I love the internet

#1 reason to love the internet: You're reading this page!

#2 reason to love the internet: pictures, music, video, art, voices... (Oh wait; that's lots of reasons!)

I love the internet,
I love my website,
I love history, and
I love the future.

Robyn Coburn wrote something once about her dad, who was a professional juggler. I put it on a webpage, as a connection from another juggling page I had, and...

One thing led to another. She got to see video of her dad juggling. You can see it too, because the internet is wonderful.

SandraDodd.com/internet/love
photo by Sandra Dodd
Robyn, on her dad, and the video of him

Watching her watching that

Holly will be twenty years old in a couple of weeks, but in 2003 I wrote this:

At the age of eleven, Holly has had very little exposure to the idea of what is kids' stuff and what is not, and so her television and movie tastes are personal and calm. She will watch Teletubbies on the same day she might watch Stand By Me or The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She likes music, she understands The Green Mile, and she's analytical about the messages various PBS children's shows intend to present, about school or self esteem or history or math. It's fun for me to watch her watch TV.



How Unschooled Kids Watch Tv
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

The simplest details

Ren Allen, in part of a response to someone who was defending not wanting to be joyful all the time:

We have the ability to choose gratefulness in any situation. For me, this has been life changing, though I still have a long ways to go! And I have tried very hard to take the words 'have to' out of my vocabulary.


Some of you may feel it's just semantics, but it's empowering to see everything I do as a choice.

When I'm getting ready for work I have caught myself saying "I have to get to work now" and stopped myself, saying " I CHOOSE to go to work and I need to be there soon." Simple? Perhaps. But sometimes the simplest details lead to more mindful living. The richness of abundant living is in the details.

—Ren Allen

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd
___

You can't test out.

Part of deschooling is to stop expecting anything of him. You can't bypass that. You can't test out.

Lots of unschoolers think they can test out, or take an accelerated track to unschooling. It's not that way at all. It's something that has to be discovered, understood, created and maintained.

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Roadblock

"It's much better to be their partner than their roadblock. If you become an obstacle they'll find a way around you. Is that what you want for your relationship with your kids?"

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Subjects

Kirby was five and not going to go to school that year when I decided to keep the whole idea of a structured curriculum divided into subjects secret from him for a while. So we carefully and purposefully avoided using these terms: science, history, math.

He was too young for us to need to avoid terms such as "social studies" (which doesn't come up outside of school anyway) or "grammar," but I was prepared to rethink my list of terms to avoid as he got older, if he continued to stay home.

By the time his brother and sister were unschooling, some of those "names of subjects" (in school parlance) had been discovered on TV shows about school, or in jokes or songs. Don't know much about history; don't know much biology… By then, though, I was ready with confident answers, and we were all sure natural learning could work.

If you can avoid using school terminology, it will be helpful in many different ways that you will figure out if you don't already see them.

SandraDodd.com/subjects
photo by Sandra Dodd, at The High Country, in Chama, 2011
__

Unguided Discovery

Deb Lewis, on the idea of Unguided Discovery, wrote:

"My son has experienced a lot of wonderful learning through discovery and knows how to find instruction if that's what he wants. I have a wild idea that doing what he wants to do is more important than doing what science educators would like him to do. I don't think all innovators and leaders have to come from the molded and stamped process that produced a previous innovator. I think new understanding often comes from fresh and fearless approaches to discovery. So, while some people are working to prove Piaget wrong, I think he had a good idea when he said, 'If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society.'"

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/discovery
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a steam calliope