Give, give, give

If you want to measure, measure generously. If you want to give, give generously. If you want to unschool, or be a mindful parent, give, give, give. You'll find after a few years that you still have everything you thought you had given away, and more.



Finding Yourself

The quote above is from "Precisely How to Unschool": SandraDodd.com/howto/precisely

photo by Holly Dodd

Light and flow

This is picture of the sun shining on the Rio Grande. My daughter Holly took it and uploaded it to my collection of images for this blog.

This week I'm 9,000 miles from Holly and the Rio Grande, but I see the same sun. Some things are constant.

One can come to see that learning is as constant as the sun, if the proverbial windows are not figuratively blocked out. Darkness can be induced. Learning can be discouraged.

Be receptive to learning, and thought, and to possibilities. Let the light shine on the same old familiar things in a new way. Bask in the free, public streams of water and of light and of ideas.
photo by Holly Dodd

In and out the window

When I was a kid we learned a game with a song that went

Blue bird, blue bird, in and out my window,
Blue bird, blue bird, in and out my window,
Blue bird, blue bird, in and out my window,
Oh Johnny I'm tired.

I liked the idea of windows that birds could fly in and out of, and I've seen many of those lately.

Windows, doors, and eyes, I'm noticing, are for looking into and for gazing out from.

photo by Sandra Dodd
Pune, Maharashtra, India
November 2010

Real food

One of the many stories at "True Tales of Kids Turning Down Sweets":

Marty had been running around outside in the sun for a few hours, and I offered to take him to Ben & Jerry's. He said he wanted to go home and have real food, not ice cream, but thanks.

"Pure Entertainment"

There was once a mom who could say nothing good about cartoons except that pure entertainment should count for something. I had an opinion.

"Pure entertainment"? I don't think I believe in that.

If someone is being entertained, that person is thinking. That person is analyzing SOMETHING, and every trail made in the brain is a reuseable trail, and a trail to connect to other things.

If someone is NOT being entertained, they will be learning negative, yucky stuff—being made unhappy, learning what and who to avoid in the future.

Whatever your children do should be unfolding in as stressfree and joyful a way as possible. THEN it will be mindful.

If the opposite of mindless is mindful, it's not the stimulus but the thinking to consider.

SandraDodd.com/t/cartoons
(In the past few days I've been in three different homes with kids watching cartoons, in Bangalore and Pune, India. I've seen parts of Disney's beautiful "Snow White and and Seven Dwarfs," Tom and Jerry, Ben 10, 102 Dalmations, something in Hindi that I think was originally English, and a Hindi DVD on the origins and adventures of the Monkey God Hanuman.)

Little things

You can find wonder and learning in little details you might not have seen if someone else didn't say "Look..."


When Marty was a year old, we went to the zoo. We were trying to show him white tigers, but he was looking at a fat barrier rope with a crow on it. To a child so new to the world, both were equally rare and wondrous.

We can't always know what will be interesting or important to another person.

photo by Holly Dodd

Riches

I don’t know exactly what will be happening at our house today, or this evening, but I have every expectation there will be warmth and kindness and humor and learning.



(quote from the end of "Late-Night Learning")
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