What do trees, cats, and people need?

What does a tree need for its leaves and twigs to develop more?
What does a cat need for its brain to develop more?

They need a lack of abuse. They need water and food, sunshine. The cats can use things or people to play with, and people or other cats to groom them, pet them, lie down next to them sometimes. The tree might need to be less in the shade of other trees for optimal growth, or might need not to be where the wind is banging their branches against a cliff or building or fence or something.

If you think of people as the natural, biological beings they are, rather than as school kids who either are or are not in school, things become much clearer.

Synapses & Brain Development

Longer version here, with some Pam Sorooshian commentary

photo by Jo Isaac

How unschooling works

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Schooling works by pouring expertly selected bits of the world into a child. (Or trying to, anyway!)

Unschooling works by the child pulling in what he wants and needs. It works best by noticing what the child is asking for and helping him get it. It works best by running the world through their lives so they know what it's possible to be interested in. . . . .

Real learning travels the child's path of interest, from one bit of information that interests them to the next. Real learning is self testing by how well it works in the situation the child needs it for. Real learning is about understanding enough to make something work.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/how
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Persuasion and explanations

A person can only "refuse" what is demanded, maybe, the same way a child can only rebel against something that is required arbitrarily. Because if the mom can explain persuasively why she thinks something should be a certain way, the others might understand, and choose that for the reasons stated, not because the mom said so.

SandraDodd.com/rebellion
photo by Elise Lauterbach

Choices yes; "freedom," maybe not

If I "give my children freedom" in a situation, it's because I had some leeway or rights myself. I cannot "give them freedom" that I don't have.

Some unschoolers become confused on that, and they begin to frolic in the "freedom" that they are pretty sure some stranger online granted them, and that unschoolers have inalienably from God, bypassing all forms of government and the limitations of wallboard. And so if an unschooling family is up at 3:00 a.m. playing Guitar Hero, they seem mystified that the neighbors have called the landlord.

I'm exaggerating. I hope I'm exaggerating.

SandraDodd.com/freedom/limits
(where there's more of that)
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Conversations and insights

Shan Burton wrote:

If he had a bedtime, we would have missed our 2:00 am chat about My Little Pony, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Shakespeare, cellular peptide cake with mint icing, the two Queen Elizabeths, the nature of cats in general and ours in specific, word play, fan fiction, Lord of the Flies, specism (like racism and ageism), Harry Potter, and Heinlein.

It's something I would never have known I was missing out on, and I love these conversations and insights, and how they change as he grows.

—Shan Burton

SandraDodd.com/latenightlearningcomment
image by mudpuppycomics (dot com)

School Days

One wonderful thing in unschooling is realizing you don't know whether it's a school day or not. It is evidence of deschooling.

Don't forget school days completely, though, because you can plan outings when the museums and playgrounds are empty. There won't be a crowd at the cinema.

Old information has new purposes.

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Cátia Maciel
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New and better

Lean, one choice at a time, one conscious thought at a time, until your choices and thoughts are solidly in the range where you want to be, and you no longer lean that other way so much.

Your new range of balance will involve better choices and options than your first attempts did.

Sandra, from a talk on being partners
photo by Sandra Dodd
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