The Globe Theatre and a hamburger

The Globe Theatre and a hamburger connect here:

Luckily for us all, we can see Shakespeare in our own homes, done by professionals, and we can pause or rewind or fast forward, we can eat chocolate chip ice cream or hamburgers (neither of which were known to anyone at The Globe Theatre), sit on soft couches with kids in our laps, have subtitles playing... I love DVDs. And I'm grateful to anyone who has ever made a film of Shakespeare.

SandraDodd.com/shakespeare
photo by Sandra Dodd

High energy

Deb Lewis wrote:

There’s some growing evidence that sweets are good for kids. Sugary foods provide quick calories and energy for the high energy demands of a growing body. And at least one study suggests that sugary foods help children feel better, reduce pain and generally help induce feelings of physical comfort. Some researchers think that growing bones secrete hormones that increase metabolism and may act on the brain to increase appetite for high energy (sugary) foods.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/eating/sugar
photo by Sandra Dodd, sweets, Lyon (click to enlarge)

Seeing and being

At the Radical Unschooling Info page on Facebook, an unschooling mom named Rachel Marie was clarifying for someone new to the idea of unschooling:

Unschooling looks different for everyone and that's why you are having trouble nailing it down.


I felt the same when I started. It's nearly impossible to describe because every kid is different and since unschooling is about focusing on your child as an individual, then it's going to be different for everyone.

If I were to say unschooling looks like laying on a quilt at night, looking at the stars and talking about constellations or it looks like taking long car drives just for the sole purpose of having long winded discussions about every single US war in history, there would be 30 people who popped in and said that's not what it looks like at all, because their kids aren't interested in those things.

Unschooling isn't about where or how you learn something, it isn't about doing what everyone else is doing. It's about creating a rich environment for your naturally curious child to learn things that spark their interest. If you can do that, you'll be headed in the right direction.

—Rachel Marie

SandraDodd.com/random
photo by Holly Dodd, of her projection of an eclipse

Stimulating environments

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Unschooling is dropping the conventions of schooling, eliminating such things as required subjects, reading and writing assignments, and tests, and entirely replacing those with the creation of a stimulating, enriched environment and lots and lots of parental support for kids in pursuing their interests and passions.

LOTS of parents create stimulating environments and give lots of support for their kids' interests; this is not unique to unschoolers. What makes it unschooling is that unschoolers give up the rest of the schooling and trust that their kids will learn what they need to learn by being immersed in the rich and stimulating environment and with parental support of kids' interests.

—Pam Sorooshian

Definitions of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd

Thinking and acting

If you don't think before you act, if you don't consider two options, then you haven't made a choice.

If you don't think before you act, you have acted thoughtlessly.

SandraDodd.com/listen/london2011
photo by Sandra Dodd
of a woodpile at Fort l'Écluse

Check your direction

This is important for everyone: Do not do what you don't understand.

If you get bad advice, and it seems bad, don't take it!

If you get a bad suggestion, and it doesn't seem to be helping, don't do it!

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch. If you're going the wrong direction, don't keep going.
Sandra, from Always Learning
photo by Holly Dodd
near Las Vegas, New Mexico
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Your relationship with learning

You can't wait until you understand it to begin. Much of your understanding will come from the changes you see in your child and in your own thinking, and in your relationship with and perception of learning itself. You can't read a touch and then go and unschool for a year and then come back and see what you did wrong; you could be a year in the wrong direction.

Read some, do some. Think. Rest. Watch your child directly and as clearly as you can...

from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 36 (or 39)
photo by Holly Dodd
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Easy learning

The books that have helped us with unschooling have been things that amused or intrigued or provided answers to questions. How-to and trivia books have been popular here. Real-life combined with humor makes for easy learning.

SandraDodd.com/triviality
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Peace and learning

Given a choice between something funny and something somber, go with funny if your goal is peace and learning. Very few things need to be still and serious.



