Special ideas

Deb Lewis wrote:

When you have snow, or can get to snow, snowshoeing is wonderful because you don't need any special skills to strap on the shoes and go have fun. Rental isn't expensive and most places offer group rates if you ever get together with others for the day. We went snowshoeing on Christmas day... Wonderful!

Don't be afraid to tell rental places you're looking for the best price. Tell them you're homeschoolers, ask for a discount. You'll be surprised how well it works.

—Deb Lewis

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Sandra, adding...

I LOVE ideas and advice that are regional and seasonal. Deb lives in Montana. It will be summer soon, there.

Other unschoolers might live where there are ZERO snowshoe rentals, ever. But what else might they have that Montana doesn't?

Frolic in thoughts and ideas, and maybe in snowshoes.

Deb Lewis's List of Things to do in the Winter
photo by Janine Davies

The open flow of real-world sharing

from 2004, Sandra Dodd:

The best thing unschoolers can do is to unschool well. The best thing those who are interested in helping others come along the same path can do is explain what helped it work well.

Reading other families' personal stories, hearing about paths that didn't work well and others that did is what helped me when I was new to this, and that's what I've been involved in helping happen ever since—real unschoolers sharing their real experiences.

Some people don't want to share in public and that's fine. Some people share things in public that turn out not to be true, and that's not cool. But over the years, many hundreds of unschoolers who first found one another through AOL's message boards, or at conferences, or through e-mail correspondence have met other unschoolers in person, and each person must ultimately gauge for herself who to emulate or trust or to go to for inspiration or whatever. There is no central board certifying unschoolers or conference organizers or listowners. It's the open flow of real-world sharing.

In 2024 I'm still offering a hand.
SandraDodd.com/help
photo by Linda Wyatt

Choices and thought processes

"I think to do unschooling well, it is a fundamental element to have an examined life. To be mindful of our choices and understand our thought processes."

—Rippy Dusseldorp

SandraDodd.com/being/healing
photo by Sarah Scullin

Beams of light

My daughter worked on a farm for a few years. Now she is working for the county, helping people learn to farm and to produce food for community uses. The program's students visit working farms, as part of what they do, so they can see what works well in this area, and ask questions. They help out, while they're there.

When Holly sent this photo, she called it "God's Tractor." I suppose it was on one of the farms they visited. Sunbeams. "Beam" is an interesting word—"light beams." Wood beams—those are just heavy, solid things. The wood doesn't beam down on us; that would be dangerous. Both uses of "beam" are very old, though.

The "beam" terms used by gymnasts and by aviators are newer. Holly's paternal grandfather was a Navy pilot in the Pacific during WWII, doing reconnaissance flights. He was a flight instructor, but he told us that unofficially, in Hawaii they used a local radio station to return to base, rather than the prescribed military method. That's one meaning of "on the beam"—to follow a beaming radio signal toward its source.

Seeing sunbeams shining right down on something could easily be part of the reason for sun-based religions. Coronas and halos are sometimes shown as beams of light, in religious art and in kids' imaginations and drawings.

It's good, when a photo of a tractor in New Mexico can lead to the history of England, and of English; to ancient Egyptian religion (and Mexico's and Peru's...); to medieval and Renaissance art in Europe; to Hawaii, and to women's gymnastics all over the world.

I googled a question. Here:
Are light sabers beams of light?
photo by Holly Dodd

Options over rules

Probably some families make rules so that their kids will learn to follow rules. It's possible. Too much practice can kill the joy, though. Being forced to play an instrument can create an adult who doesn't even bother to own one of the instruments he knows how to play, because how he's out of school he doesn't "have to." If someone made me practice eating before every meal, I wouldn't be very hungry.

So here I have kids who can sleep as long as they want, who set their alarms and get up; who have all kinds of clothes and no rules, who dress well and appropriately to the situation; who don't have to come home but they DO come home.

Something important is happening.


SandraDodd.com/rules
photo by Karen James

Food and its purpose

[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.

SandraDodd.com/eating/dinner
photo by Sandra Dodd, of one of the former Dodd babies

Peace and use

In response to a question in a discussion once, I wrote:

Don't think of your brain. Think of your mind and of your awareness. A little tiny brain can hold a LOT of information. A big fat one can fail to do so. It's not size, it's peace and use.

