A little success story

Kerryn wrote:

There have been fleeting moments of seeing unschooling at work in our house. I would love to share them with you all.

Just this evening the children were watching a Fred Astaire movie (we'd been talking about dancing/old movies etc for a while and happened upon a dvd yesterday) and a scene was showing a college student talking about 'passing'. My 9 year old said "What's passing?" My 5 year old said, "Silly, it's passing, you know, going past something."

I see this as a little success story. They've forgotten or have become unaware of grades, tests, and performance. Another step in our deschooling journey.

—Kerryn
Australia

Reports of "Seeing It"
SandraDodd.com/seeingitcomments
Photographer unknown; adults looking at a musician, child dancing, at an Always Learning Live event in Albuquerque. Perhaps this is one of Lydia Koltai's children. I'm sorry I don't know who took it.

Where do you look?

How do you apportion your patience, attention, courtesy, time, money, material help, respect?

Those sorts of decisions make you who you are.


SandraDodd.com/eyecontact
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Look around

You might be able to see a lot without moving.

SandraDodd.com/look
photo by Deb Lewis

An element of peace

Peace is not an element "that can neither be created nor destroyed." Peace is entirely a condition and a mood. It's very, very fragile. It has to be created and maintained and protected.

from "A Loud Peaceful Home"
SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Jihong Tang

Dinosaurs, tortillas, The Tick

Deb Lewis wrote:

We played at the river yesterday. We threw rocks at floating ice chunks until we couldn't feel our fingers anymore. We had a snowball fight. We went sledding. We watched "Attack of the Crab Monsters" and read about dinosaurs. We played Master Labyrinth and chess. We stood on our heads. We made peanut butter and bird seed surprise for the flickers.

Today we're going to Grandma's house. She's making fresh tortillas and we'll visit with Dylan's uncle because he's flying back to Anchorage on Monday. We'll probably watch a movie there, too. I'll make a pan of fudge to take along.

My real and happy kid says a lot more about unschooling than I could ever convey by analyzing human nature. If I'm afraid to talk about my real unschooling life, how will I single-handedly change the world for the better? I've printed out my super hero license and I've sewn my Tick suit. Now, Evildoers, Eat My Justice!

—Deb Lewis

and there was more: SandraDodd.com/day/debl
photo by Rosie Moon

That bird is not a flicker in Montana; it's a robin in Yorkshire. There's some brown, some red, some snow; slightly close.

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.

---

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