Semantics

The words people use will make or break their understanding.


SandraDodd.com/semantics
photo by Lisa J Haugen
___

Growth is good

Principles are beliefs, touchstones, things a person bases decisions around.

The idea that one can't make a choice without considering two or more options isn't a principle. It's a logical fact.

The idea that choices can lead a person nearer to the way she wants to be might be the principle that growth is good and growth is possible.

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
photo by Noor JontryMasterson

The world changes slowly

The world changes slowly, but it tends to stay changed! Flight was not possible before balloons. Food storage and transportation were difficult before canning and refrigeration. Without today’s wealth of books, videos and online information, home learning would be much more difficult. We can live in the light of our shared knowledge and ideas, in freedom and with confidence, at the cutting edge of education’s future.



SandraDodd.com/thoughts
photo by Sandra Dodd; a hot air balloon visible out our back gate

Near and far

This apple was in yesterday's post. I didn't move it, I moved the camera.

That's my sister, on stage, singing and playing guitar. She isn't doing that all the time, but she was then.

It seems there are no people listening. There were a hundred of them, but mostly behind me, and outside the tent.

What any one of us sees isn't everything there is to see.

Here and there
photo by Sandra Dodd

Unexpected thoughts

Juxtapositions, surprising connections, odd pairings—these make jokes, or frighten cats, or confuse us long enough for our brains to reach out for explanations we hadn't thought anything about before.

The connections might be visual, historical, linguistic, musical, real or imaginary. None of that matters, when your mind builds a new idea, and it's yours to keep.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Sandra Dodd

Gentle peace and patience

Struggling is harmful. Don't struggle. Relax. And don't "just" relax, relaxing blindly, but relax into new knowledge of the value of gentle peace and patience.

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Cathy Koetsier

How had I done this?

Little by little, years ago, I started to see that each little idea that had changed my own family had the potential, if I could explain it clearly enough, to change another family. Just a little was enough. As more and more families shared their successes and joys, the world changed. As more information was gathered and put where others could find it, the rate of change increased.

When I was first unschooling, we waited two months for a new issues of Growing Without Schooling. There was no internet discussion at all. When that began, a few years later, it was user groups, not even e-mail or webpages yet. Today someone can get more information about unschooling in one day than existed in the whole world when my oldest was five. I'm glad to have been part of honing, polishing, clarifying and gathering those ideas, stories and examples, and keeping them where others have quick access to them.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/naturalparenting2010
photo by Lisa J Haugen
__