Shan Burton responded:

OH! This just resonated through my mind and awareness.

What a concise, clear way of expressing it. It feels to me like this is the difference between unschooling learning and school learning. School learning is focused (and not so well, maybe) on pouring things into brains.

Unschooling is about learning, and engagement, and connections, and awareness of things that can get deeper and deeper, throughout life. It works that way for kids and for adults.

Peace and use. I feel like bit is going to be connecting to lots of other things in my mind and awareness for some time to come...

—Shan Burton,
most of that

Those quotes, and more, in context: SandraDodd.com/awareness
photo by Denaire Nixon

Another step; another

Those who divide the world into academic and non-academic will maintain rules, bedtimes, chores even though they might not be "having lessons" in history, science, math or language arts.

So the history of "radical unschooling" came from someone saying "Well we're not that radical," and me saying "well I am."

I think if people divide their lives into academic and non-academic, they're not radical unschoolers.

I think unschooling in the context of a traditional set of rules and parental requirements and expectations will work better than structured school-at-home, but I don't think it will work as well for the developing souls and minds of the children involved.

And those who are not radical unschoolers would look at that and say "What do their souls have to do with unschooling?"

It has to do with philosophy and priority.

What do you believe is the nature of man, and the duty of a parent?

What do you believe hinders a child, or harms the relationship between a parent and a child?

Real actual unschooling
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Choose not to snark

When I'm tired or hungry or don't feel well, I have to be more thoughtful about how I talk to my husband and how I think about him, because it's easy for me to slip into a negative place and to focus on the things he didn't do that I wish he had or the things he did that annoyed me.

One of the best things I've done for our marriage is to be more quiet when I'm tired/hungry/not feeling well. In those instances, I'm more prone to feel like snarking at my husband, or commenting on something he did / didn't do, or otherwise saying something that would be hurtful to him.

What goes along with that, for me, is to remind myself of the things he *does* do. And also to remind myself that "it's not all about ME!!" If the trash is full and he doesn't take it out when he heads outside, him not taking it has nothing whatsoever to do with me, in spite of what my tired/hungry/cranky brain may want to think in that moment. 😉

When you're feeling competitive with your husband, be aware of what you're thinking and be aware of how easy it could be, in that moment, to snark at him. Then make the choice to not snark at him. And make the choice to think nice thoughts about him, to think about the nice things he does for you and your daughters. Be the one to make the better choice in that moment, to not say or do something that contributes to the competitiveness.

—Glenda (wtexan)

SandraDodd.com/change/
photo by Cátia Maciel

Learning informally and naturally

If budding unschoolers will look at how they learned things outside the classroom, and use that as a model and a goal, that helps. They don't really have to hunt down other unschooling families, although it doesn't hurt. A family isolated from other unschoolers might do well to brainstorm examples of things they've learned informally and naturally, and to look around for other people learning things in the same manner.

An Interview with Sandra Dodd by Emily Subler, 1998
photo by Rosie Moon

Compassion, for a minute

Yesterday I played with a stranger's five-year-old granddaughter in a waiting room. It helped the child, and her grandmother, it gave me something good to do while I waited, and she was quieter so it might have helped those in the room who weren't feeling well. The little girl was one of those, so the distraction helped her forget she was at a clinic. I gave her tissues and told her mine were softer than those in the box on the table. Her grandmother thanked me.

Looking for a quote for this post, I found something 11 years old. Part of it was this:

Each day for a year, could you add one minute to the time you spend with a child? Any child. One extra minute. If you can infuse that moment with love or compassion, bonus!

I suppose that would be a minute you could be doing something else, but I doubt it would be something better.

The longer writing, with another story: 1/11/11
photo by Sarah S.

Better and happier days

Caren Knox wrote:

The bulk of what was challenging for me was changing internally, not just in parenting beliefs and thoughts about learning, but acknowledging & feeling the very deep connection my sons and I share.

. . . . I found the more I trusted and allowed my heart to open to my sons, the better and happier our days were.

—Caren Knox

Do it Well
photo by Dan Vilter

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

Three layers down

In a response to the Always Learning discussion list, I wrote "The principles of unschooling and natural learning work the same regardless of a child's talents or abilities, but parental posture (emotional, behavioral postures) can keep unschooling from working well."

