Flow, sparkle, joy

Unschooling should be better than school; if it's not, the kids would be better off in school. Any unschooler who wants to do just the bare minimum of what she "has to do" to be considered (by whom!?) an unschooler is NOT unschooling well or right. It needs energy, activity, interactivity, flow, sparkle, joy.

other "better than school" posts and sparkling ideas
(quote from 2014, preserved here]
photo by Nina Haley

Better than school

If you're going to unschool, it needs to be better than school. If that involves getting mental, emotional or physical therapy for the parents, then do it! The house doesn't work if the roof is leaking and there's no heat. Parents don't work if they're in an emotional fog and can't pay sweet attention to their kids.


Healing Presence
photo by Sandra Dodd

Safe and lively

"Some kids need school more than they need their dangerous or lifeless home environments."

I wrote that in 2009. School was good for me. If you keep your kids out of school, create an environment that is safe and lively.

If you can't do better than school, let them go to school.


Building an unschooling nest
photo by Manessah Ellender Garcia
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Natural residents of Earth

So how do unschoolers learn geography? Better than I did in school. They learn it with flexibility and a lack of awareness of having "learned geography." They learn it from games, movies, satellite photographs, globes, the history of ships and airplanes, of cloth and houses, of the Okinawan karate and of Roman bathhouses. Their model of the universe is better than mine was when I was their age. Their confidence is better than mine is now! They are learning about THEIR planet. I felt like an unwelcome guest here, when I was "just a kid." They feel like natural residents of Earth, and they do know their neighborhood.

SandraDodd.com/geography
photo by Olga Degtyareva, while visiting Stone Town

Bigger and better

A mom who's going to help a child learn from the whole wide world should herself become ever increasingly comfortable with what all is IN the whole wide world, and how she can help bring her child to the world and the world to her child.

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, the mom should do more to make life sparkly.

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Kirby Dodd

Bigger and Better

A mom who's going to help a child learn from the whole wide world should herself become ever increasingly comfortable with what all is IN the whole wide world, and how she can help bring her child to the world and the world to her child.

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, the mom should do more to make life sparkly.

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Kirby Dodd

Wholeheartedly and happily

Someone asked me, "Are the unschoolers more successful and clever? And do they have more chance to find good jobs as adults?"

I wrote:

I can't say. Even if most were, your own kids might not be. Even if most weren't, your own kids might be.

If what you do is better than school, for your kids, keep doing that. If school would be better than what you're doing, for your kids, in their real lives, then do that.

If you're going to unschool, do it wholeheartedly and happily.

SandraDodd.com/screwitup
(That page can help people see what they can do to be good unschoolers;
the quote was from e-mail.)

photo by Holly Dodd
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Your happy, whole heart

Someone asked me, "Are the unschoolers more successful and clever? And do they have more chance to find good jobs as adults?"

I wrote:

I can't say. Even if most were, your own kids might not be. Even if most weren't, your own kids might be.

If what you do is better than school, for your kids, keep doing that. If school would be better than what you're doing, for your kids, in their real lives, then do that.

If you're going to unschool, do it wholeheartedly and happily.

SandraDodd.com/screwitup
photo by Janine Davies

The bright, shiny parts

On a scale from dull and dusty to bright and shiny, where is your life? How much of the happy outside world is flowing in? How much are you and your children interacting with the bright, shiny parts of the world outside?

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, more should be done to make life sparkly.

Let one thing lead to another for you. Explore. Not the parent pressing the kid to explore, but the parent exploring and connecting.

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Explore. Connect.

On a scale from dull and dusty to bright and shiny, where is your life? How much of the happy outside world is flowing in? How much are you and your children interacting with the bright, shiny parts of the world outside?

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, more should be done to make life sparkly.

Let one thing lead to another for you. Explore. Not the parent pressing the kid to explore, but the parent exploring and connecting.

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sparkle

On a scale from dull and dusty to bright and shiny, where is your life? How much of the happy outside world is flowing in? How much are you and your children interacting with the bright, shiny parts of the world outside?

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, more should be done to make life sparkly.

Let one thing lead to another for you. Explore. Not the parent pressing the kid to explore, but the parent exploring and connecting.


SandraDodd.com/strew/how

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Note: Two parts were quotes, and I changed "the mom" to make it more general. Very often, unschoolers are writing to mothers; mothers are writing about children. I realize there are dads reading, and that not all unschooling families have mothers. References to "moms" is never intended to exclude or to limit the ideas.

