Art and Perspective

Usually the perspective people talk about with art has to do with angles and using size and color to show distance. This is about the moment, and the surroundings, and the contrast. As happens sometimes with the photos of tourists and amateurs, I did not plan this lighting and drama. I only saw it later, in the photo.



Just seconds later, the same angel, different angle, there are modern details the angel sees every day, plus Linnaea Waynforth, and across on the other wall, art by children.



This was in a church in Bunwell, in Norfolk, one town over from where Schuyler Waynforth lives. We were there to hear bell ringers practice, on a summer day in 2009.

That angel is still there, but I'm in Albuquerque at a table with a tessalations puzzle out, sitting in a wooden chair constructed without nails or screws—all mortise, tenon and peg. I have three I got at a flea market, and the ratty table that came with them. They were made in New Mexico, probably in the 1940's. They're not fancy, but they are art, and history. There's a rice bowl near me, left over from my dinner. I don't know where it was made, or by whom. There are no markings. My husband got it at a thrift store in Minnesota.

Art is where you are.

Those photos can be enlarged with a click.

Overflowing

If you want your children to give generosity and kindness and patience to others, you should give them so much they're overflowing with it.



SandraDodd.com/spoiled
photo by Holly Dodd

Natural...rich...respect

Unschooling is arranging for natural learning to take place. It involves having a rich environment and respecting children's ideas and interests.



That definition is from an April 2010 interview, Why I Unschooled My Three Kids
The photo is Holly, by Holly.

Water

I asked my daughter for an idea for Just Add Light, and she said "water."


Holly has played in small water and large, and suggested I recommend water play for its soothing effects, and for being one of the least expensive materials for exploration and entertainment. Bowls, pans and measuring cups. Water in sand or dirt. Showers and bathtubs. Wading pools. Ice makes a good floating toy. Ice cubes, or ice frozen into a mold, a pan, or a plastic bag will not need to be cleaned up or put away later. Ice in a wading pool. Ice in a sand box. Ice in a toy dump truck.

There was a time when Holly took two or three baths a day, just to be in the water, playing with a wash cloth, a colander, a funnel and some cups. She would listen to music and sing.

When our kids were very young, we would put a thick towel on the patio, set out shallow pans of water, little cups and bowls, and let the baby pour and splash.

For older kids and adults, a float or a swim, if possible, or some new soap and a long shower can make a difference in mood and moment.

Letting water run over your hands, feeling the smooth, gentle flow can move you toward peace.



photos by Sandra Dodd

SandraDodd.com/water (←that page is newer than this post)
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Sparkle

On a scale from dull and dusty to bright and shiny, where is your life? How much of the happy outside world is flowing in? How much are you and your children interacting with the bright, shiny parts of the world outside?

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, more should be done to make life sparkly.

Let one thing lead to another for you. Explore. Not the parent pressing the kid to explore, but the parent exploring and connecting.


SandraDodd.com/strew/how

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Note: Two parts were quotes, and I changed "the mom" to make it more general. Very often, unschoolers are writing to mothers; mothers are writing about children. I realize there are dads reading, and that not all unschooling families have mothers. References to "moms" is never intended to exclude or to limit the ideas.

Mathematics

Mathematics could use a better name. Seriously. School has gone and made that one all scary. In addition (she said mathematically), it's not called the same thing in all English-speaking places. "Math" in some places, and "maths" in others.

But it's about measuring and weighing and sharing. It's about making decisions in video games (buy the watering can? risk danger to collect coins?) and it's about how fast music goes and which ladder to use to get onto the roof. It's almost never about numbers themselves, and it's never about workbooks (except for workbook manufacture and purchase).

I went to look for a different word for "mathematics," and I didn't find one. One Old English word was "telling." For arithmetic: "cyphering," or sums. So I went looking for modern, philosophical definitions of mathematics that had nothing to do with school, and I have collected all these bits and pieces for you: Mathematics is a science dealing with the logic of quantity and shape and arrangement; structure, space, and change; logic, transformations, numbers and more general ideas which encompass these concepts.

Structure and transformations? I use those things. Shape and arrangement? That covers art, and music. Flowers in vases and books on shelves.

Unschooling is simple but not easy, and it's not easy to understand, but when math is a normal part of life then people can discover it and use it in natural ways and it becomes a part of their native intelligence.

Unschoolers and Mathematics
the image is a Holly photo
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Clarity

Image by Adrean Clark

In an online discussion a year and a half ago, an unschooling mom who's deaf asked what was the big deal about Susan Boyle, because people were excited about her appearance on Britain's Got Talent. I said her voice was really clear. There was some discussion, some later correspondence, and the mom who had asked, Adrean Clark, sent this image of the idea of a clear voice, from the point of view of a deaf artist.

Learning about abstractions is the same as learning about anything else—you build from what you know. If you know what "clear" means in reference to water, air and glass, you're a step nearer to understanding what people mean by clear thought, and clear communication.

Watch the words you use when you speak, because they're probably the words you use when you think.


SandraDodd.com/clarity

Information about Adrean Clark is here, with some examples.

Some comics (updated link; old set was gone)