Preserve joy

With kids in the house, wanting mom's positive attention, the creation and preservation of joy provides a better environment for the whole family.

SandraDodd.com/perspective
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Time is inconsistent

Time is theoretically some sort of mathematical constant, but parents know that a day can seem to last forever, and a season can seem like a lifetime—then in retrospect seems to have zoomed by.

We can't live in "how will I survive this?" time nor can we live well by pining for that past we've already lived through. The best way to get through must be to do a better thing. If a conscious thought about time passage comes, think of what will be an improvement, and make that choice, however tiny, however slight.

Avoiding regret, contributing joy...
time will flow as it will,
but we can move closer to peace.

---

The writing here is new, but here is more on this perspective:
SandraDodd.com/change/
photo by Sandra Dodd, on a carousel in Austin
__

Your perspective will change

"Your perspective will change when you've experienced new things, seen the world from a different place."

—Debbie Regan

SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Cheryl Balazs

Stuff

Old things, odd things, useful or interesting things...

Textures, shapes, colors, perspective.


Even if you don't share them with your children, the more you can see and appreciate them, the more understanding you will probably be of what they do notice and comment on. Seeing beyond "right answers," and seeing past what SHOULD be important will open up the world.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Sandra Dodd

Distance and perspective

If people learn to use "learn" instead of "teach," it helps them move to another angle, to see things through a different lens.

Some people see experienced unschoolers ("experienced" meaning in this context people who have done it well and effortlessly for years, who aren't afraid anymore, who have seen inspiring results) mention classes, and they think "Ah, well if the experienced unschoolers' kids take classes, then classes are good/necessary/no problem."

But if beginners don't go through a phase in which they REALLY focus on seeing learning outside of academic formalities, they will not be able to see around academics. If you turn away from the academics and truly, really, calmly and fully believe that there is a world that doesn't revolve around or even require or even benefit from academic traditions, *then* after a while you can see academics (research into education, or classes, or college) from another perspective.

SandraDodd.com/peace/newview
photo by Heather Booth
__

*Time out*

Yesterday's post had the wrong time, so it will be delivered today (for those who subscribe by e-mail—1533 people). Thank you for reading!

The Bayeux Tapestry post on November 2 had the wrong photo credit at first. It was Leon McNeill, not Helene McNeill. Holly caught it in the morning, but the e-mails were already out there.


This is post # 1772 or so. That's quite a few. I missed the fifth anniversary of this blog, in September. If you're reading by e-mail and you wish I had written something different, click the title and you'll be between a randomizer and a set of "You might also like:" photos and links. Even if you've read them all, your own knowledge has grown and your perspective has changed, and what you saw before will look different now.

---

Reminder of another blog you might want to subscribe to:
Unschooling Site News, SandraDodd.com
blog-generated selfie by Sandra Dodd, while writing the notes above

Let your child be your cause

Putting your child first while you unschool is important. When your kids grow up, you could dedicate the rest of your life to only wearing used clothes and not using electricity or charge cards or an automobile, but putting token environmental gestures first in your life causes your child to become a token environmental gesture. The environment is changed imperceptibly. His life, hugely.

SandraDodd.com/perspective
photo by Sandra Dodd
___

A different place

"Your perspective will change when you've experienced new things, seen the world from a different place." —Debbie Regan

The quote above inspired this page:
SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Sandra Dodd

The motion of their own spheres

Looking out at our offspring, they are aligned in a certain way from our perspective, but they're not paused and gazing back. They are in the full motion of their own harmonic and intersecting spheres, spinning ever further away from us, and we marvel to see the celestial show.

SandraDodd.com/magicwindow
photo by Heather Booth, who wrote "My holiday window dream come true."

Looking closely

Karen James wrote:

Ethan and I are playing a game where one of us takes a close up picture of something in our yard, and the other one has to find it. Here's a sampling...



Sandra, I thought of this quote from Just Add Light and Stir as I was playing this game with Ethan today: "Some families travel. Some stay in one place, and come to know that place well."

It's interesting too, as I sit here and look at these photos again, that there's not anything particularly exotic about our back yard—it's kind of overgrown and weedy (as you might have guessed from a couple of the photos)—yet it looks so beautiful from this perspective. Especially that middle one. (Ethan was proud of that one.)

More exploring without leaving: SandraDodd.com/museum
The quote first said "...the quote from today's Just Add light..."

photos by Karen and Ethan James

A bigger payoff

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Think about what is REALLY important and keep that always in the forefront of your interactions with your children. What values do you hope to pass on to them? You can't "pass on" something you don't exemplify yourself. Treat them the way you want them to treat others. Do you want respect? Be respectful. Do you want responsibility from them? Be responsible. Think of how you look to them, from their perspective. Do you order them around? Is that respectful? Do you say, "I'll be just a minute" and then take 20 more minutes talking to a friend while the children wait? Is that responsible?

Focus more on your own behavior than on theirs. It'll pay off bigger.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/howto
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Time and Perspective

As our children get older, our perspective changes, but no matter how lofty the view, we can't see forever.

