Little bitty bits

The whole world is made of little bits of information. Yesterday, at my house, Holly asked who first did "Dream Lover." I was thinking someone like Dion, or Bobby Vee, and while I was thinking she said "Bobby Darin," and I said no, not first.

Spoiler: I was wrong.

She pulled the computer out of her pocket, looked the song up, and played the beginnings of a couple, on Spotify. "That one!" I said, to the one by Dion. It listed Ben E. King, among others, so we figured (falsely) that it was his first, THEN Dion, then Bobby Darin.

Does it matter? To us, it does. To music history, and royalties, it matters. As to political correctness and the basis of assumptions, it ties in to all sorts of socio-political, economic, maybe geographical aspects. Trivia is what knowledge is made of. Enough little bits form a rich whole.

We could each explain why we thought what about whom, in all that. Those explanations would lead to other trivia, stories of other songs, writers, and musicians.

Any interest can lead to all interests. Let curiosity flow.

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These will (while they're there) link to recordings at YouTube, but if you have Spotify or another music service, you can find recordings by these and many other people. There are other songs with similar names, too. I will embed Bobby Darin's version, because he wrote it, but it's not the one I knew as a kid.



"Dream Lover," Bobby Darin (composer), April 1959
"Dream Lover," Dion, November 1961
"Dream Lover," Ben E. King, February, 1962

Notes on Wikipedia and SongFacts:
"Dream Lover" is a song written by Bobby Darin and recorded by him on April 6, 1959.
Dream Lover by Bobby Darin

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Trivial posts about trivia
(or profound reflections on very real learning)

Emulation

Children WANT to act in adult ways, so it's important for unschooling parents to be the sort of adults children want to emulate, right then. Not when they grow up, but now.



From a facebook discussion about helpful unschooled kids.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Mysterious elements

You don't need all the answers right away.

Sometimes a mystery is the best part!

Mentions of Mysteries
photo by Robin Bentley
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More than possible

Lyle Perry wrote:

"I know how scary it is to think about letting go of what's 'normal', and I know it seems impossible to think about your kids learning on their own, but it's all very possible. More than possible. It's waiting to happen."

—Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/lists/lyle
photo by Gail Higgins
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Bank it up!

Emotions are kind of like banking, in a way. If you deposit peaceful times and kindness and positive thoughts and joy, then you build up a stronger account of hope and all that.

Happy goes in the bank.

from the transcript of a chat on Mental Health
Chrissy Florence photo
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How will their learning be used?

Pam Sorooshian wrote this:

The time spent mothering and playing is not time away from real learning—not to be rushed through to get to "the good stuff" as some may think of it. It is essential to real learning and, really, to allowing the child to grow up as a whole, integrated human being.

Homeschoolers think a lot about learning—but they often focus on learning to read, write, do math, or learning science or history, etc. Unschoolers tend to take that kind of learning for granted, it happens along the way. Instead, as we get more and more into unschooling, we tend to focus on things like kindness and creativity and honesty—all those character traits that will determine "how" their learning will be used in their lives.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Sandra Dodd

Strewing, and teens

Someone asked about strewing for a teen. I wrote:

Your family needs to be interested and interesting. Go places. Bring things and people in. Visit friends of yours who have cool stuff or do interesting things. Ask him to go with you if you take the dog to the vet. Drive home different ways and take your time. Putz around. Go to the mall some morning when it's not at all full of teens, and windowshop.

If you can afford it, find something in another town like a play, concert, museum, event and take him there. Stay overnight.

Go touristing somewhere not too far from you. Like if you had out-of-town guests, but just go with your son.

There are other ideas, too, at SandraDodd.com/strew/teens
photo by Karen James
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