Living Life

Life. People can live lives, even little kids live lives, without preparation, learning on the job, as they go. They can learn while doing real things with real happiness and real success.

SandraDodd.com/connections/cocktail
photo by Sandra Dodd

Busy and Happy

Keep life busy and happy, and things can only grow from there.


A paraphrase of something at SandraDodd.com/checklists
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Unschoolers' Holiday!

SandraDodd.com/learnnothingday
art by Sandra and Holly Dodd, from photos by Sandra and Holly Dodd
(I did the black lines, and Holly did the photoshop fill-in.)
CLICK IT!

Listen, learn and trust

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

*Listen* to what she says with an open mind. Don't listen with an ear tuned to your ideas of what she should be thinking or should not be thinking. Listen to *her* ideas. Don't impose your "right" way of thinking on her. Don't lead her to your "right" way of viewing the world. Listen to her growing understanding. Trust that she's a thinking being and her ideas will change as she gains experience with the world. Trust she'll value kindness if who she is is treated with respect and kindness. Trust that she'll want to step on your ideas if you show her that's what you do with people who don't have the same ideas as you do.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Joyce wrote that on the Always Learning discussion list on July 22, 2010.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A softer, clearer person

When you begin to see learning from new and interesting angles, you yourself are learning about learning (in addition to all the things about bugs or food, bridges or clouds or trains that you're learning with your children, or when they're not even there). Your softer, clearer vision of the world makes you a softer, clearer person.

from page 192 of The Big Book of Unschooling, "Personal Change"
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a long-disused pigeon coop in France

Learning is all connections

Learning is all connections— associations, patterns, and relationships.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra Dodd, in Tissington
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A busy, enriched and enriching life

I used to assume that people would begin with a busy, enriched and enriching life, but not everyone was making the same assumption or starting from the same place. Some said "We're unschooling, starting now," and then watched the kids to see when they were going to take control or direct their own learning.

Choices in an environment maintained with learning in mind are different from choices in a quiet, boring place. If I were a kid, my choice in a quiet, boring place would be to go to school.

Make your unschooling sparkly and joyful.

—Sandra Dodd

The text above is from a 2009 commentary on a 1996 article at SandraDodd.com/schoolchoice.
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a spooky fortune-telling machine (click it)