Passing real tests

Sandra Dodd, of Holly Dodd (Holly was 12 and told an older story, in 2003):

My husband's oldest brother came to visit and she and Marty discussed how to deal with his quizzy questions, usually math. She told me a story from when she was littler, maybe eight. Uncle Gerry had been here, and Holly was brushing her teeth. He stood watching her, and started in about how important it is to brush teeth and floss, because (as Holly reported, he said in a teacherly voice) "Do you know how many sets of teeth you have in this lifetime?"

Holly said, "Two?" (in a kind of "is this a trick question" tone) and she said he was already holding up his index finger as the "one" of the coming "right answer," and he added another finger and sheepishly said, "That's right. Two."

So Holly won a big point and never even told us about it at the time. Cool story. I don't think he quizzed them this time. It's getting to the point that they're likely to know something he doesn't know and he likes to maintain his semblance of superiority. LOL!

original (2/3 down that topic)

Update in 2021, Holly 29 years old, and Gerry having recently been in town when Holly was here, too. Holly was very helpful to her uncle, driving him to an auto parts store and helping him figure out what his plan might be to get back to Alamogordo, if his car couldn't be fixed easily. She's nearly 30 now, and he's in his mid-70s. After she left, he went on for a while about how helpful and good-hearted and wonderful she is. I appreciated hearing it, and passed it on to her later.

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SandraDodd.com/betteranswers
photo by Irene Adams (Holly's aunt; my sister)

Holly was seven in this photo, with more of her first set of teeth, casually preparing for Uncle Gerry's quiz-to-come the next year.

Quizzes can fizzle

This story has just been added to my site. It was told in 2003, when Marty was fourteen and Holly was twelve or so.

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My husband's oldest brother came to visit and [Holly] and Marty discussed how to deal with his quizzy questions, usually math. She told me a story from when she was littler, maybe eight. Uncle Gerry had been here, and Holly was brushing her teeth. He stood watching her, and started in about how important it is to brush teeth and floss, because (as Holly reported, he said in a teacherly voice) "Do you know how many sets of teeth you have in this lifetime?"

Holly said, "Two?" (in a kind of "is this a trick question" tone) and she said he was already holding up his index finger as the "one" of the coming "right answer," and he added another finger and sheepishly said, "That's right. Two."

So Holly won a big point and never even told us about it at the time. Cool story. I don't think he quizzed them this time.

Better Answers
photo by Sarah Dickinson

Holly is 25

November 2 is Holly's birthday, and in 2016 she's turning 25.
Holly grew up with two older also-unschooled brothers.
Thank you, all who have befriended
and been kind to Holly.

SandraDodd.com/holly
photo by Holly Dodd herself

Doozy Dodd

This is what unschooling, though, has done for Holly. She is not a student. She is Holly. She is not a fourth grader. She is Holly Dodd. She has been since birth, and she will be until or unless she decides to go by another name, but that will be her decision. The world is hers in a way that the world has never been mine, not even now as an adult. Sometimes I see myself as a messy amalgamation of experiences, certificates, test scores and labels, just come lately into the real world.

I see my children living full, real lives today, right now. I don't see them as students in preparation for life, who after a number of years and lessons might be considered "completed" or "graduated." It was a long way to come, and I never even had to move. I just had to look at what I considered to be real.

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That was written in early 2002,
when Holly was ten years old.
At twenty-one years old, she goes by Doozy.

SandraDodd.com/fullofyourself
photo ("Holly Dodge") by Sandra Dodd

Bringing money back

Written in 2005 or so:

Recently I paid Holly $5 to do a title for a webpage. She's thinking of doing some more of those. Other than that, there's been lots of me and Keith offering money and them saying "That's okay, I still have my allowance," or of them accepting it graciously. I'm thinking of things like "We're going ice skating," or "Can I go to the movie with Marty and them if he'll let me?"

"Do you need money?"

