Changing sensibilities

Common sense among unschoolers is (and should be, needs to be) more particular and rarified than everyday "common sense."

Does it seem like common sense, after a few years of unschooling, that it's good to let people sleep if they don't need to be anywhere? And that the nicer you are to them, the nicer they're likely to be to you and to others? It seems like common sense to me that learning is learning regardless of the source, and that what's engaging and fun has value.

SandraDodd.com/change (though these words aren't there)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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"The ice-cream principle"

Colleen Prieto wrote:

I asked my 11 year old "What's the ice cream principle?" and he responded without hesitation "If you want the ice cream, get the ice cream - because you only live once."

That's a big part of the way unschooling looks in our family - and he knows that. And it's not just about ice cream, even though that's how we happen to refer to the idea.

Our son knows that if he wants something, his Dad and I will do our best to make it happen...and there's more, at the link below, by Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/options
photo by Sandra Dodd

A better place

If by "change the world" a person means "make the world better," then step #1 must be to decide right then not to make the world worse.



SandraDodd.com/philosophy
photo by Lisa Jonick

A lot of DOING

I think unschoolers should let their kids do what they want all day in an attentive and enriched environment.

The parents should be facilitators of natural learning, providing new and interesting things for their kids to experience, being supportive of their children's interests, providing them materials and experiences with music, food, art, materials...

It's a lot of DOING, and being, and learning, for years and years.

SandraDodd.com/neglect (cheery neglect)
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Robbie Prieto's Viking ship
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Avoiding roadblocks

[While I was in La Leche League] I learned that children have within them what they need to know, and that the parent and child are a team, not adversaries. It reinforced the idea that if you are loving and gentle and patient that children want to do what you ask them to do, and that they will come to weaning, potty training, separation from mom, and all those milestones without stress and without fear if you don't scare them or stress them! Seems kind of obvious, but our culture has 1,000 roadblocks.

SandraDodd.com/calm
photo by Sandra Dodd
of a pretty wooodpile in Laurie Wolfrum's yard
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Experiencing, sensing

I am so certain that learning comes from experiences and touching, hearing, seeing, smelling and tasting that in light of natural learning, books seem flat and dry.

quote from page 148 of The Big Book of Unschooling (page 161 of newer edition)
photo by Chrissy Florence

Art about art

[In 2009...] When Holly and I got back from having seen Lady in the Water, I told Kirby and Marty "It's a fairy tale about fairy tales. It's a movie about movies."

I guess that idea was still in my head when I wrote "This is art about art. These are cartoons about cartoons" (about a Strongbad cartoon called "Japanese Cartoon").


SandraDodd.com/artaboutart
Art by Naolito