I have discovered the motherlode of two-for-ones, of tools for inspiring and sustaining conversation.
I suppose you have some of these things, or might want to put them on your wish list. My favorite is pattern blocks. There are some hardwood blocks stained in a few bright colors, available for $25 at educational supply stores and upscale toyshops. They are mesmerizing. We bought a second set after a while so we could fill the table with one big mandala pattern after another. And over those blocks my children have told their secret dreams, and we have discussed art and math, manufacturing, stain and paint, we have laughed and been silent.
While the blocks were still out our children have dazzled visiting adults with their dexterity and artistic sense, then they’ve wandered off and the visitors have talked to me, while making patterns with blocks, about things that might have been hard to discuss if we were sitting facing one another. They’ve discussed their fears and love lives and embarrassments, and made some really great patterns.
Leaning on a Truck scan of blocks by Sandra Dodd; they're bigger in real life
I don't use the word "unschooling" except when I'm talking to homeschoolers.
When I'm talking to relatives or people at the grocery store or whatever, I say "We homeschool." Or more often, "Our kids don't go to school."
IF they seem interested, or if they make one of those canned-conversation responses like "Oh, that must be a lot of work," or "Oh, I could never to that," I just smile and say "It's fun. We mostly just have a lot of fun." or "We don't use a curriculum, we just learn from everything around us."
So within the inside of the inside of discussions with homeschoolers, I'm definitely an unschooler, but there's no advantage I've found in using that term with people who only want a one-minute "hi, how are ya? cute kid" conversation.
Good conversation is really writing development. Sometimes I see parents who kind of shush their kids or get obviously bored when their kids are telling them a rather long drawn-out story (like retelling a movie plot). But retelling a tv or movie plot or telling everything that happened, in order, in a video game are really great for writing. In fact, all that verbal stuff—conversation, summarizing movies, persuading or arguing, playing games, etc.—is MUCH better for developing good writing than practicing writing in the artificial ways that schools do it.
If I've been listening to, talking about, singing or playing music for a few hours or days, I think in music more than usual.
When a long conversation about politics occurs, I might dream about those things. My brain needs to shake itself loose and re-set.
Twice this week I have played a card game called "Blink" with young grandkids, two different sets of them. With no numerals or words, cards are played to match by number, color, or shape.
When I was looking for a photo for Just Add Light, I saw this one and thought One; black; bird. Round; red.
It reminded me sweetly of four children who are, this week, five, four, three and two years old.
If mindsets can be affected and changed, try to lean toward music and laughter when you have the option.
There have been a couple of errors lately, and I wanted to take a minute to talk about the blog. I misspelled the name of the Concorde in yesterday's post. Julie D, who has provided me with some nice photos, and who crossed the Atlantic by Concorde more than once, caught that. I spelled it as though it were part of Flight of the Conchords, and if anyone isn't familiar with that duo, this is a fun intro.
On February 10th's post, one of the links was broken when the e-mail went out. It was repaired that morning, on the blog, but for those who missed it, here it is with the link working: Disharmony for a good cause
Two nights ago in a conversation here at the house, I was telling a friend that the photos I use aren't really very good, and that Lori Odhner's daily mailing (Marriage Moats) has GREAT photos. The very next night I was talking to another friend by phone, and she brought up how much she loves the photos on Just Add Light and Stir.
I will continue to do what I'm doing until frustration outweighs satisfaction, and I quit and do other things.
Until that happens, here are two other resources some of you might subscribe to, or peek in on occasionally. One is an infrequent blog about connections and thoughts, called Thinking Sticks: Playing with Ideas. The other is a little more frequent, and links new pages or notable additions to existing pages on my website: Unschooling Site News, SandraDodd.com.
If one day a post from Just Add Light and Stir seems too small for you, or it wasn't something you needed to read, maybe you could go and poke around one of those other blogs and find some sparkly ideas.
Meredith Novak, years ago, on communicating with relatives who ask about unschooling:
It's helpful to keep in mind that one of the big things grandparents want is a sense of connection with their grandchildren. When kids aren't in school, that can feel awkward - what the heck do you say to a child other than "what are you doing in school?" Especially if you only see him twice a year? It can leave extended family members stymied. So it helps a whoooole lot to feed them useful information and conversation starters in the form of something grandparents usually like anyway - pictures and stories of their grandkids. Keeping a blog or sending regular notes (via facebook or plain old snail mail) goes a long way in that regard. And! they get to see their beloved grandchildren happy and adventurous, which can help to reassure them on that score.
Unschooling can come across as some kind of weird cult if you try to explain it from a theoretical side first. Start with happy kids living rich, full lives and school starts to seem less of an issue.
[When my children were little...] I always put the kids' needs ahead of dinner. Dinner happened after or around nursing babies and such.
You might have to do away with the idea of a peaceful mealtime for a few years. Maybe re-thinking meals would be the way to go.
I think it helps rather than to live by the idealized traditional model of dinner at 6:00, all at their seats, dinner conversation that could be reported to the media as an ideal mix of news of the day and philosophy, etc, to think of food and its purpose. People need to be nourished physically and it's uncomfortable to go to sleep hungry. THAT is the purpose of evening food, not the appearance of a well-organized dinner.
