Diverge!

I had a professor, years ago, tell me that one mark of intelligence was the use of tools other than the way they were intended to be used. I thought that definition would show up in other places in my life, but it hasn't. So here I share it with all of you. Try not to say "That's not what that's for" too quickly—your child might be about to do something quite intelligent. "If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society." —Piaget, quoted by Deb Lewis in "Unguided Discovery"

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/discovery
photo by Andrea Taylor

Brain food in abundance

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Human brains are voracious and will feed on whatever is available. Unschoolers should be offering interesting experiences, ideas, stimulation, music, logic, conversation, images, movement, discovery, beauty, etc. Brain food in abundance. It requires effort. It requires attention to qualitative and quantitative aspects of learning. Depth and breadth—creating a lifestyle in which kids are offered the opportunity to learn a lot about some things and a little about a lot of things.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/learning
Thanks to Marta Venturini Machado for finding and sharing that quote.
photo by Meghan Pawlowski
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Books? Old books?

The edition of The New York Public Library Desk Reference we have might be a little outdated, but the rules of ice hockey haven’t changed, nor the way in which one addresses a letter to the Pope, nor the date of the discovery of Krypton. (Some of you thought it was just a Superman thing, didn’t you? Nope—1898, the year before aspirin.)

(Before the internet, people had reference books, and even then they seemed like trivia. Trivia can be the interesting door that leads to strange, new knowledge.)

SandraDodd.com/triviality
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Amazing life

Just live life amazed. —Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/discovery
photo by Lisa Jonick

Wonder what

Take a few more opportunities to share wonder and discovery with them. It will enrich you all.

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Julie D
see in wheelbarrow blog, too
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Let's go see!

Explore the normal.

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SandraDodd.com/deblewis/discovery
photo by Sandra Dodd

Exploring

"The idea of unguided discovery in a school setting isn't anything like the kind of discoveries unschooling kids make. There is a difference between a teacher handing a kid a pulley and telling him to discover what it does and write a paper about it and a kid finding an interesting object and messing with it because it sparked his curiosity. A lot of what my son has learned he's learned in a way that might be called unguided discovery, but it didn't look much like the model in the article, and it didn't happen in a vacuum."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/discovery
photo by Sandra Dodd

Any and all

Unschooling allows free use of any and all bits of information, not just school's small set. A grid based first on cartoon characters or the history of ice skating can be expanded just as well as one built on a second-grade version of the discovery of North America and the made-up characters in some beginning-reader series. If the goal is to know everything, and if each person's internal "universe" is unique, then the order in which the information is acquired isn't as important as the ease and joy with which it is absorbed.

SandraDodd.com/checklists
photo by Robbie Prieto
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Curiosity

Children are naturally curious. Sometimes an adult who had learned not to learn, or had grown up to be self-conscious about enthusiasm and curiosity, rediscovers the joy of discovery.

SandraDodd.com/curiosity
photo by Julie D, of Adam, Huxley and some marmosets
on the Isle of Wight

"Do we have to learn this?"

My children have never asked, "Do we have to learn this?" They don't have to learn anything. So everything is equally fun for them. The joy of unexpected discovery is the substance of a typical unschooling day.

SandraDodd.com/presidents
photo by Marty Dodd

Share wonder

No matter how your children learn, take a few more opportunities to share wonder and discovery with them. It will enrich you all.

All Kinds of Homeschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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the JOY of discovery

Some people have expressed surprise at their own newfound love of learning. At first they learn along with their children, and then they move on to discovering things they think their children will love, and then they come to a phase in which they're more excited about learning and might not even think to share it with the kids, because the kids are making their own discoveries. Sometimes an adult who had learned not to learn, or had grown up to be self-conscious about enthusiasm and curiosity, rediscovers the joy of discovery.

Mindful Parenting
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Any old thing

Ronnie Maier described strewing beautifully:

"Strewing involves making a wonderful variety of resources available to your kids with no expectation or requirement that the resources ever be used. These can be books, toys, or supplies left casually on tables or in bathrooms or presented quietly or with fanfare directly to your child. They can be posters hung on walls, craft or music or gaming activities that *you* start, Web pages left open on the computer, magazines subscribed to, alternate driving routes taken, etc. It is SO fun to do, and it creates an environment of discovery and fun in your house. The things you strew can be in support of interests your son has expressed or about just any old thing you think of."

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Sandra Dodd

Unguided Discovery

Deb Lewis, on the idea of Unguided Discovery, wrote:

"My son has experienced a lot of wonderful learning through discovery and knows how to find instruction if that's what he wants. I have a wild idea that doing what he wants to do is more important than doing what science educators would like him to do. I don't think all innovators and leaders have to come from the molded and stamped process that produced a previous innovator. I think new understanding often comes from fresh and fearless approaches to discovery. So, while some people are working to prove Piaget wrong, I think he had a good idea when he said, 'If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society.'"

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/discovery
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a steam calliope

Unexpected discovery

My children have never asked, "Do we have to learn this?" They don't have to learn anything. So everything is equally fun for them. The joy of unexpected discovery is the substance of a typical unschooling day.

Typical Unschooling Day (Presidents)
photo by Holly Dodd
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Science

The fundamental core of science is learning, and by definition it should involve discovery! Learning directly and indirectly about what people know and how they know it and what they do with it that has been helpful and harmful to themselves and the planet is much more than just science. It's history, geography and ethics.

SandraDodd.com/science
photo by Sandra Dodd
(click to enlarge)

Starting Places

When someone understands the depth and breadth of one subject, he will know that any other subject has breadth and depth.

. . . .
Unschooling allows free use of any and all bits of information, not just school's small set. A grid based first on cartoon characters or the history of ice skating can be expanded just as well as one built on a second-grade version of the discovery of North America and the made-up characters in some beginning-reader series. If the goal is to know everything, and if each person's internal "universe" is unique, then the order in which the information is acquired isn't as important as the ease and joy with which it is absorbed.

The time will come in your unschooling when you will forget to use checklists, but it won't matter. The child's internal grid will already have given them the need to know what things feel, smell and taste, and what they used to be or will be, and whether it's different in other places. Connections will continue to be made throughout their lives. The universe inside will grow larger and the universe outside will become clearer with every new experience.



There are starting places right here, right now.

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The quoted passages above the image are from the 2002 article "Disposable Checklists for Unschoolers".

The Very First Post, and why

Alison Potter, of Glastonbury, Somerset, wrote:

We came to the London Unschooling conference in 2009. I loved listening to you, you were my favourite—you made so much sense to me and left me with a lovely warm glow. Thank you for your website full of amazing tales of wonder and discovery and for your love of life and children. Sometimes i need a paper reminder... Do you do daily email reminders too?

And so in response to Alison Potter, who already has both my books and who wants more input, I launch this series of frequent (perhaps daily) notes.

It is September 2, 2010, and I've been a mother since 1986. My three children are safely and happily grown, without school, and there are things I can share with others.