Private ideas

I love museums. Museums of any sort are special to me, and sometimes I'm thinking about the building or whose idea it was or where the funding comes from to keep the lights and heat on, and to hire people to keep it all safe and clean.

What others are thinking in a museum, even if they're with me, could never be exactly the same. An object will, without fail, remind me of a personal experience, or of when or where I first learned of such things. If it's SO NEW to me that I'm surprised, I tend to think of which friend of mine, alive or dead, I would most like to share it with, or to ask about it. Sometimes that's my dad, especially if the object is an old truck, or a metal structure.

Sometimes I've been the person one of my kids shared something with. That's sweet, and I get to know a bit about what they're connecting to and with.

Long ago, I came to see the whole world as a museum. I love that, too.

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Beliefs and priorities

Principles instead of rules means not to decide in advance what you're going to do, but to know what you believe and what your priorities are, and then to make decisions based on that. Not to behave arbitrarily, but thoughtfully.

Principles of Learimg (chat transcript)
photo by Holly Dodd, 2014, India

A peaceful family

Leah Rose wrote:

Turns out that peace isn't actually the absence of discord. It's the presence of trust, and it arises when every member of the family is able to relax into the experience of feeling seen and valued, into the knowledge that his or her needs matter and will be met as often as possible—not *never* denied, but not denied on a whim or without a thoughtful reason. Turns out a peaceful family isn't one in which there are no conflicts. It's one in which there is a solid enough foundation of trust and connection to allow for conflicts to arise and be resolved without injuring the relationships. It took me a long time to see that.

—Leah Rose

about halfway down SandraDodd.com/rules,
what Leah wrote above has paragraphs before and after.
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Real life science

Joyce Fetteroll, responding to a fear-filled mom:

While I'm a big fan of science and have a sciency degree, in terms of helping children I trust the real life experiences of unschoolers far more than I trust scientific studies done on (schooled) children (often with an eye towards getting kids to perform better in school!)

Offering a fear over experience as the basis of decision making isn't going to be helpful to unschooling.

—Joyce Fettroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/logic
photo by Nicole Kenyon

Open to change

It's kind of schoolish, the idea that the more one reads the more one knows. Unschooling is one of those things that isn't accomplished by recitation or test-taking, but only by changing thoughts and actions, beliefs and relationships. It's not easy, it's not quick, and it's not for everyone.

SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Amy Milstein

Lighter and brighter

The more people who can lighten up, the lighter and brighter the world will be.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
(The quote is not from there, but it's a good page.)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Children see it

A mom named Nancy, in western Canada, wrote:

Again and again my kids can catch me when I am falling, and help me see the wonder of the small things.I feel so blessed to have this time with them.

—Nancy in BC

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Nicole Ní Néill.