Showing posts sorted by relevance for query /labels. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query /labels. Sort by date Show all posts

Thursday, January 21, 2016

In peace, at home

Alex Polikowsky wrote:


Some people go to school, have Special Ed for many years, have labels and they still cannot do things they way they are "supposed to." Those will still carry all the harm from feeling less than, and broken. I would not want that for any child.

SandraDodd.com/labels
photo by Cathy Koetsier, of an old waterwheel, in France

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Actually change!

salad on square black plate, with forkI practiced saying yes. That was the only way to make changes. To actually change. My thoughts changed gradually as I said yes. Yes to cookies, yes to grapes, yes to letting go of "good" and "bad" labels for food.
—Karen Angstadt
SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Sandra Dodd, of an Australian salad with mouse melons

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Means, encouragement, time and space


If the child is allowed to sit with mom or walk across the room, read or not read without pressure or fanfare, walk or not walk as he wishes, if his environment is kept comfortable (taking his personality, fears, needs into account when arranging his comfort) and if he has the means and encouragement and time and space to explore his ever-expanding world, he will learn.

SandraDodd.com/labels
photo by Sandra Dodd, at a tile museum in Lisbon
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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Don't bring school home

From a newspaper article twelve years ago:

Whatever the long-term plans are, Dodd has some advice for those considering home-schooling or even the more radical step of unschooling:

"Don't rush. This is a hard but crucial piece of advice. Rush to take him out of school but don't rush to replace it with anything. Bring your child home, don't bring school home. You don't even have to bring their terminology and judgments home. You can start from scratch, brush off the labels, and find your son where he is. Forget school. Move to life."


SandraDodd.com/media/ABQjournal
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, November 24, 2023

Naming things

Seeing new things and learning their names is the way babies and toddlers learn their native languages and how they learn about the world. It works for people of any age.

Each model of the universe requires identification, sorting, relationships between things, and other patterns. Whatever seems trivial in one context is of central importance in another.

Names and words and labels and descriptors have a glory about them.

Naming Things elsewhere here
photo by Denaire Nixon, of a young red-footed booby

Friday, December 2, 2016

Twinkling choices

There are all kinds of descriptors each of us could use for our kids. Choose the good ones, the ones that make them twinkle in our eyes.
—Jenny Cyphers
SandraDodd.com/labels
photo by Sandra Dodd

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Meet in the moment

Here is the deal, about unschooling:

Unschooling works the same way for any child, regardless of his particulars. Each child is met in the moment by a partner interested in making his day safe and interesting and in helping him do things he might like to do. If one wants to spin around for half an hour while another wants to take a radio apart and put it back together, that's not a problem.

from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 70 (or 77), which leads to

Seeing Children Without Labels

photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, January 18, 2013

Options and choices


If the parent finds ways to present options and choices and the children can say "Yes, more!" or "No more now," then each child will learn every day.

Seeing Children without Labels

Choices
photo by Julie D
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Thursday, April 23, 2020

Sunrise and family

Those who went to school (and that's over 99% of those reading this) have based half their lives, give or take a decade, on school's rhythm and labels and categorizations. When things like "the school year"
are as much a part of a culture as "family" and "sunrise," it's a radical departure to consider that maybe one of those three is unnatural. For many people, it disturbs the fabric of their lives. Some people's life-fabric is already kind of rumply, or they hated school and are glad to consider alternatives, but for those orderly folks who have life all neatly arranged in their heads, who do more accepting than questioning, unschooling is a disturbing thing.

SandraDodd.com/interview
photo by Sandra Dodd

Friday, February 3, 2023

Looking, being, knowing

Karen James wrote:

Living in the world peacefully and respectfully are good places to begin to focus when new to unschooing. The best advice I was given was to look at my son. Not at ideals. Not at freedom. Not at school or no school. Not at labels. Not at big ideas. Look at my son. Be with him. Get to know him deeply. And, then to read a bit about unschooling. Give something new a try. See how it goes in the context of our real day to day life.

I still do that. I'm still learning.
—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/freedom
photo by Karen James

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Look here


Karen James wrote:

Living in the world peacefully and respectfully are good places to begin to focus when new to unschooing. The best advice I was given was to look at my son. Not at ideals. Not at freedom. Not at school or no school. Not at labels. Not at big ideas. Look at my son. Be with him. Get to know him deeply. And, then to read a bit about unschooling. Give something new a try. See how it goes in the context of our real day to day life.

I still do that. I'm still learning.
—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/freedom
photo by Julie D
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Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Our own real thoughts

We can't really think until we think in our own words without the prejudicial labels and without mistaking the voices in our heads for our own real thoughts.


SandraDodd.com/voices
photo by Alison Eiffe
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Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Right for your child

Rather than look at labels that try to pigeonhole people into being this sort of parent or that sort of parent, be the parent that is right for your child in each moment.
—Laurie Wolfrum
SandraDodd.com/parents
photo by Sandra Dodd

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Conditions


Much of what is considered "disorder" is just school-allergy.

When you bring your child home, leave all the labels and conditions at school.

photo by Sandra Dodd
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Thursday, February 22, 2024

Our own real thoughts

In your head, you have some repeating-loop messages. Some are telling you you're doing a good job, but I bet some of them are not. Some are telling you that you have no choice, but you do.
We can't really think until we think in our own words without the prejudicial labels and without mistaking the voices in our heads for our own real thoughts.

SandraDodd.com/voices

SandraDodd.com/witness
photo by Christine Milne

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Move to life.


Don't rush. This is a hard but crucial piece of advice. Rush to take him out of school but don't rush to replace it with anything. Bring your child home, don't bring school home. You don't even have to bring their terminology and judgments home. You can start from scratch, brush off the labels, and find your son where he is. Forget school. Move to life.
—Sandra Dodd
March 2000
newspaper interview

Unschool Quote-arama
photo by Holly Dodd

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Sunrise and family


Those who went to school (and that's over 99% of those reading this) have based half their lives, give or take a decade, on school's rhythm and labels and categorizations. When things like "the school year" are as much a part of a culture as "family" and "sunrise," it's a radical departure to consider that maybe one of those three is unnatural. For many people, it disturbs the fabric of their lives. Some people's life-fabric is already kind of rumply, or they hated school and are glad to consider alternatives, but for those orderly folks who have life all neatly arranged in their heads, who do more accepting than questioning, unschooling is a disturbing thing.

SandraDodd.com/interview
photo by Sandra Dodd

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

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.



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
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Friday, March 17, 2017

Peacefully and respectfully

Karen James wrote:

Living in the world peacefully and respectfully are good places to begin to focus when new to unschooing. The best advice I was given was to look at my son. Not at ideals. Not at freedom. Not at school or no school. Not at labels. Not at big ideas. Look at my son. Be with him. Get to know him deeply. And, then to read a bit about unschooling. Give something new a try. See how it goes in the context of our real day to day life.

I still do that. I'm still learning.
—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/freedom
photo by Karen James
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Sunday, January 31, 2016

Keep the world safe!

A child who can recite prime numbers or reel off the infinitesimal pieces of pi might not be able to wipe his own ass. What kind of gift is that for anyone? It's just a thing, like being able to pogo stick for an hour, or to learn all the dialog and songs in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." It will neither save nor destroy the world.

Keep your child safe from pressure and labels. Have a happy life.
The first paragraph is from The Big Book of Unschooling
and I made the last part up just now.
Neither is on my website.

photo by Jasmine Baykus