Curiosity, exploration, acceptance

What cannot bend can break, so ease up on solid knowledge, in favor of curiosity, exploration, acceptance—all the things that create a learning environment.
original, on facebook, about food restrictions

SandraDodd.com/curiosity
photo by EsterSiroky
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Exploration

Unschooling is about learning, exploration, peace and love. it shouldn't be about pressure, shame and failure.

SandraDodd.com/flitting
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Learning, exploration, peace & love

It's worth looking into the concept of process vs. product. People learn from figuring out how things work. One doesn't need to build a computer just to mess with computer repair or examine parts. Someone can play with yarn and needles and do a simple scarf without being made to feel like a failure for having no interest in making sweaters and socks.

Unschooling is about learning, exploration, peace and love.

SandraDodd.com/flitting
photo by Sandra Dodd

Investigation and exploration

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

I do not refer to unschooling as “child-led learning” and I encourage others not to use that term because I think overuse of it has led to some pretty serious misunderstanding of what unschooling is really like.

The term, “child-led learning,” does emphasize something very important — that the child is the learner! I couldn’t agree more. However, it also disregards the significant role played by the parent in helping and supporting and, yes, quite often taking the lead, in the investigation and exploration of the world that is unschooling.

—Pam Sorooshian

(Read the rest at the link below.)

Unschooling is not “Child-Led Learning”
photo by Karen James

See the light

In 1999, I addressed the note below to unschoolers about something I had written in 1993 to a general homeschooling discussion. As I link this, it's 2013. Twenty years since the first writing! So when I mentioned "40-year-old houses" (in the link, if you go there) those houses (and I) are twenty years older now.

Part of what this sort of exploration takes is the willingness to let go of an "outline" or of a hope that you will find something, and an ability to go with what you do find. It's the big airplane hangar door to unschooling, through which, if you can leave the schoolish building your own mind has built, that has "academics" sorted and stacked against old walls with bad memories, you can see the light of the real world outside. Just move out toward those cliffs and flowers and see what kind of birds are out there.


SandraDodd.com/dot/elvis
photo by Sandra Dodd

Aiming for learning

"Aiming for freedom can send radical unschoolers down some dangerous and goofy paths. Aiming for learning, exploration, discovery, peacefulness, and connectedness is much more helpful to radical unschooling."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Colleen Prieto
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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)

The family in the world

Unschooling is creating and maintaining an environment in which natural learning can thrive.

The environment isn't just the physical home. It's the relationships within the family, and their exploration of the world outside the home. The emotional environment is crucial.

Sandra Dodd, on Unschooling, at the Do Life Right Teleconference 2012
Their site is gone, but here is a video and transcript of my presentation
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A Mindful Lifestyle

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Although unschooling is often described as a homeschooling style, it is, in fact, much more than just another homeschool teaching method. Unschooling is both a philosophy of natural learning and the lifestyle that results from living according to the principles of that philosophy.

The most basic principle of unschooling is that children are born with an intrinsic urge to explore—for a moment or a lifetime—what intrigues them, as they seek to join the adult world in a personally satisfying way. Because of that urge, an unschooling child is free to choose the what, when, where and how of his/her own learning from mud puddles to video games and SpongeBob Squarepants to Shakespeare! And an unschooling parent sees his/her role, not as a teacher, but as a facilitator and companion in a child's exploration of the world.

Unschooling is a mindful lifestyle that encompasses, at its core, an atmosphere of trust, freedom, joy and deep respect for who the child is. This cannot be lived on a part-time basis. Unschooling sometimes seems so intuitive that people feel they've been doing it all along, not realizing it has a name. Unschooling sometimes seems so counterintuitive that people struggle to understand it, and it can take years to fully accept its worth.

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This was the description at an online discussion for many years—at the UnschoolingDiscussion list.

SandraDodd.com/lists/description
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Flitting

It's worth looking into the concept of process vs. product. People learn from figuring out how things work. One doesn't need to build a computer just to mess with computer repair or examine parts. Someone can play with yarn and needles and do a simple scarf without being made to feel like a failure for having no interest in making sweaters and socks.

