photo by Sandra Dodd
Monday, May 19, 2014
Roses and different directions
photo by Sandra Dodd
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Don't bother
Pam Sorooshian's description of a talk she plans to give:
Unschoolers don't bother with lesson plans, curriculum, assignments, tests, grades, workbooks, homework, or other academic requirements because we have discovered that children who grow up in a stimulating and enriched environment, surrounded by family and friends who are generally interested and interesting, will learn all kinds of things and repeatedly surprise us with what they know. If children are supported in following their own inclinations, they will build strengths upon strengths and excel in their own ways whether those are academic, artistic, athletic, interpersonal, or whichever direction that particular child develops.
in Phoenix, September 2014.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Saturday, March 8, 2014
Seeing your roots
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Monday, October 21, 2013
The right direction
The way to know the right direction is to identify the wrong direction. |
photo by Bruno Machado
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Monday, May 13, 2013
Commitment to unschooling
My best recommendation is to create and maintain such a rich and joyful unschooling life that the child won't want to go to school. That's the direction "commitment to unschooling" should take.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Monday, August 6, 2012
Little adjustments
Solve problems before they become problems. (Part of being present!) Notice the direction things are heading and change things. Don't let them get hungry, tired, testy to the point where they're hitting or destroying things. Food. Naps. Go home. Put on a video. Draw one away to do something totally different.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sunday, July 15, 2012
Seeing and being
Unschooling looks different for everyone and that's why you are having trouble nailing it down.
I felt the same when I started. It's nearly impossible to describe because every kid is different and since unschooling is about focusing on your child as an individual, then it's going to be different for everyone.
If I were to say unschooling looks like laying on a quilt at night, looking at the stars and talking about constellations or it looks like taking long car drives just for the sole purpose of having long winded discussions about every single US war in history, there would be 30 people who popped in and said that's not what it looks like at all, because their kids aren't interested in those things.
Unschooling isn't about where or how you learn something, it isn't about doing what everyone else is doing. It's about creating a rich environment for your naturally curious child to learn things that spark their interest. If you can do that, you'll be headed in the right direction.
photo by Holly Dodd, of her projection of an eclipse
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
Check your direction
This is important for everyone: Do not do what you don't understand.
If you get bad advice, and it seems bad, don't take it!
If you get a bad suggestion, and it doesn't seem to be helping, don't do it!
Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch. If you're going the wrong direction, don't keep going.
photo by Holly Dodd
near Las Vegas, New Mexico
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Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Your relationship with learning
You can't wait until you understand it to begin. Much of your understanding will come from the changes you see in your child and in your own thinking, and in your relationship with and perception of learning itself. You can't read a touch and then go and unschool for a year and then come back and see what you did wrong; you could be a year in the wrong direction.
Read some, do some. Think. Rest. Watch your child directly and as clearly as you can...
photo by Holly Dodd
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Monday, June 18, 2012
Photos don't have to be upright
I'm sorry for the glitch with today's post, and it's not yet fixed. I've written to Photobucket. For a while I was making errors because of Blogger changing, and now there's a Photobucket problem.
There was one photo by Holly that was sideways on purpose so the words would be the readable direction.
I know my writing is always about peace and goodness and living lightly and being open to what happens. I know my photos are often of trees or trucks, the view through a hole in a wall, or doorways, or fires or flowers. I like rooflines, and plants growing in odd places. I like light coming through glass—refracting, reflecting and projecting its shadows and colors. I like round things.
(The cake photo is by Cathy Koetsier, and Holly Dodd took one or two of them.)
Thank you for reading. You don't have to read these, so thanks for choosing to do so. I don't have to make them and send them out, but I like to.
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Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Affection and esteem
Something that has rattled around in my head for years is the line, "You're the parent, not their friend."
I was just reading a news article and someone was quoted as saying: "Your kids don’t need a 40-year-old friend. They need a parent."
