Patterns in silence

Let us assume (with my house as an example, at least) that hyperactivity runs in families and that like attracts like. With extra energy, people can do two things at once. If one of those things is pattern-building and physical, that whole verbal part of the brain is still available. Working on patterns in silence allows one’s mind to whirl and twirl. Doing something non-verbal while talking has a special advantage: Silence is not awkward. Changing the subject temporarily to talk about the blocks or paints or puzzle is not really changing the subject. Fear and foreboding won’t cause people to leave the conversation or cry. It’s possible to pause, think, breathe, stall, collect oneself and come back to the topic in a minute. I have a near-teen here who sometimes needs to be with me a while before he gets to what he needs to say. That puzzle didn’t really need to be worked, but perhaps that child needed to sit with that parent.

From "Leaning on a Truck," 1999
SandraDodd.com/truck
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Impermanence

In New Mexico there's a kind of cool tradition, of having an old pickup in the back yard. We had this one.


Bonus points if it runs; this one usually did.

If it's turquoise? Jackpot. This one was.

Now, though, it's off to be used by an auto-shop class at Dulce Jr./Sr. High School. It was always a truck passed between Keith and his friend Bob, who was best man at our wedding.

Marty is getting married next month. His best man wasn't born yet when that truck was made. Neither of them went to school, as kids. The bride did. She was a cheerleader at Bernalillo High School.

My kids used to be together all the time, every day, feeling crowded, sometimes. Now they don't see each other for weeks or months.


Things change. Even in the best of peaceful circumstances, things change. Keep your balance, find gratitude and abundance, and accept changes gracefully when you can.

Images from the winter before Kirby moved away.
photos by Sandra Dodd

Everything you've ever learned

Think about everything you’ve ever learned. Make a list if you want. Count changing the oil in your truck, or in your deep fryer. Count using a calculator or a sewing machine. Count bike riding and bird watching. Count belching at will and spinning with your eyes closed if you want to. Think about what was fun to learn and what you learned outside of school.

Okay, maybe not everything, but if you think of twenty or thirty things you learned joyfully, easily, and if you can think of who helped you learn them, and what they did, it will boost your confidence. While you're in those thoughts, if gratitude arises along with some of them, maybe do some follow-up. Are some of those who inspired or assisted you still available to thank? Is there someone who would benefit from hearing some of what you've remembered? I bet there will be something in your memories that's worth passing on within or outside your family.

The first part is from SandraDodd.com/deschooling
and the second part is new.

photo by Holly Dodd
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Private ideas

I love museums. Museums of any sort are special to me, and sometimes I'm thinking about the building or whose idea it was or where the funding comes from to keep the lights and heat on, and to hire people to keep it all safe and clean.

What others are thinking in a museum, even if they're with me, could never be exactly the same. An object will, without fail, remind me of a personal experience, or of when or where I first learned of such things. If it's SO NEW to me that I'm surprised, I tend to think of which friend of mine, alive or dead, I would most like to share it with, or to ask about it. Sometimes that's my dad, especially if the object is an old truck, or a metal structure.

Sometimes I've been the person one of my kids shared something with. That's sweet, and I get to know a bit about what they're connecting to and with.

Long ago, I came to see the whole world as a museum. I love that, too.

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

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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Quietly and gently play

Jigsaw puzzles are wonderful, and you can get them at yard sales and thrift stores for less than a dollar. Greeting cards cost $2 now, but you can get a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle for 50 cents and so what does it matter if it might have a piece or three missing? Cheaper than a greeting card. Work it and throw it away.

While you’re working it, the picture on the box will inspire questions, stories, ideas, tangents. The shapes of the pieces will remind people of other connections in their lives. Except for those toddlers who eat puzzle pieces, puzzles can involve people of all ages together. There are some on the market now with big pieces at one end, medium in the middle, and small for the rest. Some bright parent thought THAT up. They’ll be coming soon to a yard sale near you.


SandraDodd.com/truck
That was written in 1999; greeting cards can be $4 and $5 now, and used puzzles might be $2.

image by Sandra Dodd, made with a scanner (pieces set face down)
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Some kind of learning

"Learning happens all the time. The brain never stops working and it is not possible to divide time up into 'learning periods' versus 'non-learning periods.' Everything that goes on around a person, everything they hear, see, touch, smell, and taste, results in learning of some kind."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/principles
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Something different

Things you are used to are exotic to others. There are things you see every day that some people might never, ever see in person.

Lightning storms. Snow. Kangaroos. Tumbleweeds. Tugboats. Mountains. Beaches. Cargo bikes. Lifts / elevators. Temples. Shave ice. Castles. Cactus. Alligators.

Inventory your special local treasures!

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd
(click it for a video)
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Something Different

Things you are used to are exotic to others. There are things you see every day that some people might never, ever see in person.

Lightning storms. Snow. Kangaroos. Tumbleweeds. Tugboats. Mountains. Beaches. Cargo bikes. Lifts / elevators. Temples. Shave ice. Castles. Cactus. Alligators.

Inventory your special local treasures!

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd
(click it for a video)
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Side by side

I think being side by side with someone is a good way to focus attention away from eyes yet still on them, so they can speak without the intimidation and confusion of your face right in front of them.

Eye Contact
Leaning on a Truck
photo by Becky Sekeres

Separation

Learning and life CAN be separated, with enough enforced separation and schooling, but that improves neither on learning nor on life.