They usually say they don't. Sometimes I send a ten or twenty dollar bill with Holly to hold in reserve just in case they end up short, or wanting snacks, or going to eat later. As often as not, she brings it back.

SandraDodd.com/money
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Marty, in Minnesota once upon a time
The title Holly did for five dollars and some others by Holly

Simply safer

Sometimes I would say "Hold on to something! I'm going to hold on to Marty!" so that it wasn't just a thing 'kids had to do,' but was a safety condition of crowdedness.

Now that I'm older, I still sometimes want to hold on to one of my kids when we're out, but now it's because I'm safer if they help me. Holly has held my hand crossing streets just this year, and she's 21. Marty and Kirby have helped me down stairs and off of steep curbs.

It's not just for children.

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Update:
Holly is in her 30s, and still helpful to me and her dad. She, or I, or Keith will hold the hand of a grandchild, pretty often (Holly's nieces).

SandraDodd.com/safe
or
Being a safe place
photo by Holly Dodd

Producing processes

I was lucky. When Holly was a teen, she loved Photoshop, and was good at it. Her interest has waned.

I was lucky that when Holly was interested, she "populated" an outline I drew of the words "Learn Nothing Day."I'm glad she helped me document the process. Although there is "a product" (that logo), I'm happy that it was a catalyst for Holly's exploration and learning and sharing.


When I was younger there was much talk of "process people" vs."product people." With unschooling, if the "product" is learning, then we can't separate learning from the thoughts and actions, discussions and input that spark and fuel that learning.

Maybe unschooling is a process to propagate processes.


About the creation of that logo...
As of 2020, there's a second version of the logo, which shows at the top of that page. The documentation of the older one is still there, and some other photoshop art by Holly.

Your child as a person

"Just a reminder: your kids are whole people. They're having experiences even when you're not there. They learn with you and without you."

—Holly Dodd

(I told Holly, "Say something I can quote in Just Add Light.")

SandraDodd.com/holly
photo by Julie D, of Holly and Adam

"I told him already."

Not lately, but once upon a time...

...When the triangles come up on Math Arena, I have to think "isosceles" and then look for one (or "right" or "equilateral" or "obtuse" or whatever). Holly doesn't have to.

So my strewing plan was this: The next morning I would wake up early, make tea, and get out the geoboards. We have three. I would set up three basic triangles. When Holly got up and noticed these out, I would point at the hypotenuse on the right triangle. Either she would say "huh!" and "Would you make Malt-o-Meal?" and it would be over, or she might ask "And what are these other two?" Maybe it would be a couple of days of playing with triangles and maybe it will be one little "huh!"

That was my whole plan. I was going to be fine with however minor or glorious it was, because I knew she would have something to tie it to in her head, another dot to connect, and all that internal triangulation would be more valuable than any vocabulary study and formulaic recitation we could do.

But what happened was that I forgot to check back on my geo-board kid-trap. When I remembered in the early afternoon, Marty and Holly were working on fancy designs with colored rubber bands, and making "how many triangles?" puzzles for each other to count triangles within triangles. I came over and said, "That is a hypotenuse," and I pointed right at a green rubber hypotenuse. Holly said, "I know, I told him already." Not only had I missed my big chance to review it with her, she (at twelve) had already explained it to her brother (the fifteen year old).

SandraDodd.com/dot/hypotenuse
photo by Julie Daniel, of Adam, also not recent
(I couldn't find a geoboard photo)

Your child as a person

"Just a reminder: your kids are whole people. They're having experiences even when you're not there. They learn with you and without you."

—Holly Dodd

(I told Holly, "Say something I can quote in Just Add Light.")

SandraDodd.com/holly
photo by Julie D, of Holly and Adam

Special moments

Special moments can be planned or accidental, funny or profound. Sometimes there's a photo. Sometimes there will be just words, or a quiet memory. Plan a few, and be open to the unexpected.