What a tragic dichotomy that one little line sets up!
Every single time that line has ever entered my head, it was leading me in the wrong direction. Every time.
1. a friend: one attached to another by affection or esteem
Knowing what I know now, with my kids grown, I strongly feel that that that one line, which permeates parental consciousnesses, should be quickly and actively contradicted and rooted out like a pernicious weed every single time it sprouts up.
Instead of "You're the parent, not their friend," substitute, "Be the very very best friend to them you can possibly be."
photo by Sandra Dodd
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
A better direction
One mindful step in a better direction can be joyous. You don't need to reach a destination to have joy.
The Big Book of Unschooling
page 318 (or 275, if it's yellow)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sunday, January 22, 2012
All around us
Humor is all around us, in art, hats, billboards, t-shirts, magazines, toys, songs, stories, friendly banter, cereal boxes and wordplay. What can make or break a day, or a moment, is whether people see it and smile, or see it and make a face of disgust. The direction parents take with humor can make the difference between a joyful shared moment or an uncomfortable, embarrassing stuckness. And each of those leads to the next moment.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Monday, January 9, 2012
Direction
Each journey begins with a single step, they say, but steps in the wrong direction don't get you to a good place. Milling around for a thousand steps without regard to the intended goal isn't "a journey."
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Wednesday, November 2, 2011
There y'go!
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sunday, October 9, 2011
Know what you don't want!
SandraDodd.com/screwitup
photo by Sandra Dodd
Saturday, September 24, 2011
The trail starts to open up
Overly self-centered people can't do it because it requires a lot of empathy. People with too many personal problems that they haven't addressed in their own lives probably can't do it because they are too distracted by those.People who are too negative or cynical can't do it because they tend to crush interest and joy, not build it up. People who lack curiosity and a certain amount of gusto for life can't really do it.
On the other hand, we grow into it. Turns out that we parents learn, too.
So—when we are making moves, taking steps, in the direction of unschooling, turns out the trail starts to open up in front of us and we get more and more sure-footed as we travel the unschooling path.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Saturday, August 6, 2011
Crazy-thinking
I wrote this twelve years ago, but it's still true:
We keep a running commentary on one another’s lives, and so what I’m learning trickles down to them, and their questions make me think like crazy.
Crazy-thinking isn’t bad.
photo by Holly Dodd, of the stop sign, which is its own right direction
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Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Mastering ideas about learning
In Romance language (Italian, French, Spanish and so on) our "teacher" translates to something along the lines of "maestro," a word we have too in regards to music direction. And we have the English cognate "master" which is more currently left in "master of arts" and other college-degree titles. Once that meant a person was qualified to teach at the university level. That meaning is gone in the U.S., pretty much.
Considering the word family from which "maestro" comes (and not knowing all its connotations in other languages), the English verb "to master" means to learn. It means to become accomplished in the doing of something. Whether mastering horseback riding or blacksmithing or knowing and controlling one's own emotions, it's not someone else does to you or for you.
So for any translators or bilinguals reading here, have sympathy for English speakers who can't get to natural learning without disentangling all the graspy words and ideas about teaching and education and their implications that learning is passive and teaching must be done to a person.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Just right
Recently I was interviewed and responded to a question about what can be a hurdle for new unschoolers, and what advice I would give to beginners:
"Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch."
That's my new improved advice for anyone about anything. Some people think they can read their way to a change, or discuss themselves into unschooling.
It's important to find out what others have discovered and done, but nothing will change until the parents change the way they respond to the child. But if the parents change EVERYthing about the way they respond to the child, that creates chaos, and doesn't engender confidence. The child might just think the parents have gone crazy or don't love him anymore.
One solid step in the direction a parent intends to go is better than a wild dance back and forth. And if that solid step feels right, they can take another solid step.
the full interview, by Kim Houssenloge, of Feather and Nest
Photo by Linnea, with Holly's camera