During a discussion with half a dozen other unschoolers, some from France and some from England, I said that much of my writing was untranslatable because it had to do with English. This might be such an example.

The word "posture" is usually used to tell a child to sit up straighter or to stand more gracefully and impressively. But posture can be relative to something else—a wall, a chair, or another person. Posture can be very subtle, too. Posture can be biochemical. It's possible to read anger in another person's hands or the speed of his facial movements. It's possible to see love in the way a mother picks up or touches a baby. Or it's possible to see frustration, or resentment, or fear, in a parental reaction.

I don't think this will be easily translatable into any other language, but for unschooling to work, the relationship of the parent to the child needs to become so clean and clear that the parent is being, and not just acting. This might involve physical posture, but also thoughts and feelings, reactions and clarity.

It won't happen all at once, and it can only begin to happen when the parent understands that some postures are better, and others are harmful to a better relationship with the child.

SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Gail Higgins
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Take a break (not yet; soon)

Here's a way to gauge your unschooling progress: Can you stop learning, at your house? Can you put the pause on unschooling?

Once a year, lots of people do that, as well as they can. Just one day. It's coming up next month, July 24.

I thought you might need some time to plan.


I used to own a full-sized poster of that art, but now it's in a better place—with an unschooling family in Utah.

Learn Nothing Day, in here, over the years

Clearly and maturely

Rippy D. wrote:

[The Always Learning discussion] has helped me think more clearly and maturely. It has helped me change unhelpful patterns and most of all helped me step into the *JOY* of life, connection, partnership with my children and husband. I know how scary it is to feel examined, and I think some other readers interpret examination as meanness, like I once did. I think to do unschooling well, it is a fundamental element to have an examined life. To be mindful of our choices and understand our thought processes.

—Rippy Dusseldorp

Healing Presence
photo by Ester Siroky
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Hopefulness, good and true

Probably [doubters and critics] are sincerely concerned for your children, so try to be grateful for that, or at least to understand it.
. . . .
The nicest thing to say might be "Thanks, I'll think about it." If they say he might need some type of school, you could say yeah, someday he might. I liked to tell people that things were going well, but if that changed we would do something different. That gave them hope, and that was good for all of us. And it was true.

What Can I Say to Doubters and Critics?
photo by Gail Higgins
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Avoiding future problems

I had been unschooling for years before a few people suggested on a message board that requiring kids to do chores could be as bad as making them do schoolwork. I perked up immediately, and everything they said has proven true at our house. The first principle was "If a mess is bothering you, YOU clean it up." Another one was "Do things for your family because you *want* to!"

It was new to me to consider housework a fun thing to be done with a happy attitude, but as it has changed my life and because it fit in so well with the other unschooling issues, I've collected things to help others consider this change as well.

In the same way that food controls can create food issues, forcing housework on children can cause resentments and avoidances which neither get houses clean nor improve the relationships between children and parents.

Also, studies of separated identical twins have shown that the desire and ability to clean and organize has more to do with genetics than "training."

SandraDodd.com/chores
photo by Sandra Dodd, of nearly-teen Holly wearing a shirt from her mom's late teens
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Using fewer words

To a mom using way too many words, I wrote:

IF (just if) your regular mode of communication is to coat words in words and then have introductory phrases, that will very likely cause children not to understand you, first of all; not to take you seriously; and eventually not to listen to you.

Think of what you want to communicate and do it in three or five words. With feeling. Be the lead partner in your relationship. Take care of your children. Be solid.

That's for anyone, and everyone, who tends to fall into "Well, sweetie, I understand that you might be feeling frustrated, but your sister doesn't want to be hit and when you yell it hurts mommy's ears, so please find a way to be more peaceful" instead of "HEY. Stop. Leave her alone."

Quiet
and more quiet

photo by Karen James
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Attentively, solidly, and well

DO IT. Do it attentively, solidly, and do it well. THEN you can relax. If you relax at the beginning and don't really become an unschooling parents of a thriving unschooling child, it can amount to confusion, frustration and neglect.

SandraDodd.com/doit
art by Robert and Robbie Prieto; photo by some Prieto or another