Holly is ten years older now than she was on the day she saw the Bayeux Tapestry so closely, and her host-dad caught her profile. I'm glad to have this photo of Holly seeing something wonderful.

May you have many special moments, and many more of quiet, normal, peaceful nothing-so-special moments with those you love.

photo by Leon McNeill, of Holly Dodd, in 2005

"Success"

Holly took a picture of a reflection of me. I don't think I would have seen this, but Holly has an artist's eye. My face is on the hills, between the lake and the sky.

Marty can pack a car in a most efficient way, and remember all sorts of emergency or "just-in-case" equipment and provisions. He is helpful, funny, musical, and sweet.

Kirby has lived away from home for over three years now. He has a job with benefits, extra overtime, and nice, new gym. He has lots of friends at work. As he can wear whatever he wants to work, his desire to dress up was unfulfilled, so he bought a nice suit to wear to parties. He recently purchased a very nice car, without any parental assistance on financing. (We offered, but he wanted to establish credit.) He paid $5,000 down on that car, to the chagrin of the finance desk at the dealership. He has no student-loan debt whatsoever.
Is any of that "success"?

"Success" might be as ghostly and insubstantial as that image of me in the photo above. It can look nice, but how permanent is it? How warm? How strong?

Look at the immediate benefits of your decisions.
Look for the good parts of today.
Look for the value in this moment.

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The ideas above grew too large for this format,
and have been expanded upon at SandraDodd.com/success
photo by Holly Dodd

Helping grown kids

Holly gets her firewood from our house. Her dad splits wood for fun and for exercise. He enjoys organizing his woodpile as a hobby. In addition to the split wood, she takes kindling, and I make "waxy wood" a time or two a year, by splitting short sections of straight cedar and dipping each stick in melted wax.

If Holly got cold, she could come to our house, or I would lend her blankets, or make corn bags for her to heat up in her microwave. We would pay her gas bill if she needed that sort of help. But for now, we share our fireplace know-how and the by-products of Keith's wood-processing hobby.

Share what you can share. Do what you can do.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Holly Dodd

History, music and enthusiasm

This was written about the Dodd kids and their questions about U.S. Presidents, in 2003. Click the link at the bottom for what came before and after this passage:

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Holly (11) got the book to see if it could be a simple truth that some presidents had only been half-page presidents.

"FDR. Is he the guy in Annie?"

"Yes." (Holly's favorite historical period is the Great Depression. She likes the music, the clothes, and the stories of hardship and social change.)

"This guy looks like he's from Texas."

"Lyndon Johnson was the only one really from Texas," I said, and then muttered a bit about George Bush Sr. and trailed off saying I guess maybe George W. might be an actual Texan. Holly wasn't listening anymore. She was looking at a cartoon illustration of Theodore Roosevelt. He's the one she had thought looked like a Texan, from the picture. I checked the fine print for her.

"Oh! Born in New York City, but he was into horses and such."

... and it continues at SandraDodd.com/day/presidents
(standard publicity still from 1982 "Annie")

Kids' stuff, and sunrise

At the age of eleven, Holly has had very little exposure to the idea of what is kids' stuff and what is not, and so her television and movie tastes are personal and calm. She will watch Teletubbies on the same day she might watch Stand By Me or The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She likes music, she understands The Green Mile, and she's analytical about the messages various PBS children's shows intend to present, about school or self esteem or history or math. It's fun for me to watch her watch TV.


Seventeen years after that was written...
We have a toddler watching Teletubbies at our house sometimes now. Holly saw a sunrise that reminded her of the intro to that program, and sent it to me for Just Add Light and Stir.

How Unschooled Kids Watch TV
photo by Holly Dodd, November 2019

Bad ideas, but funny

Holly is smart and funny. She showed me a question (in art/meme form) asking "If you could delete one thing from Earth, what would it be?"

So one person wrote "The stupid people. All of them."

Holly doesn't know her, but said "That would make her the stupidest person on Earth."