The Big Book of Unschooling, page 128 (or 140)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Sweetness

If you're going to unschool, it needs to be better than school. If that involves getting mental, emotional or physical therapy for the parents, then do it! The house doesn't work if the roof is leaking and there's no heat. Parents don't work if they're in an emotional fog and can't pay sweet attention to their kids.


Healing Presence
photo by Sandra Dodd, of some ice cream in Leiden

Tweak toward affection

Did you do something to make a child's life better and richer? Be grateful that you thought to do that, or know how to do that. Did your child look at you with affection? Can you tweak your life enough that those affectionate looks come even more often?

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 275 (or 318)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Food

The more one's reaction to "food" (the word, the idea, the substance) is strong and emotional, the more evidence there is that the way in which that person was raised to see and deal with food should not be repeated.

SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Sandra Dodd

Choose

Choose to make choices.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd

It gets easier

Some home educating families feel that they're on trial, or at least being tested. If someone asks you something like "What about his social growth?" it's not an oral exam. You're not required to recite. You could say "We're not worried about it" and smile, until you develop particular stories about your own child. It's easier as your children get older and you're sharing what you *know* rather than what you've read or heard.

SandraDodd.com/musicroom
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a flower in Albuquerque

A better path

Children do not need to be made to learn to be better, told what to do or shown how. If they are given access to enough of the world, they will see clearly enough what things are truly important to themselves and to others, and they will make for themselves a better path into that world then anyone else could make for them."

—John Holt,
from How Children Fail

SandraDodd.com/johnholt
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Wonderful

Find wonder. Let the world be full of wonder. Wonderful.

SandraDodd.com/leiden
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Whole and healthy and strong and free

We can see how controlling food is related to controlling education, sleep, playtime and other areas of our childrens' lives. We can mess them up early (which our culture applauds) or we can learn to let them grow whole and healthy and strong and free, not crippled in mind and spirit.

SandraDodd.com/eating/longterm
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Live in joy.

Parents should learn to be calm and thoughtful instead of panicky and reactionary. It's better for health and decision-making, and it sets a good example for the children. Don't live in fear when you can live in joy.



SandraDodd.com/beginning
photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)

Free-form experimentation and analysis

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Unschooling looks nothing like school. It looks like play. Play—which is actually free-form experimentation and analysis—is how we—humans and really all mammals—are designed to make sense of the world around us. We build up an understanding of how the universe works by trying things out and seeing what happens. Then taking that new understanding to try more stuff out.

Written that way it sounds formal and directed. In actual practice it is free ranging and chaotic. But it works wonderfully well because it's what we're designed to do.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Magical music

Words are just words, on the one hand, and they are our connection to the divine, on the other. And the divine is often depicted with more than two hands (even Jesus has the nail-pierced hands, and his other hands, though not on the same statue like Ganesha might have), so on another hand words are magical music. And on another hand they are our link to the past and our messages to the future.

SandraDodd.com/wordswords
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a little bird feeder,
or something, in Yvoire, France

Decide, don't slide.

Better choices make things better.

Decide. Don't slide.

(from a little exchange with an unschooling dad June 25, 2012)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Cowtrails

"Flexibility to pursue tangents and cowtrails, and continuing to see the wonder in everyday things will lead to learning experiences without prior planning."

SandraDodd.com/puddle
photo by Sandra Dodd

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A "cowtrail" isn't a cattle trail. It's a little path worn by cattle walking single file in the same place, for years, between water and some favorite shade or gathering place. Sometimes they're called "cow paths." Sometimes little kids can follow them better than adults can, because the cattle might have gone under branches, tunnel-like.

