I shouldn't have been surprised.

Parts of a longer, fast-paced story of twelve-year-old Holly Dodd, who asked me this:

"Will you read me the whole Bible?"

"Sure. Now? I think I have one right in here." I did. I asked if I should start with the best parts or just start at the beginning.

She ignored that, and said "Are you going to trick me and read Lord of the Rings?"

"Don't you think you would know the difference?"

"I don't know." . . . .
(more commentary ensued)
She might or might not come back for more, but she made more intelligent comments and asked more questions that actually meant something than some people would be willing to ask in a year of Sunday School. And she made connections with Lord of the Rings, homeschooling, language, journalistic integrity, Strongbad, poetry and the Wizard of Oz.

Holly and the Bible
The image used to be on the Metropolitan Museum of Art site, and linked on my page, but they let theirs slide away. I lifted a copy from the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive. The artist wasn't identified, but the subject is Toah, an ancestor of the prophet Samuel.

Quickly, slowly, connections are made

Joyce Fetteroll, in "Five Steps to Unschooling":

Forget the linear approach to learning we grew up with. For instance, we learned that the way to learn is to read "all the important" stuff about a subject gathered and packaged for our convenience in a textbook and then move on in line to the next package of information.

Sure, sometimes an interest will cause kids to gather up a huge chunk of learning all at once. This is easy to see. And easy to overvalue as the "best" way to learn.

More often kids will slowly gather interesting tidbits, making connections as things occur to them to create a foundation. They'll add pieces here and there over the years to build on that foundation. This is not so easy to see going on. And very easy to undervalue.

So, if we can train ourselves to see that process we can help it along by valuing the times when they see Thomas Jefferson on Animaniacs and then later on the nickel and then still later on Mount Rushmore. Those moments will establish a feeling of recognition and familiarity. Then the more tidbits they gather about Jefferson, the more interesting he becomes. And the more interesting he becomes, the more they want to know about him.

It took at least two years and a lot of posts by very patient unschoolers (and a lot of questions by other newbies who were equally confused) for me to finally "get" unschooling. Hopefully, these five steps will make your transition to unschooling easier than mine was!

—Joyce Fetteroll

"Five Steps to Unschooling"
by Joyce Fetteroll, published in Home Education Magazine in 2000
photo by Sandra Dodd, 2011
(Adults keep picking up trivia and making connections over the years, too.)

New Year's Abundance

Nicole wrote:

Thank you for the ways you have helped me embrace abundance and the positive impact this has on my family. I am entering this next season with serenity and enthusiasm. Many Blessings on your New Year!

And I mean abundance in so many ways. An abundance of ways I caught myself and made a more peaceful or joyful choice, an abundance of laughter. An abundance of forgiveness, for myself, my husband, my kids, the world. An abundance of times I stopped and was attentive to the subtle signs in my kids or myself and acted on them. An abundance of times I actually listened to my children's voices instead of mowing them over with my own way of seeing things without even noticing I was doing it. Like when my daughter quietly said, "I don't want a wooden guitar with strings, I want one of those pink ones with the flashing lights so I can rock out." And even though I could still hear the old voices and objections in my head, the superior ones, the critical ones, I recognized them and chose to support her instead (and she sure does rock out). In a thousand big and little shifts, the choice to open up, to believe I can receive goodness and share this with my children.

—Nicole
in comments on Doors
December 31, 2013

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Cátia Maciel

Many small decisions

Instead of making one huge decision now, consider it a series of thousands of small, mindful decisions to come.

SandraDodd.com/special/program
photo by Dan Vilter

Slowly, all of a sudden

Sandra Dodd:

Move gradually into unschooling ideas—VERY gradually if your partner isn't interested.

Until you understand it better yourself, you can't explain it to anyone. And until someone is interested, he can't hear an explanation. Same as with kids. It needs to be related to an actual curiosity or interest for it to make any sense at all.

Karen James:

I didn't try to explain unschooling to Doug (my husband). I did a good variety of things with Ethan, and shared the cool connections I saw happening.

For example, when Ethan drew a self portrait with three rows of three stick figures and said, "Nine Ethans! Three threes are nine," I simply shared with Doug how cool it was that Ethan discovered multiplication through drawing self portraits.

I didn't need to explain how that worked. In time, by sharing these kinds of experiences, the benefits of learning naturally became clear and cool and convincing all on their own. (I framed that drawing. It was a big a-ha moment for me too!)

SandraDodd.com/gradualchange

Original, on facebook (where not everyone goes, I know)
art by Ethan, photographed by Karen James

Ways to relax

Find ways to relax, rather than to struggle.

A nice outside metaphor for this is Devil's Snare, invented by J. K. Rowling for Harry Potter's world. It will grab people, and if they struggle, it grabs harder. Relax and it will relax. Shine light on it and it will shrink away.

Quotes from book and film: SandraDodd.com/struggle
photo by Marin Holmes

For learning to really flourish

Deb Lewis wrote:

Being Ethan's mom changed me. I surprised myself in good ways. In learning to give to him, I grew to really like myself. The walls started coming down. I started to soften—to have compassion for myself.... I challenged myself to continue to do better, because I now knew I could. I had a found confidence in that new truth. Honesty and humility too. All good things for learning to really flourish.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/issues
photo by Sandra Dodd