Your own clear understanding

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Unschooling happily and successfully requires clear thinking. I don't think it works as well when people just look at those with young adult kids who are happy and successful and try to copy them without doing the hard thinking and building their own clear understanding of unschooling. When they try to emulate, they are still following rules - unschooling rules. Unschoolers always say yes to everything. Unschoolers never make their kids do anything. Kids always decide everything for themselves. And so on. But those "rules" are not unschooling. Unschooling well requires understanding the underlying philosophy of how children learn, and the principles that guide us in our everyday lives arise from that philosophy. It isn't some new kind of parenting technique that can be observed and applied without understanding.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Belinda Dutch
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Understanding

Today's quote isn't simple. I threw in some italics and bold-face myself to help you read it. You can see it in a larger context, at the link below. —Sandra



Pam Sorooshian wrote:

"Unschooling happily and successfully requires clear thinking. I don't think it works as well when people just look at those with young adult kids who are happy and successful and try to copy them without doing the hard thinking and building their own clear understanding of unschooling. When they try to emulate, they are still following rules—unschooling rules. Unschoolers always say yes to everything. Unschoolers never make their kids do anything. Kids always decide everything for themselves. And so on. But those "rules" are not unschooling. Unschooling well requires understanding the underlying philosophy of how children learn, and the principles that guide us in our everyday lives arise from that philosophy. It isn't some new kind of parenting technique that can be observed and applied without understanding."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A million-piece puzzle

Today I'm quoting something Joyce Fetteroll wrote on Always Learning yesterday:

The way schools get academics into kids goes against how we're naturally wired to learn. It's very hard for humans to memorize someone else's understanding of the world and then make sense of it. That's why it takes so long in school. It's why kids can "pass" classes and yet still have little practical understanding of what's been pushed in their heads.
We're hard wired to pull understanding out of life. We're pattern seeking creatures. Natural learning often doesn't look like much of anything from the outside. But it's like working on a million-piece jigsaw puzzle. Kids are working here and there, jumping all over the place, spending a chunk of time in one area, then seemingly abandoning it for another. It doesn't look like progress. But by the time they're teens, the connections they've been creating between all the areas they've been working on shows. And it's not a bunch of memorized facts (that will fade) but a deeper understanding of how things work.

Whereas the kids in school have been told what pieces to put where and how to put them in, to drop that interesting piece because it's not part of the curriculum. By the time they hit middle school most are ready to slam the door on the puzzle and have nothing more to do with it.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra Dodd, and it's a link

Happily and successfully

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Unschooling happily and successfully requires clear thinking.
. . . .Unschooling well requires understanding the underlying philosophy of how children learn, and the principles that guide us in our everyday lives arise from that philosophy. It isn't some new kind of parenting technique that can be observed and applied without understanding.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Janine Davies

Both can be right

When I asked Joyce Fetteroll which topics or pages on her site she thought were best for new unschoolers, she responded:

My favorite topics are chores and television so all those pages. One crystal clear "Aha!" moment that drew me toward unschooling came from How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk. The authors pointed out how mom could see a situation one way and kids could see a situation a different way and both be right. It was something I knew but had never put into words.

Those two topics, chores and television, encapsulate for me how important for unschooling it is to move our understanding into our kids' points of view. If a mom can understand why her child sees the world as he does, she's miles closer to relating to him. If she can understand why he sees the world as he does—chores as conscripted labor for instance, if she can understand it comes not from lack of understanding the "right" way of seeing the word, if she can understand it comes from being 5 or 10 or 15, she's going to be able to listen and truly hear what he says and be able to respond in a way that relates to his understanding.

—Joyce Fetteroll

A Rich, Supportive Environment,
Joyce Fetteroll interviewed by Sandra Dodd, 2012
photo by Janine Davies

Patience and understanding

I didn’t expect unschooling to make things so sweet between me and Keith.
Partly Keith's just a nice guy, but principles that applied to the kids applied to the adults, too, and we all experienced and shared more patience and understanding.

The more I got to know Marty, the more ways I saw him like Keith, and because I was sympathetic to those traits in Marty which had bothered me in Keith, I became more sympathetic to and understanding of Keith.

SandraDodd.com/spouses
photo at Marty's wedding, in 2014
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Understanding is more important.

Respect and acceptance are more important than test scores and "performance." Understanding is more important than recitation.

page 72, The Big Book of Unschooling (79 in new edition)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Giving, learning and growing

Parvine Shahid wrote, on the topic of "Service":

Being with my children, giving them in each moment all I can, learning and growing with them, changed my understanding of "service."

I have chosen to give, help and serve my children. I feel being with them has contributed towards a new understanding of the word as well as a way of building a connection with them. I can also see how it can be extended to others.

I realize how much weight a word can carry, how changes in my own feelings have lightened that weight and thrown a new light on the word itself. Service now stirs up and brings great feelings of joy.

—Parvine Shahid

SandraDodd.com/serviceResponse
photo by Sandra Dodd (click for more info)
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The deepest trust

Make a mental note of those times when you know in your soul that this is really working well. Those mental notes help you gain understanding, confidence, and ultimately build trust in the process of unschooling, and in your children. The deepest trust happens when you see it in action for yourself, when your understanding meshes with your experiences.

