like pulling a bouquet of flowers out of a wand

Sometimes my kids get bored, and I can light up a half hour by digging into some box or drawer and producing something they've never yet seen. Like a magician pulling a bouquet of flowers out of a wand, I pull out a little doll, or some Australian coins, electric curlers (for sorting, putting back on the rods, and discussing), muffin tins, poker chips, grandpa's bow ties, a hand-cranked egg beater to froth up soapy water (I wish I had a hand-cranked drill; my dad did). Whenever I pull these things out I tell the kids why I have them and what I know about them. I told about the gold strip in Australian paper money, about ties my dad used to have with cowboys and bucking broncos on them, about patterned muffin tins being pressed kind of like steel car parts are pressed, of getting my hair stuck in electric curlers when I was a teenager and crying because I was afraid my long hair would have to be cut off.

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd

The photo is not of my house, but of a candy shop in the village of Tissington, in Derbyshire, which had an antique till ("cash register," in American parlance).

When I was little, there were a few little stores in northern New Mexico that still had mechanical cash registers that didn't take electricity.

"Ahead" of what?

I saw an advertisement on the side of some webpage, aimed at me. "Homeschooling," I saw out the corner of my eye. It asked me whether I didn't want to make sure my child was ahead.

"Ahead" of what? Ahead of himself? That's considered a bad thing. "Don't get ahead of yourself," people say.

"Ahead" of other people? What's the rush?

When the traffic is slow on the freeway, sometimes someone will zoom along the shoulder and try to squeeze in. Why? It's not helpful. It's not polite. It's not safe.

My children are grown. They grew slowly, safely, politely, and I've always tried to be helpful. They weren't ahead. They were right where they were, all day, every day. There they still are, where they're used to being. They are themselves, here and now.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Sandra Dodd

Last-minute gift idea (great for "re-gifting")

Decision time isn't about what you will do next year or for the rest of your child's life. Decision time is about what you will do in the next five seconds. I recommend getting up and doing something sweet for another person, wordlessly and gently. Never send the bill; make it a gift you forget all about. Do that again later in the day. Don't tell us, don't tell them, just do it.

SandraDodd.com/change
Photo by Sandra Dodd, of a flower growing wild by the street in an old neighborhood of Austin; the paper behind it was a random piece of trash, but made a beautiful frame.
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Comfort, Joy and Decision Making

When the parents are curious and can find joy in exploring and discussing common interesting things in the everyday world, unschooling can make a lot of sense very easily. Optimism and positive attitudes help. If the children's comfort and joy can be a high priority and the parents can see the value of letting even young children begin to make choices, by the time the kids are teens they'll have had a great deal of real-world experience in making thoughtful decisions.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/successful
photo by Holly Dodd, through a dollhouse window
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A million-piece puzzle

Today I'm quoting something Joyce Fetteroll wrote on Always Learning yesterday:

The way schools get academics into kids goes against how we're naturally wired to learn. It's very hard for humans to memorize someone else's understanding of the world and then make sense of it. That's why it takes so long in school. It's why kids can "pass" classes and yet still have little practical understanding of what's been pushed in their heads.

We're hard wired to pull understanding out of life. We're pattern seeking creatures. Natural learning often doesn't look like much of anything from the outside. But it's like working on a million-piece jigsaw puzzle. Kids are working here and there, jumping all over the place, spending a chunk of time in one area, then seemingly abandoning it for another. It doesn't look like progress. But by the time they're teens, the connections they've been creating between all the areas they've been working on shows. And it's not a bunch of memorized facts (that will fade) but a deeper understanding of how things work.

Whereas the kids in school have been told what pieces to put where and how to put them in, to drop that interesting piece because it's not part of the curriculum. By the time they hit middle school most are ready to slam the door on the puzzle and have nothing more to do with it.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra Dodd, and it's a link
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Restaging

Strewing is a little like at school, when they change the bulletin boards for different seasons, or museums when they change displays. It's restaging the learning area. Unschoolers don't need to wait weeks or months to restage, though. Something interesting might be set out every day or two.

SandraDodd.com/strewing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Personal healing

I've accomplished a lot of personal healing and family progress by treatingmy children the way I wish I could have been treated when I was their age. Instead of using a script from my own childhood, instead of saying what my mom or one of my teachers would have said to me, I really look at my own child and I try to say what they need to hear, what will make their life and learning easier and less stressful.

SandraDodd.com/interview (2/3 down) photo by Sandra Dodd—fossil; limestone; Austin __