Unschooling is about learning, exploration, peace and love. It shouldn't be about pressure, shame and failure.

SandraDodd.com/flitting
photo by Megan Valnes
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Calm, happy, trusting

Someone commented that responses to her questions had hurt her feelings. I wrote:

When he is calm and happy and trusting, THEN you will feel better—not because of things we wrote, or didn't, but because you will BE better. You will see it in your son's eyes.

Don't make it about you. Make it about his range of exploration and his choices and his learning and his happiness. You can live on the interest, if you invest enough in him.

(at Radical Unschooling Info, on Facebook)
photo by Amy Milstein

Which came first...

Which came first, curiosity or learning? Exploration or knowledge?

If you're lucky, and open to it, they will tumble and leapfrog over one another in all the best times of your life.

Exploring
photo by Gail Higgins
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Contentment is Peace

For learning to happen in ANY situation, safety and some peace are required.

Can there be too much peace? For learning, yes. Learning requires mental arousal. If an environment is so still and barren that one's curiosity isn't sparked, then people might be closer to a state of sleep than of excited curiosity. Life can be too dull and quiet for learning to spontaneously happen.

Can there be too little peace? Yes, and in many ways. There can be too much noise, stimulation and chaos. So finding the balance place and the comfort level is part of creating a peaceful home.

Peace is a prerequisite to natural, curious, intellectual exploration.

What is peace, then, in a home with children? Contentment is peace.

Is a child happy to be where he is? That is a kind of peace. If he wakes up disappointed, that is not peace, no matter how quiet the house is or how clean and "feng shuid" his room is.

Peace, like learning, is largely internal.

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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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.
image of art in progress by Holly Dodd

Car keys and money

"Look for ways to be a helpful partner to your kids—you've got the car keys and the money, you can facilitate their exploration of the world."

—Deb Rossing

SandraDodd.com/attentiveparenting
photo by Ester Siroky, from inside their RV
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Learning will flow

The more curiosity and exploration and creation you have at your house, the more effortlessly learning will flow.

And THIS makes it easier to unschool
photo by Sandra Dodd, of art by Keith Dodd, against a New Mexico sky (front brace of a Viking a-frame tent)

Things

I love this photo of Karen Lundy's kitchen utensils, laid out artfully and photographed.

I like things. I like tools. The similarities and differences in things has always interested me—the patterns and departures, in objects, people, games, songs, foods, trees, and ideas.

Some people think "I have too many things." Some want things they don't have. Few think "I have the perfect number of things."

I miss things I used to have, sometimes. Attachments are not ideal, but things can be art, comfort, tools, toys, and portals to history, stories, science, exploration and possibilities.

Be at peace with things, when you can be.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Karen Lundy
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Not just luck

"[It helps to] recognize how lucky I am that I get to do this life. I know that it's not just luck, it's a lot of work and thought and reading and breathing and patience and curiosity and exploration."

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Happy, having fun, and learning

Colleen Prieto wrote:

I am quite pleased that everyone in our little family feels quite free to be enthusiastic, passionate, and extremely into whatever we're into at the moment. All things Star Trek, cemetery exploration, birding, keeping track of the Yankees, Minecraft, and photography are things that right now are taking up most of our time. I don't think we're obsessed and I don't think we need to be more well-rounded and find "moderation." I think we're happy and having fun and learning , and that to me is all good.

—Colleen Prieto

"Too Much"
photo by Sadie Bugni

Happy to be where he is

Peace is a prerequisite to natural, curious, intellectual exploration.

What is peace, then, in a home with children? Contentment is peace.

Is a child happy to be where he is? That is a kind of peace. If he wakes up disappointed, that is not peace, no matter how quiet the house is or how clean and "feng shuid" his room is.

Peace, like learning, is largely internal.

There is more at Contentment is Peace.
drawing by a younger Kes; photo by Janine Davies