SandraDodd.com/help
photo by Sandra Dodd, at a truck stop in Texas

Big shadow

I took this photo out of the window of Garcia's restaurant, at Juan Tabo and Comanche, in Albuquerque. Keith and I had gone there for breakfast. I saw the shadow on the side of the truck before I saw what was making it.

It's not very important.

Sometimes, though, a small thing can cast a large shadow. A small act can make a big difference. A small person can have a large presence.

photo by Sandra Dodd

Pattern blocks and deep thoughts

Of things to do that encourage conversation:

I have discovered the motherlode of two-for-ones, of tools for inspiring and sustaining conversation. I suppose you have some of these things, or might want to put them on your wish list. My favorite is pattern blocks. There are some hardwood blocks stained in a few bright colors, available for $25 at educational supply stores and upscale toyshops. They are mesmerizing. We bought a second set after a while so we could fill the table with one big mandala pattern after another. And over those blocks my children have told their secret dreams, and we have discussed art and math, manufacturing, stain and paint, we have laughed and been silent.

While the blocks were still out our children have dazzled visiting adults with their dexterity and artistic sense, then they’ve wandered off and the visitors have talked to me, while making patterns with blocks, about things that might have been hard to discuss if we were sitting facing one another. They’ve discussed their fears and love lives and embarrassments, and made some really great patterns.

Leaning on a Truck
scan of blocks by Sandra Dodd; they're bigger in real life
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All kinds of learning

"Learning happens all the time. The brain never stops working and it is not possible to divide time up into 'learning periods' versus 'non-learning periods.' Everything that goes on around a person, everything they hear, see, touch, smell, and taste, results in learning of some kind."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Sandra Dodd, in Liverpool

Magnetic attraction

Over the years we have collected magnets in one plastic cup—leftovers from various games, magnet sets, things found in parking lots, etc. Sometimes the magnets come out, and nobody passes without playing. Nobody plays without sitting and talking.

SandraDodd.com/truck
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Learning, piled up

Think about everything you’ve ever learned. Make a list if you want. Count changing the oil in your truck, or in your deep fryer. Count using a calculator or a sewing machine. Count bike riding and bird watching. Count belching at will and spinning with your eyes closed if you want to. Think about what was fun to learn and what you learned outside of school.

SandraDodd.com/deschooling
photo by Gail Higgins
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Can you be still?

It seems half the time parents are wanting their kids to be still, and the other half of the time they're wanting them to get up and be more active. Poor kids! Poor parents.

Perhaps an appreciation for how difficult it can be to "be still" would help. Holly is learning meditation, and the studio where she does yoga is right on Central Avenue, old Rt. 66, near downtown Albuquerque. It's not a place that is often still. She said she has learned to let her thoughts arise and attach themselves to the sound of passing cars, to make their way out of her mind. One day she was having a big thought and a truck passed and picked it up.

Sometimes unschooling rolls over itself with excitement and activity. Other times the world is still even though we're busy.


I've recommended this collection of "typical days" several times lately, but for each really busy day that seems worth writing about, it's okay if there's a laid-back day with nothing planned when people are home, just being, and not noting anything about it but the stillness.
SandraDodd.com/typical

The photo is by Sara Janssen, and is used by permission.
(People used to be able to see it in context on her blog, Walk Slowly, Live Wildly. This links to a preserved copy, but the images are gone, so I'm glad I saved one.)

Roses and music

If your child is having a slow week or month or year, don't worry. If your child is having a zippy brilliant period of life where everything's coming up roses and the backswell of music seems always to accompany his glorious exploits, don't expect that to last day in and day out for sixty years. It won't. It can't. It shouldn't. People need to recuperate from stunning performances.

Life is lumpy; let it be.

page 73 (or 80) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a truck at a silo in West Texas, 2011
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Toys and tools

There are machines, conveyances, tools, that are so beautiful that people make models of them, or working toys for children. Front-end loaders are that beautiful, to those who need or use or have watched them work.

Tractors can be that, or combines, or just the truck to pull other tools, plows, trailers.

If a child, or an adult, can get excited about a piece of equipment, try to take time to watch those machines in action, if you get a chance. Not too close; from a safe distance, or from inside your car, if you can. When you're out, find people digging, building, repairing—replacing signs with a crane, or going up in a cherry-picker to change streetlight bulbs—do it for your kids or for yourself.

Mom's Interests Enriching Kids' Lives
photo by Holly Dodd

"Science"

When one person says "I like science" and another says "I don't like science," I remember school science textbooks that had geology, astronomy, chemistry, botany, biology, agriculture and physics all in one book. . . . .There are many fun things to do and explore that could be called "science," but why not just call them skate boards or miniature golf or basketball or piano or water play or rescuing wounded birds or making goop or collecting rocks or swimming or drawing pictures of clouds or taking photos in different kinds of light or growing corn or training a dog or looking through binoculars or waiting for a chrysalis to open or making a sundial or making a web page or flying a kite or chasing fireflies or building a campfire or finding out which planet that is by the moon on the horizon, or wondering why snowballs take so much snow to make, or how a 4-wheel-drive truck works.

from page 82 (or 90) of The Big Book of Unschooling
and some more science clues, tricks and connections are at SandraDodd.com/science
photo by Marty Dodd
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