Deb Lewis wrote:
"In looking back I've not only had the pleasure of revisiting a lot of wonderful moments, but I've also had the surprise gift of perspective, which reveals overwhelming evidence of natural learning. What I always believed to be true is no longer a matter of trust or faith; it is fact.. . . ."He is surrounded by the things that interest humans in the twenty-first century. He is surrounded by the whole of human history. He is a citizen of the world in a time when access to information has never been easier. He is learning all the time."

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/years
photo by Bob Cogliser

Learn to use "learn"

If people learn to use "learn" instead of "teach," it helps them move to another angle, to see things through a different lens.

Some people see experienced unschoolers ("experienced" meaning in this context people who have done it well and effortlessly for years, who aren't afraid anymore, who have seen inspiring results) mention classes, and they think "Ah, well if the experienced unschoolers' kids take classes, then classes are good/necessary/no problem."

But if beginners don't go through a phase in which they REALLY focus on seeing learning outside of academic formalities, they will not be able to see around academics. If you turn away from the academics and truly, really, calmly and fully believe that there is a world that doesn't revolve around or even require or even benefit from academic traditions, *then* after a while you can see academics (research into education, or classes, or college) from another perspective.

Learning to See Differently
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

John Holt

John Holt's writing is different, and inspiring. He involved himself in schools and saw problems and successes from a different perspective than anyone else I've ever read.


John Holt had no children so he himself wasn't an unschooler, but he inspired others to do things differently from school, to avoid testing and rote learning. He encouraged people to respect children and to give them a great range of experiences and opportunities.

John Holt wrote about learning outside of schools, for about ten years. Since then, many families have raised children to adulthood without any school or schooling at all. I wish he could know Roya, Roxana and Rosie Sorooshian. I wish he could spend some time with Kathryn Fetteroll. How cool would it be if he could pop in for the day at a big unschooling conference in San Diego and meet a couple of hundred twenty-first-century unschooled kids all in the same place?

SandraDodd.com/johnholt
photo by Holly Dodd, of herself, taken with a camera that was new
when John Holt was teaching school.
__

Your child's friend

Pam Sorooshian, on being a child's friend:

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be your child's friend. Do what it takes to earn their friendship—be supportive and kind and honest and trustworthy and caring and generous and loyal and fun and interesting and interested in them and all the other things that good friends are to each other. Be the best 40 year old friend you can be (or whatever age you are).


People use "I'm the parent, not a friend," as an excuse to be mean, selfish, and lazy. Instead, be the adult in the friendship. Be mature. You've BEEN a five-year-old and your child has not been a forty-year-old, so you have an advantage in terms of long-term and wider perspective. Use that advantage to be an even better friend. You know how to be kinder and less self-centered and you know how beneficial it is to put forth the effort.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/friend
photo by Sandra Dodd, of six-year-old Adam and his mother and friend, Julie

Perspective

The same person can see the same thing more than one way. With practice, you can see things different ways without even moving. In terms of thought, perspective is no more than "seeing" something from a new angle.

SandraDodd.com/checklists
photo by Sandra Dodd

The Center of the Universe

It's your universe. You're the center of your universe. You see the world through your own eyes.



a bit of the universe
as seen from Holly Dodd's perspective one day

Entries

New things and new places present themselves all the time. We can't do or go everywhere. Sometimes we choose "same" over "new" because we love "same." There are movies I've watched over and over, and movies I've never seen. Some people read the same book again, or listen to favorite music repeatedly. There are pictures I've drawn more than once, and stories I've told several times. People will walk or ride a bike or skateboard along the same route they've traveled before.

If someone wants to go to a place he's already been rather than to a new place, it will still be somewhat new and different each time. When I see a movie I haven't seen for a long time, I see it with new knowledge and maturity. My perspective is different, even if the movie itself is exactly as it ever was.

New things and new places can be familiar places under different circumstances.



SandraDodd.com/again
photo by Sandra, of a gate in Albuquerque's Old Town

Art and Perspective

Usually the perspective people talk about with art has to do with angles and using size and color to show distance. This is about the moment, and the surroundings, and the contrast. As happens sometimes with the photos of tourists and amateurs, I did not plan this lighting and drama. I only saw it later, in the photo.



Just seconds later, the same angel, different angle, there are modern details the angel sees every day, plus Linnaea Waynforth, and across on the other wall, art by children.



This was in a church in Bunwell, in Norfolk, one town over from where Schuyler Waynforth lives. We were there to hear bell ringers practice, on a summer day in 2009.

That angel is still there, but I'm in Albuquerque at a table with a tessalations puzzle out, sitting in a wooden chair constructed without nails or screws—all mortise, tenon and peg. I have three I got at a flea market, and the ratty table that came with them. They were made in New Mexico, probably in the 1940's. They're not fancy, but they are art, and history. There's a rice bowl near me, left over from my dinner. I don't know where it was made, or by whom. There are no markings. My husband got it at a thrift store in Minnesota.

Art is where you are.

Those photos can be enlarged with a click.