SandraDodd.com/checklists
photo by Sandra Dodd, in a pawn shop
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The more you know...

When I was a student I often asked why something was important to learn, but my teachers rarely had good answers.

When I was a teacher, I was asked those things too.

Then one day, the question came phrased a new and better way: "What is this GOOD for?" The answer I gave then changed my life and thinking. I said quickly "So you can get more jokes." I think we were reading a simplified Romeo and Juliet at the time. I could've gone into literature and history and fine arts, but the truth is that the best and most immediate use of most random learning is that it illuminates the world.

The more we know, the more jokes we will get.

The larger paragraph above is from:
To Get More Jokes
or "Thinking and Learning and Bears"
by Sandra Dodd, 2007

photo by Heather Booth

Living with the truth

Response to someone who wanted reassurance that unschooling would create success:

I can't guarantee anything for anyone else, nor for my own family. I know what does damage, and I know what might help.
. . . .
Every second of every day things happen or don't happen and there are consequences.

I would say if you don't want to gamble, don't unschool, but the truth is that everything else is a gamble too.


SandraDodd.com/guarantee
photo by Sandra Dodd, left over from playing a board game online—
click to enlarge it for candid desk details
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Critical thinking

"Just because there's more than one truth doesn't mean there's no such thing as bullshit." —Sandra Dodd

You can quote it but don't steal it.
In the dozen years since I first wrote it,
nothing has occurred to change my mind.

Balance and
How Parents can Learn
photo of Holly and Sandra and some fictional characters, by Kelli Traaseth