Days full of learning

We seek out interesting “scenic routes” in real and figurative ways.

Our days are full and our learning is unmeasured and immeasurable.


SandraDodd.com/sustainable
photo by CassKotrba

Happy and safe

With my kids, it was a posture I took, partly physical, partly mental, in which I accepted and recognized that I had the power to make them unhappy, and the easy ability to allow them to be in danger (from me, in part) if I wasn't really mindful and careful to focus on their safety, comfort and joy.

Some of the same relatives and friends who were greatly in favor of my partnership with Keith seemed critical of our kindness to our children. There is a wide stripe of anti-child tradition in the world. I didn't treat my child as a real person. I acknowledged from the beginning that he WAS a real person. I recognized and nurtured his wholeness and tried not to screw him up. I became his partner, rather than acting like his partner or "treating him" as a partner. It's not just semantics, though it is semantics. It's about the power of words to show, affect and clarify thought and belief.

An idea, expressed in words, changed my life. "Be your child's partner, not his adversary."

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Julie D

Real vs. acting, or practicing

Writing done in school is practice writing, mostly. That "math" done in school is the calculations of other people's math. It's all at least two steps from "real world," while saying "this is the real world."

---

That is from a discussion about the depth of being, rather than of acting like a child's partner. Examples were used, and tangents were taken. The longer collection is at:
"Partners," examined

photo by Holly Dodd

A living example

Be the kind of person you want your child to be.

Nurture your own curiosity and joy.

Find gratitude and abundance in your life.

Explore. Make connections, on your own.

Share those with your children when they're interesting.

SandraDodd.com/video/doright
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Open

When I reject something from my life, it closes doors, in my head, and in my soul. I can't make connections there anymore. I have eliminated it from active play. It's not good for unschoolers.

Open and unfold, enlarge and expand.

SandraDodd.com/halfempty
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Being a good parent

Being a good parent is not martyrdom. It's this: Being (in essence, in life, in thought, in action) a good (not bad, not average, but quality/careful/positive) parent.

---

I don't know where I first wrote it, but Karen James saved and shared it in 2012.
Becoming the Parent You Want to Be is a fair match.
photo by Belinda Dutch
__

Human nature, people and relationships

Meredith Novak said:

In a way unschooling could be said to have a recipe or to use a recipe as a jumping off point. But it's not a recipe about unschooling, it's like a recipe about human nature, about people and relationships. Part of that recipe is knowing that people are curious and like to learn. Part of the recipe is knowing that people are social and we care about other people and we like to learn from other people. Part of the recipe is knowing there is a difference between the external world and the world of individual experience, or a difference between 'the self' and 'the other'. It's a complicated recipe.

Human nature is not a simple, straightforward thing. Unschooling jumps off from there. "Okay, this is what we know about being people."

—Meredith Novak

Transcript: What Learning Looks Like with Meredith Novak
On the recording, Pam asks a question at 1:01:00 and Meredith responds:
on YouTube or on Pam's site
photo by Cátia Maciel