Beautiful, fragile thoughts

Let your children make discoveries with their own new eyes. Don't show-and-tell them into a helpless stupor. Be with them, pay attention to what they're seeing for the first time and be poised to explain if they ask, or point out something interesting if they miss it, but try to learn to be patient and open to their first observations and thoughts. Like bubbles, or dandelion puffs, they are beautiful and fragile and if you even blow on it too hard, it will never be there again.

Practice being. Practice waiting. Practice watching.

Let them experience the world with you nearby keeping them safe and supported.

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from page 124 (or 136), "Experiences," in The Big Book of Unschooling

which leads to SandraDodd.com/peace/newview

photo by Sandra Dodd

Lessons and pressure won't help.

Each person who learns to read learns almost suddenly, at some point. It happens whether he's in school or not. Before that point, the words are scribbles. After that point, he sees a word and knows what it means, without sounding it out, without looking it up. The scribbles turn to words. . . . .
Before a child can read, He Cannot Read. Lessons and pressure won't help. It's not making sense yet. One day the marks become words, IF he has not been pressured and shamed, rushed and blamed.

Some Thoughts About Later Reading
photo by Andrea Quenneville

Talking, laughing, doing, watching...

Sylvia Woodman wrote:

One of the most frequent questions I hear is, "What does a typical day look like in your house?" It's hard to know how to answer since what we are doing is what we have always done. We live our life, have fun, try new things, talk about them. Mostly, the learning happens almost "under the radar"—people talking, laughing, doing stuff, watching things, tasting things, and making connections that make sense to them.

—Sylvia Woodman, 2014

SandraDodd.com/sylviawoodman/learning
photo by Sylvia Woodman

Many small adjustments

Renee Cabatic wrote, years ago:

I place toothpaste on Xander's toothbrush at night. One night he said it was too much toothpaste so the next night I put much less on. He then told me it was too little toothpaste.

Exasperated, I said, "I can't win for losing."

He said, "You can win. With many small adjustments!"

Do not be overwhelmed.

YOU can unschool with many small adjustments!

—Renee Cabatic

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Xander is grown now. Because of him and his mom, MANY people learned to consider making small adjustments toward more peaceful living and learning.

Clarity, by Renee Cabatic
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

The heart and mind of the parent

Robin Bentley wrote:

Radical unschooling (and the "radical" means "from the root") is all about mindset and changing beliefs and relationships for the better. Some people approach it from letting go of "academics" first, trying to see learning in everything. But if beliefs about learning and kids and partnership are changed first, then unschooling will proceed more smoothly. The real work is done in the heart and mind of the parent.

—Robin Bentley

SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Enemies and monsters

Once I commented on one from a list of "truths" on a correspondent's blog:

This is not at all true. It has been claimed for years, but it’s nonsense.

18. Television turns you into a hypnotic state where the viewer switches off completely and is drawn into the world of the idiot box (well, that’s why it’s called that – an idiot box) for it doesn’t enable a two-way communication. Not even a silent one because you go numb.

If that were true, how much worse would books be? Plays?

I have collected accounts for twenty years of the learning that comes from television and video. People like to have enemies and monsters, sometimes, and “Screentime” is an easy boogey-man. SandraDodd.com/screentime/

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The blogger had already changed her mind about it before I commented, after having discovered my site, she said. I believe her. The post was a few years old when I objected.

SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Sara McGrath

Useful, necessary, fun, or interesting

Deb Lewis wrote:

Along with the myth that a child will learn everything in school, and its companion fable that a child must go to school in order to learn, is the idea that there is some window of time for learning, and a child who learns slower or later will be behind forever. Anyone over forty who uses a smart phone knows that's not true. We didn't learn about digital assistants, mobile payments, GPS navigation, or apps in school. The truth is, a thing can only be learned after it's been discovered to be useful, necessary, fun, or interesting—and that can only be determined by the learner.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/holt/nevertoolate
photo by Cátia Maciel