Intense learning

I was just telling a young (22) friend the other day that my kids were always the most exhausted not after a day of physical activity, but after a day of intense learning. If they saw things they had never seen, got to do something they’d never done, met new people and played and talked, they slept like rocks. But those days might not have looked like something to write a transcript about.

Sometimes the most intense learning of all looks like play. And that is central to what makes unschooling work.



Chat with Sandra Dodd on Mommy Chats, 4/25/07
photo by Kinsey Norris

Learning and peace

Peace and calm help learning. Stress and pressure never help learning. If you set your priority on learning and peace, it makes other questions easier.

Peace and calm
photo by Sandra Dodd

Information to consider

I don't care if people disagree with me. I wouldn't want anyone to agree with me blindly, nor disagree blindly.

Nothing personal to me—I just want to present information for people to consider.


That was written in the mid 1990s, in an online workshop
about detoxing oneself from schoolishness.
It is preserved here: SandraDodd.com/detox
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Learning everything

If you think of knitting as “good for learning math” it isn’t good for knitting. 🙂

EVERYthing is good for learning everything.

Chat with Sandra Dodd on Mommy Chats, 4/25/07
photo by Ida Maria Stenild Coltau
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Compare and appreciate

When trying to decide whether unschooling is working, remember to compare it to what would be going on if your kids went to school. They’d be doing six different things (homework) not of your choosing or theirs. And you would be expected to oversee/help.

They would have been taught by school NOT to fraternize with others; they would be less likely to play together.

So don’t compare it to your imagined ideal. Compare it to other real options, and then appreciate what you have.

The big upside
photo by Sarah Dickinson

Try, discuss, explore

What makes unschooling work is that children learn by playing. Older kids too. Adults, too. People learn by playing. People can learn without “work” and “study.” They can learn by trying, discussing, exploring.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Real, actual unschooling

I don’t mind “radical.” I just hear it as “real” or “actual.”

Radical Unschooling is...
photo by Cass Kotrba
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