I don't even think about learning any more. It's not something I can quantify, or say how it's happening for anyone other than me — and quite frequently, I can't for me, either. It's organic. It's in bits & pieces so small we don't notice.
It's in this or that conversation, chance meeting, or something we come across on google. I can say, "I want to learn the lyrics to I'm Yours" so I google that, but who can say what I learn along the way?...
Holly is smart and funny. She showed me a question (in art/meme form) asking "If you could delete one thing from Earth, what would it be?"
So one person wrote "The stupid people. All of them."
Holly doesn't know her, but said "That would make her the stupidest person on Earth."
If someone could remove everybody who is stupider than they were, they would, by default, become the dumbest person left, as she explained it.
It's like the opposite of "Idiocracy," where a guy became the smartest person.
Anyone who thought deleting all the stupid people was a good idea would happily delete her next. 🙂
So I said "ants." But I wasted my wish. I should've said "mosquitos."
I read this tonight, after getting a serious mosquito bite from being outside talking with Brie about the movie Idiocracy, and about Holly being smart and funny. All coincidence, because I hadn't remembered the post or conversation. Stupid mosquito. My ankle itches.
August 12, 2017 on my facebook page, where I apologize, explain, and endure assurances that ants and mosquitos are important (other animals eat them), and agree with the idea that maybe humans are not necessary to the survival of Earth. image by Scott Nickel (I don't know him.)
Unschooling doesn't work out for every family, for various reasons. In a conversation, an unschooling mom said some families don't have the time, money and benevolent patience it takes to unschool. I thought it was a good checklist of needs: Time, money and benevolent patience.
What it takes photo by Sandra, of Alex Polikowsky's son and a snowman as big as he was
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
It seems lately that more and more people want to know exactly HOW to unschool, but the answer is not what they expect.
Looking back at these stories, in light of others like them, the best recommendation I can make is to open up to the expectation of learning. It helps if the parent is willing for a conversation to last only fifteen seconds, or to go on for an hour.
Remember that if your “unit study” is the universe, everything will tie in to everything else, so you don’t need to categorize or be methodical to increase your understanding of the world. Each bit is added wherever it sticks, and the more you’ve seen and wondered and discussed, the more places you have inside for new ideas to stick.
A joyful attitude is your best tool. We’ve found that living busy lives with the expectation that everything is educational has made each morning, afternoon and evening prime learning time.
SandraDodd.com/nest
The "lately" in that quote was in 2002.
The photo is Holly's hand, in August 2017. photo by Sandra Dodd
Let us assume (with my house as an example, at least) that hyperactivity runs in families and that like attracts like. With extra energy, people can do two things at once. If one of those things is pattern-building and physical, that whole verbal part of the brain is still available. Working on patterns in silence allows one’s mind to whirl and twirl. Doing something non-verbal while talking has a special advantage: Silence is not awkward. Changing the subject temporarily to talk about the blocks or paints or puzzle is not really changing the subject. Fear and foreboding won’t cause people to leave the conversation or cry. It’s possible to pause, think, breathe, stall, collect oneself and come back to the topic in a minute. I have a near-teen here who sometimes needs to be with me a while before he gets to what he needs to say. That puzzle didn’t really need to be worked, but perhaps that child needed to sit with that parent.
I was planning to borrow an older post for today's post. Intending to see whether I had already repeated it, I accidentally put it into Google instead of Just Add Light and Stir's search bar.
The quote was this:
Taking food to someone who is reading or playing a game or watching a movie and just putting it where he or she can reach it without any instructions, warnings or reminders is a great gift. It is a simple gesture, and a profound service.
Those were my words, and they went with this photo, by Hinano:
The mistake triggered Google's AI to expand on the quote for me, and it was quite good:
This statement highlights a profound act of service: offering sustenance without disrupting someone's flow. By delivering food silently and without demands, you show care, respect their focus, and nurture them, turning a simple, quiet gesture into a meaningful gift of comfort and support.
Key Aspects of This Gesture:
Respects Autonomy: It allows the person to consume the food at their own pace without interruption.
Reduces Cognitive Load: It eliminates the need for conversation, instructions, or decisions.
Provides Comfort: It demonstrates thoughtfulness and care for their physical well-being while they are engaged in an activity.
Simple yet Profound: It shows that serving someone doesn't need to be elaborate to be deeply appreciated.
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
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
at Always Learning; quote revived by Marta Venturini photo by Roya Dedeaux
Some kind of learning is happening all the time — but not all learning is
good. Learning how to sneak food, learning that parents can't be trusted
and counted on, learning to think of oneself in negative ways, all sad.
Learning that life is boring, hard work, sucks, hurts, is unfair, also sad.
Not what unschoolers are trying for.
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.
Some kind of learning is happening all the time — but not all learning is
good. Learning how to sneak food, learning that parents can't be trusted
and counted on, learning to think of oneself in negative ways, all sad.
Learning that life is boring, hard work, sucks, hurts, is unfair, also sad.
Not what unschoolers are trying for.
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.