Layers and depth

A mom once wrote:

Sometimes I think I've started to understand something but instead it's like an onion and there's another layer I didn't know I needed to understand.

I responded:

That's how everything good is. Every hobby, skill, pastime, has a surface and has a depth. Some things can be just surface, but parenting and unschooling last for years. And if a family can't resolve to be and do and provide better for the child than school would, then school is better.

If a family resolves to provide a better life experience then school did, then their decisions and actions should be based on that.

Make the Better Choice
Getting It
photo by Ester Siroky

Finding a social spot

Humans are social animals, and learn in mixed-age groups, when they learn naturally. A family can create that natural learning environment, or can fail to create it. :-/ Being around other people, though, IF AND WHEN a child wants to learn and is encouraged by parents to learn how to be considerate and sociable, can be a good place to learn "manners"—ways to behave politely.

In school, children are still social animals with the need to identify who might help them, and what their role is within the social structure. The social structure being unnaturally 20+ kids the same age, they figure out who are the leaders and the "young" and they act in accordance with their instincts in an unnatural setting. More adults to—teens, and young adults, and middle-aged, and elderly, behaving in natural real-world ways. TV is better for that than school is. Ideally, a rich unschooled life *IN* the real world is better than either.



photo by Julie D

I can't find where I wrote that, up there, but three people shared it in 2012,
and I still think it's true. —Sandra

Layers of an onion

My response to "Sometimes I think I've started to understand something but instead it's like an onion and there's another layer I didn't know I needed to understand."

That's how everything good is. Every hobby, skill, pastime, has a surface and has a depth. Some things can be just surface, but parenting and unschooling last for years. And if a family can't resolve to be and do and provide better for the child than school would, then school is better. If a family resolves to provide a better life experience then school did, then their decisions and actions should be based on that.

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
"Getting It" has some layers-of-onion discussion, too.

photo by Sandra Dodd

Parenting

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Just as we've thrown out school for something better that works, we've thrown out conventional parenting practice for something better than works! And just as throwing out school doesn't mean throwing out learning, throwing out conventional parenting doesn't mean throwing out parenting. We're there *with* our kids, helping them, talking to them about life, helping them solve problems.
. . . .There's more to unschooling than just not doing school. To make it flourish we need to look at ourselves, our relationship, the way we look at the world in a new way to clear out the thinking that's holding us back.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/lazy/kids
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Bully-proofing?

QUESTION:

I worry that if our child does not go to school that he will be vulnerable to bullying when interacting with school kids at activity clubs like soccer or scouts.

RESPONSE:

School kids are vulnerable to bullying both at activity clubs and at school. The idea that practice with being bullied helps people to avoid bullying doesn't seem true. Do abused women stand up to abusers better than women who have not been abused?

With my kids, their tolerance for nonsense from other children was very low, and because they never had to be in a class or club, but it was always their option to leave, it made a huge difference. They knew they could stay if they wanted, or go home if they would rather.

Much of bullying happens because humans need a hierarchy to interact. They don't behave well in "equal" groups of equally inexperienced people their own age. First, they need to learn from older and more experienced people. And if they have no leaders or experts in the group, then bullying and gangs can develop, because people seem to have a need to know their "rank" in a group.

I think bullying is a natural side effect of people feeling powerless, and of not being in the regular world where people do have different ages and different levels of experience in a situation.

SandraDodd.com/musicroom
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Better memories

What SHOULD I be doing as an unschooling parent?

• More.
  
• Better than school
  
• Making memories

Joy and optimism!
(There are comments there, too,
and a link to the notes from which both quotes came.)

photo by Linda Malchor
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More and better

What SHOULD I be doing as an unschooling parent?

• More.
• Better than school
• Making memories

Unschooling Very Well
SandraDodd.com/hsc/unschoolingwell
photo by Rosie Moon

Just life

When Kirby was 13 he was asked whether he liked homeschooling better than school. Most 13 year olds asked a question by an adult will look down and mumble "It's okay," or "I like it." Kirby made eye contact and said "I've never been to school. I have no basis for comparison."

So with no basis for comparison, my kids have just life.

(writing from 2004; can't find to link)

Involved and busy

About "academic things":

If the parents are really involved and busy, and inspiring and inspired, and interested and interesting, then I trust it will happen.

I know it will NOT happen if the parents are cynical, negative, critical, shaming.

Parents, if they're considering homeschooling, need to make it better than school or not do it.

The quote is from a section starting about 47:20
on the recorded interview you can hear here:
2009 interview by Sandi Schwartz
photo by Donna Anderson