Every day is a day

Today is Star Wars Day. Why?
"'May the 4th' be with you"——that is why.

It wasn't my idea. Learn Nothing Day was my idea. That's still two and a half months away.

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"Just because something is silly doesn't mean high-level cognition isn't happening. If humor helps, find it. Make it. Appreciate it in your children."

(same time last year)
photo by Julie D, 2009

Growing safely

Marta Venturini, in an interview in 2020:

I see deschooling much more than just that process of replacing school with no school. Because to me, radical unschooling is that lifestyle that you were talking about, is that spiritual practice, almost. Because radical unschooling is that to me, deschooling has been so much more. It’s been about personal growth. It’s been about healing.

And so, trying to give Conchinha this safe place, I ended up getting my own safe place, too, in the process.

—Marta

You can hear the recording here: SandraDodd.com/marta
and there is a link to the transcript
photo by Karen James

Big things happen

Something BIG happens when a person turns away from selfishness to service.

Something HUGE happens when a person can care about another person more than about himself.

SandraDodd.com/divorce
photo by Nicole Kenyon

Everything changes

In a discussion, someone challenged the idea of kids have options even about what they wanted to eat, and how. She wrote:

"Eating decisions"?

I picked it up and set it down just a little way from there with this response:

Choices. If ALL of that is changed to a model in which there is food, and people make choices—lots of small choices, not big "decisions"—a hundred hard problems disappear.

In one small moment, if a child can pick up a food or not; smell it or not; taste it or not; keep that bite and chew and swallow, or spit it out; take another bite or not; dip it in something or not; put another food with it or not—EVERYTHING changes.

SandraDodd.com/food.html
photo by Sarah S

Gradually building

Karen James wrote:


In our home, everything we do is an opportunity to learn something new or to make a new connection to something familiar, allowing each of us to gradually build on our unique understanding of the world.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/unseenfuture
photo by Jo Isaac

So logically...

Deb Lewis wrote:

Does TV create violence, really? Maybe guns create violence. Knives. Baseball bats. Hammers. Axes, shovels, saws? Rope? Dynamite? Sharp sticks, rocks? Maybe it's language causes violence because most killers spoke. Maybe it's books. Clothing? Day time night time wind rain snow trees birds frogs.



For lots of kids, even the bad guys on TV are nicer than the real life crazy people they live and go to school with.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/t/violence
photo by Tara Joe Farrell
The page also has this quote:

"There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?"

—Dick Cavett

Why not?

Creativity and courage are useful for unschooling, and they are traits that an unschooling environment nurtures, in both kids and adults.

Consider why something is or should be. The range of useful and acceptable options is very likely wider than you first thought. What is the purpose? What's the principle?

If you're tempted to say no, out of habit or convenience, first think "why not?" If you don't have an honest, good reason to say no, perhaps it's time to say something like...

Let's try it, or
I'll help you, or
Okay, yes.

SandraDodd.com/principles/
photo by Sandra Dodd
(chain guards and other details, India)