Transcendental moments

Remember that your children will also experience flow.

If you interrupt them while they're playing Rock Band or drawing or spinning on a tire swing, you might be disturbing a profound experience. So interrupt gently, when you must. Treat them with the respect you would treat anyone who might be in the midst of a transcendental moment.

page 207 (or 240) of The Big Book of Unschooling, on Flow
photo by Sarah Dickinson
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Good reason

Every choice you make should be made consciously, thoughtfully, for real and good reasons.

SandraDodd.com/decisions
photo by Sandra Dodd

Proxy baby

When Kirby was a baby, about ten months old, I was at the library with him. A woman whispered questions to me, in the shelves of books (the stacks). Her daughter had married a foreigner and moved to Denmark. They had a baby she hadn't yet met. She was asking me how old Kirby was and whether he was average size and what size clothes I thought she might send.

She was sad and said by the time she saw her grandson, he would be walking and she was missing all the baby days. We were nice with one another, and said bye, and I walked away.

But after maybe five or six steps, I turned around and hurried back to find her. I said "Do you want to hold him?"

She got tears in her eyes and nodded and she hugged Kirby with her eyes closed and rocked him a little bit, kind of got the feel of him, and the smell of his head, which wouldn't have been as good as her own grandson's, but it was better than nothing.

When she handed him back she seemed much calmer and better. It was therapeutic for her. And I've always been glad that I thought of it before it was too late.

SandraDodd.com/kirby
Keith probably took this photo.

For the record, this happened in the stacks by the north wall of what was then called the Wyoming Branch library, behind Hoffmantown Center, in Albuquerque. It was surrounded by rose gardens. Now it has been renamed the Tony Hillerman Library, but in 1987, it wasn't called that.
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Learn about learning

Focus on your kids. Learn about learning.

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Sandra Dodd

"Scatter it out and rearrange it!"

"Just Add Light and Stir" is my favorite blog. My "Thinking Sticks" blog is my second favorite. It has examples of the kinds of connections and trails and explorations that I hope unschoolers will come to find in their own lives.

ThinkingSticks.blogspot.com
I took the photo of a deer carcass owned by Bloxie (MD Polikowsky's dog), who arranged it artfully, with a wild turkey wing. Then after I took the photo, she rearranged it less attractively. When it snowed nearly two feet a couple of days later, she went and dug it out of the snow and arranged it on top. I did not wade out and photograph that. Sorry.

Click the photo to see more detail. I hope you can see why I photographed it.

The top of the Thinking Sticks blog says "Scatter it out and rearrange it!"
It was more about divergent thinking than a carcass, but still...

Your kindness makes you kinder.

Just as being kinder and gentler with a child makes one a kinder, gentler parent, being more attentive and concerned about a spouse or partner makes that person, in turn, more attentive and concerned.

It doesn't happen all at once, and you can't send them the bill. You can't count or measure it. It has to be selfless and generous. Your kindness needs to be given because it makes you kinder, not because you want any further reward.


From The Big Book of Unschooling, page 270 (page 311, in 2nd edition)
but here's an online cousin: SandraDodd.com/spouses
photo by Sarah Dickinson

True freedom and snake oil

Freedom should involve a respect for others, and a respect for logic. And a family might not feel they "respect the law," but the laws still do apply to them, no matter how twinkly-eyed they have become in their newfound "freedom."

So if someone is selling you "True Freedom" (or snake oil, or the elixir of the fountain of life), have respect for yourself and your family and take a pass on it.


from page 220 (or 255) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)
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"Snake oil" might not be an internationally-known term, so here's this: Snake oil