If someone could remove everybody who is stupider than they were, they would, by default, become the dumbest person left, as she explained it.

It's like the opposite of "Idiocracy," where a guy became the smartest person.

Anyone who thought deleting all the stupid people was a good idea would happily delete her next. 🙂 So I said "ants." But I wasted my wish. I should've said "mosquitos."

I read this tonight, after getting a serious mosquito bite from being outside talking with Brie about the movie Idiocracy, and about Holly being smart and funny. All coincidence, because I hadn't remembered the post or conversation. Stupid mosquito. My ankle itches.

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August 12, 2017 on my facebook page, where I apologize, explain, and endure assurances that ants and mosquitos are important (other animals eat them), and agree with the idea that maybe humans are not necessary to the survival of Earth.
image by Scott Nickel (I don't know him.)

Beams of light

My daughter worked on a farm for a few years. Now she is working for the county, helping people learn to farm and to produce food for community uses. The program's students visit working farms, as part of what they do, so they can see what works well in this area, and ask questions. They help out, while they're there.

When Holly sent this photo, she called it "God's Tractor." I suppose it was on one of the farms they visited. Sunbeams. "Beam" is an interesting word—"light beams." Wood beams—those are just heavy, solid things. The wood doesn't beam down on us; that would be dangerous. Both uses of "beam" are very old, though.

The "beam" terms used by gymnasts and by aviators are newer. Holly's paternal grandfather was a Navy pilot in the Pacific during WWII, doing reconnaissance flights. He was a flight instructor, but he told us that unofficially, in Hawaii they used a local radio station to return to base, rather than the prescribed military method. That's one meaning of "on the beam"—to follow a beaming radio signal toward its source.

Seeing sunbeams shining right down on something could easily be part of the reason for sun-based religions. Coronas and halos are sometimes shown as beams of light, in religious art and in kids' imaginations and drawings.

It's good, when a photo of a tractor in New Mexico can lead to the history of England, and of English; to ancient Egyptian religion (and Mexico's and Peru's...); to medieval and Renaissance art in Europe; to Hawaii, and to women's gymnastics all over the world.

I googled a question. Here:
Are light sabers beams of light?
photo by Holly Dodd

Windows, and grown children

The pandemic made me appreciate the views from windows. I loved seeing so many exotic window views shared on facebook.

My youngest has her own house now. For a few months, she had a housemate, who is pregnant. The baby's father died, during the pregnancy. Holly had known the friend years ago, and invited her in to rest and recover.

A few days ago, Holly let me know she had been 200 miles away, overnight, helping the roommate move to another town to be with her mom, in a new place. This view is from that new window.

I brought that story to let you know that someday those little children at your house will grow up, and you might find them being compassionate and generous in ways you will only learn about after the fact. They will see beauty, out windows in other places, and might send you a photo.

SandraDodd.com/generosity
photo by Holly Dodd

The world is hers.

I think Holly takes the world for granted. And why not? The world is hers.

The world wasn't mine when I was little. It belonged to grownups, and I was told how to sit, what to say, what to eat and how to hold the spoon. I was told where to play, who with, and how long. If I got dirty or tore my clothes I was in trouble. I was told what was good and what was bad.

Holly takes the world for granted, and I'm thrilled about that.

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Holly was seven years old in this photo, and ten when the article was written on 2002.
SandraDodd.com/fullofyourself
photo by Sandra Dodd

Seems like...

This photo was the background image on the first cellphone I ever had. Holly took the picture, when she was fifteen. I didn't recognize what it was when I first saw it, though it was taken in our back yard.

It looks like a dramatic view over the parapets of a castle. It was Holly's view of a sunset through the gap where one cinderblock was missing from the top row of our back wall. What could seem to be pennons and pikes in the background are power poles and streetlights and such across the vacant lot. The sky is a feature of New Mexico's high, dry climate.

If we look for beauty, everyday things might be seen as art.

SandraDodd.com/art
photo by Holly Dodd