Learning from Cartoons

Each family discovers the value of choices in unique and wonderful ways. Well, not every family–only those who actually do start giving their children choices, and in which the adults work to see the choices they are making as well.

One surprise is that programs the parents had thought were "stupid" have led to discussion and research on the autobahn, the metric system, classic movies, technology, international sports, geography, segregation, famous speeches, sportsmanship and ethics, live theatre, opera, oil and mining, hygiene, reproduction, Australian food, life cycle of frogs, hurricane formation, trust, cooperation, classical music, Vikings, religion, art, how different animals survive the winter, Galileo, Japanese mythology, cooking, geology… this list could be twice as long without leaving that section of my website.

One trail went from a mummy cartoon to Egypt, to Pharaohs, to slavery, to the Civil War, to Abraham Lincoln, and to other presidents. The Simpsons' parody of Schoolhouse Rock led to a discussion on Thoreau and Walden.

text from page 141 (or 153) of The Big Book of Unschooling
and that page links to SandraDodd.com/t/cheesy and SandraDodd.com/t/learning
cartoon portrait by Gina Trujillo, my niece, based on this self-made photo

Conscious, continuous and mindful

In a partnership, be conscious, continuous and mindful.

It doesn't really do any good to be their partner once a week. If you're mean four times and nice one time, that's not enough.

Conscious, continuous and mindful.

Partnerships and Teams in the Family.
There's a sound file there. It's a good one.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Living where the future unfolds

Brie Jontry, to someone pining for the paleolitic good old days:

Over the past ten years or so there appears to be a resurgence of romanticizing "primitive" cultures, especially in regards to parenting and diet. While one of my favorite things in the world is to sit in front of a campfire and stare at the flames feeling a connection to the people who've come before me and found the same warmth and entertainment in the dancing flames, I think that cherry picking other cultures for their feel-good bits is not only blatantly ethnocentric but also detrimental to unschooling in the modern world.

Brie's writing continues, here: SandraDodd.com/reality/
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A bubbly, interesting swirl

Ren Allen wrote:

You can attend a thousand Zen classes at a University and still not understand it because it is something that is internal. You can have a bunch of nice meditation products and still be angry. You can make a big deal out of living simply and still miss all the beauty around you.

It's not about the accoutrements but the "seeing with new eyes."

Sorta like unschooling.

You can read all the books, you can talk to unschoolers, attend a conference and join some lists. But until you GET IT at the internal level, until there is trust and a willingness to extend that trust to your children, unschooling is just a nice idea or philosophy to discuss...nothing more. For those that decide to learn to trust themselves and their children, they soon find their lives a bubbly, interesting swirl of natural learning.

—Ren Allen

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Sandra Dodd; cool things
in Ericka Mahowald's room in Northborough, Massachusetts
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Nest-building tools

To help you prepare for or strengthen your own heroic adventure, there are three tools you need, and a checklist of seven nest-building items for you to collect and protect. Equip yourself with:

confidence
experience
good examples

Build your nest with

food           patience
shelter          enthusiasm
love           curiosity
joy

---

from "Little Tools for an Epic Life," by Sandra Dodd,
published in the June 2012 issue of California HomeSchooler
photo by Sandra Dodd

Gratitude and abundance

Last night I was tired. Holly had gone out for the evening. Marty had gone to bed because he works at 4:30 a.m. Keith was busy. I thought... I'd like to just go to sleep.

Then I looked up and there's food to be put away, and the counter was all full of dinner.

At first I felt whiney, "why me?" and kind of "DAMN it, I'm tired."

Then I thought...
I'm glad we have food. I LOVE that pan I made the sauce in. I got it for collecting savings-stamps at the grocery store. It's heavy stainless steel, and beautifully shaped.

We have containers to make small meals, and I can mix the sauce (which I made in the morning and slow-simmered most of the afternoon) with spaghetti in several little containers, and someone from my family will be glad to find it at some point this weekend, or maybe Keith will save one to take to work for lunch on Monday.

I'm glad we have a refrigerator, and that people in my family not only are willing to eat leftovers, they're glad to find there's some left of something they liked the first time.

We have a dishwasher. That's really wonderful. If all I have to do is rinse dishes and fill it up, that's not much work at all.

I've been listening to World War Z. Marty says some of his favorite stories aren't in the abridged audio book, but that he's heard the audio and it's good.

So I put World War Z to play on the computer, and cleaned up the kitchen I'm glad to have, for the family I love.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Holly Dodd, of the sun through smoke in early summer

Trained like a cat

I had a friend when my kids were single-digit ages. After she hung out with our family a while, she decided she would unschool just like we did. Before long she explained to me her liberal total-unschooling policy on her son's reading. He was eight or nine. She told him he could read any book he wanted to, as long as he finished any book he started.

Quicker than training a cat not to get on the table, she trained him not to start any books at all.

SandraDodd.com/finishwhatyoustart
photo by Sandra Dodd
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