"The easy way out"

In response to someone who had written, in 2003, that she had thought about unschooling, but maybe just because she was looking for an easy way out. A couple of responses from that day:

"Unschooling is not "the easy way out," it's the joyful way IN. The way into peaceful family life, happy children and meaningful learning that lasts a lifetime."                    —Ren Allen "Unschooling isn't easy. It's full time. What it takes is a change of belief and priorities. Lots have done it, and I'm sure you can too."                    —Sandra Dodd

from an old unschooling.com page, found by Rachel on June 23, 2012
Photo by Sandra Dodd

Click the image (or here) for more information about that tree.

Solutions, not obstacles

"It helps to think of the solutions instead of the obstacles."

—Schuyler Waynforth

Understanding Anger
photo by Sandra Dodd

Different eyes

You and your children see the world through different eyes.

Be kind, and expect them to see things you can't see. Be reasonable and understand that they can't be you and won't become you. They were born in a different time, and are living in a different way.

SandraDodd.com/happy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Contagious good parenting

Being a good parent makes a person more attractive to the other parent, and makes the other parent grateful and respectful. Gratitude and respect make it easier to have compassion and patience.

page 270 (or 311) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A fair clip

At a fair clip, I thought of all of these:

paper clip
hair clip
clipping hair
clipper ship
clip-clop
clipped speech
clipping coupons
newspaper clippings
fingernail clippings
clipping the grass

and that was without asking anyone else or using a websearch or dictionary.

How do parents learn to play?

Learn by doing.

Play with words, thoughts, ideas.

SandraDodd.com/playing
scanner image by Sandra Dodd
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Which hat?

These hats are in a museum in Pennsylvania, in a reproduction milliner's shop.

Recently Just Add Light had a quote and link to something by Pam Sorooshian about whether one should be a child's friend, or parent. Pam knows one should be both, and explained that elegantly.

I was with a group of home ed families in France, some unschoolers, others in the various stages of consideration of unschooling, and someone asked to to tell how I am as a woman. Bea Mantovani was the translator, and said the question didn't really translate. The questioner tried to clarify. She said I had spoken of my husband, and of being a mother, but how was I as a woman, separate from that?

I remember my confusion better than my response. One thing I said was that I AM a mother.

I suspected, and it was later confirmed, that it was a socio-political question, a feminist concept about identity above and beyond motherhood. But the question sets motherhood in a low position, if only the brightest and the best exist apart from and outside of that, and if to have no answer made me unaware or less whole.

For one thing, though, I was in France speaking to people because I had been invited to do so. I've written thousands of thousands of words about parenting and how children can exist in a peaceful world of easy growth in all directions.

I'm a changing-the-world woman. But even that didn't answer the question, because it still was an extension of mothering, which I had explained had involved sharing and modeling since I nursed babies at La Leche League meetings.

I would most like to be known as a woman of integrity, and for that to be true, I can't deny or reject any aspect of my being. I can't divide myself into parts and still be one integral whole. Any hat I might put on is still on my own head.

SandraDodd.com/integrity

Affection and Esteem (from this blog, June 6, 2012)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Photos don't have to be upright

Photos don't have to be upright, but I usually like for them to be.

I'm sorry for the glitch with today's post, and it's not yet fixed. I've written to Photobucket. For a while I was making errors because of Blogger changing, and now there's a Photobucket problem.

There was one photo by Holly that was sideways on purpose so the words would be the readable direction.

I know my writing is always about peace and goodness and living lightly and being open to what happens. I know my photos are often of trees or trucks, the view through a hole in a wall, or doorways, or fires or flowers. I like rooflines, and plants growing in odd places. I like light coming through glass—refracting, reflecting and projecting its shadows and colors. I like round things.

(The cake photo is by Cathy Koetsier, and Holly Dodd took one or two of them.)

Thank you for reading. You don't have to read these, so thanks for choosing to do so. I don't have to make them and send them out, but I like to.

Other solutions

"If you're trapped by have to's then there are no other solutions. If you recognize that there are other solutions then you can free up your thinking to allow them to come."

—Joyce Fetteroll

"There are just things we have to do" (on Joyce's site)
photo by Sandra Dodd