—Pam Laricchia
Free to Live

SandraDodd.com/hsc/interviews/paml
photo by Sandra Dodd, of stairs, steps, and shadows
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Building trust

"Make a mental note of those times when you know in your soul that this is really working well. That act helps you gain understanding, confidence, and ultimately build trust in the process of unschooling, and in your children. The deepest trust happens when you see it in action for yourself, when your understanding meshes with your experiences—that's when you 'feel it in your bones'."

—Pam Laricchia

The quote is from the manuscript of Pam Laricchia's forthcoming book, Free to Live, which should be available by the beginning of 2013,
and is used with the author's permission.
photo by Sandra Dodd

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2020 update: That was Pam's second book and there are others now, too!
Pam Laricchia's Books
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An intellectual process

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

This whole unschooling journey was very very much an intellectual process for me—a process of developing deeper and deeper understanding by reading and listening to others, thinking hard about what I'd read and heard, applying what made sense, paying attention to how things were going, waiting a little, trying out other ideas that seemed to make sense, and continuing that process for all the years I had children—taking in input of others ideas and experiences, considering and analyzing, acting on my own conclusions, observing my own family dynamics—all at the same time.

—Pam Sorooshian

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch

The quote lives at Understanding Unschooling
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran
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Your own tools and understanding

Each person who wants to unschool well will need to gather her own tools and understanding. . .

You must learn it within yourself, and see the learning in your children, in your family.


SandraDodd.com/readalittle.html
photo by Ester Siroky

A new understanding of service

Clare Kirkpatrick wrote:

One of the things that has enabled me to really begin to understand unschooling has been a new understanding of the word 'service'.
. . . .
Now the word 'service' has only positive associations for me and is linked with the words 'honour' and 'privilege' and 'joy'. And I think also 'gratitude'. There is nothing richer than making someone's life more joyful and I get to do that at home and at work for the people in our society who need it the most.

—Clare Kirkpatrick

Longer original (you'll see what I slightly changed), lower right:
SandraDodd.com/service
photo by Sandra Dodd
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More patience

I didn’t expect unschooling to make things so sweet between me and Keith.
Partly Keith's just a nice guy, but principles that applied to the kids applied to the adults, too, and we all experienced and shared more patience and understanding.

The more I got to know Marty, the more ways I saw him like Keith, and because I was sympathetic to those traits in Marty which had bothered me in Keith, I became more sympathetic to and understanding of Keith.

SandraDodd.com/spouses
photo at Marty's wedding
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What does it take?

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch. We cannot inject unschooling into anyone. Unschooling is not accomplished by joining an unschooling discussion. It takes time, gradual and increased understanding, effort, desire, attention, change.

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Linda Malchor

Free-form experimentation and analysis

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Unschooling looks nothing like school. It looks like play. Play—which is actually free-form experimentation and analysis—is how we—humans and really all mammals—are designed to make sense of the world around us. We build up an understanding of how the universe works by trying things out and seeing what happens. Then taking that new understanding to try more stuff out.

Written that way it sounds formal and directed. In actual practice it is free ranging and chaotic. But it works wonderfully well because it's what we're designed to do.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Better at understanding

For all the "be gentle" that parents give their babies about how to touch cats and dogs, the parents themselves aren't always so gentle. Over the years of having children grow up around our dogs and cats I became more compassionate toward the pets. Having learned to communicate with and to understand non-verbal babies, I was better at understanding "non-human-speaking" animal companions.



SandraDodd.com/pets
photo by Sandra Dodd

Compassion and Understanding

The patience that parents need is more like compassion and understanding. To be "impatient" with a person is a cocktail of frustration and resentment, often involving bad planning on the part of the impatient person.

What will look like patience will probably involve learning about your own child's needs and preferences and finding ways to meet and consider those, along with gaining the decision-making skills to be consciously breathing and considering your best options for a few seconds. That will appear to be, and will eventually become, patience.

SandraDodd.com/patience
but the quote is from page page 272 or 315 of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Roya Dedeaux
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Spouses / Partners

I didn’t expect unschooling to make things so sweet between me and Keith.

Partly Keith's just a nice guy, but principles that applied to the kids applied to the adults, too, and we all experienced and shared more patience and understanding.

The more I got to know Marty, the more ways I saw him like Keith, and because I was sympathetic to those traits in Marty which had bothered me in Keith, I became more sympathetic to and understanding of Keith.

SandraDodd.com/spouses
photo by Ashlee Junker (later Dodd)
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Being present with kids

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

They won't be three forever! Their understanding and needs will grow and change as they get older.

Conventional parenting is not about being present with kids. It's about giving kids rules as a replacement for being there. Same can go for information. Information shouldn't be a substitute for being there and being aware. We should let kids know that cars can hurt them, which is why we steer them clear of the street. But we shouldn't then depend on kids understanding. We need to be there. We need to be aware of our child's tendencies to run to the street when in that type of situation. We need to avoid as much as we can places where they can run into the street until they can understand.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Mindful Parenting and unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd