photo by Cathy Koetsier
Showing posts sorted by date for query freedom/from. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query freedom/from. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Saturday, April 13, 2024
Less control, more learning
photo by Cathy Koetsier
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Foggy confusion
People will come [to a discussion] and say "I've given him freedom, when will he self-regulate?" and I think (though I've never asked) they mean "When will he somehow do what I would have made him do if I were making him do things?" Some newer unschoolers are similarly waiting for their kids to ask to learn biology, or to wake up one morning eager to write a book report.
photo by Karen James
Monday, May 22, 2023
True freedom and snake oil
So if someone is selling you "True Freedom" (or snake oil, or the elixir of the fountain of life), have respect for yourself and your family and take a pass on it.
photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)
"Snake oil" might not be an internationally-known term, so here's this: Snake oil
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Healing for parents
It can be healing for parents to think back to their own sorrows and then to their own children's freedom from those experiences. Look at what a change you have made in the world by not passing those things on! And how comforting for my own soul that my children could be helpful and funny without being pointed at and laughed at and becoming the butt of a joke.
SandraDodd.com/freedom/from
photo by Vlad Gurdiga
Saturday, May 29, 2021
Beauty and options
I will quote from something I saved as "Robyn Coburn on Giving Children Options":
"The idea of Unschooling is for parents to be the facilitators of options, the openers of doors, the creators of environments of freedom, and the guardians of choice, not the installers of roadblocks and barriers."
—Robyn Coburn
photo by Karen James
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Lot of choices
When a family starts talking about "ultimate" freedom or total freedom, or any of that, they just haven't thought about it very clearly.
from "Always Learning," in 2011
photo by Sarah S.
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Friday, December 14, 2018
What if a parent is afraid?
Part of my response to a request for advice to fearful parents:
Turn away from the school and look directly at your children. Look at them as individuals, rather than as students, or third graders or eight-year-olds. Look at their potential, their interests, their sweetness, and find ways to preserve and nurture those.
. . .
Don't do school. Do life as though school didn't exist. Live to learn; learn to live. If after really trying it as hard and as honestly and fully as you can for an extended period of time you can't get it to work, then you can always go back to a curriculum.
School has already taken twelve or more years of your freedom and individuality. You don't have to let it take your adult life as well. You don't have to let it have your child.
SandraDodd.com/interviews/successful
photo by Sandra Dodd
School has already taken twelve or more years of your freedom and individuality. You don't have to let it take your adult life as well. You don't have to let it have your child.
photo by Sandra Dodd
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Accessibility
I decided not to hate anything, and to leave as much of the world accessible to my kids without them feeling they were messing with something I didn't like, or asking about something I disapproved of.
When I reject something from my life, it closes doors, in my head, and in my soul. I can't make connections there anymore. I have eliminated it from active play. It's not good for unschoolers
Everyone has the freedom to be negative. Not everyone has thought of good reasons to be more positive.
The quote above starts in the middle of a sentence, at the page called "open."
Before that, it was about jazz and science fiction. It's a circus page.
photo by Ester Siroky (click for more context)
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Free to behave nicely
My children are about as free as they're going to get, honestly. Always have been. Yet there are all these real-life limitations and considerations. They're free to ignore them. And the state of New Mexico (county of Bernalillo and City of Albuquerque) are not only free, but OBLIGATED, to protect other residents from any over-reaching acts of wild "freedom."
photo by Sandra Dodd, but in Maine, not New Mexico
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Thursday, July 2, 2015
Free of (some) sorrows
It can be healing for parents to think back to their own sorrows and then to their own children's freedom from those experiences.
photo by Sandra Dodd
of a sculpture in Old Town
Albuquerque
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Huge and wonderful choice
Robyn Coburn wrote:
Intentions matter. Guidance offered from the place of partnership and trust has a different feeling, avoids rebellion, and is just plain less focused on the trivial. Guidance means optional acceptance instead of mandatory compliance. Guidance means parents being safety nets, not trap doors or examiners. Guidance facilitates mindfulness. Directives shut it down, and may even foster resentment instead.
The idea of Unschooling is for parents to be the facilitators of options, the openers of doors, the creators of environments of freedom, and the guardians of choice, not the installers of roadblocks and barriers. Unschoolers are making the huge and wonderful choice to renounce our legal entitlements to be the authoritarian controllers of our children's lives, and instead choose to be their partners.
—Robyn Coburn
SandraDodd.com/choicerobyn
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a long-ago Kirby
Monday, January 26, 2015
Native habitats
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
Monday, November 17, 2014
An active experience
Pam Sorooshian wrote:
In my park day group, the unschooled kids with freedom of choice to watch tv really clearly have their critical thinking engaged when watching tv. They "work" to get the joke, for example, on the Simpsons. They ask questions—they make connections to other things they know. TV is a more active experience for them than other kids. I know this from listening to them talk about it.
SandraDodd.com/t/holly
photo is a link
In my park day group, the unschooled kids with freedom of choice to watch tv really clearly have their critical thinking engaged when watching tv. They "work" to get the joke, for example, on the Simpsons. They ask questions—they make connections to other things they know. TV is a more active experience for them than other kids. I know this from listening to them talk about it.
—Pam Sorooshian
photo is a link
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Limitations
My children are about as free as they're going to get, honestly. Always have been. Yet there are all these real-life limitations and considerations.
photo by Colleen Prieto, of a legitimate exception
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
True freedom and snake oil
So if someone is selling you "True Freedom" (or snake oil, or the elixir of the fountain of life), have respect for yourself and your family and take a pass on it.
photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)
_
"Snake oil" might not be an internationally-known term, so here's this: Snake oil
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Intentions matter.
Intentions matter.
Guidance offered from the place of partnership and Trust has a different feeling, avoids rebellion, and is just plain less focused on the trivial. Guidance means optional acceptance instead of mandatory compliance. Guidance means parents being safety nets, not trap doors or examiners. Guidance facilitates mindfulness. Directives shut it down, and may even foster resentment instead.
The idea of Unschooling is for parents to be the facilitators of options, the openers of doors, the creators of environments of freedom, and the guardians of choice, not the installers of roadblocks and barriers. Unschoolers are making the huge and wonderful choice to renounce our legal entitlements to be the authoritarian controllers of our children's lives, and instead choose to be their partners.
photo by Sandra Dodd, inside a tile shop in Austin
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Friday, February 17, 2012
Mindfulness in Unschooling
Once upon a time on the unschooling discussion list, someone seemed unhappy with the way I used "mindful." For years, some of the regular writers here tried to find a good word for what we were trying to convey—a kind of mothering that involved making infinitesimal decisions all the time, day and night, and basing those decisions on our evolving beliefs about living respectfully with our children, and giving THEM room to make their own decisions of the moment.
We finally settled on "mindful," in the sense of being fully in the moment. Though "mindfulness" is used as a term in western Buddhism, the word they chose when they were translating from Japanese, Chinese, Sanskrit, Vietnamese and whatever all hodgepodge of ideas were eventually described in English, "mindfulness," is an English word over 800 years old. It's a simple English compound, and has to do with the state of one's mind while performing an action. It creates a state of "if/then" in one. And IF a parent intends to be a good unschooling parent, a generous freedom-nurturing parent, a parent providing a peaceful nest, a parent wanting to be her child's partner, then the best way she can live in that goal and come ever closer to her ideals is to make all her decisions in that light. The more mindful she is of where she intends to go, the easier her decisions are.
SandraDodd.com/mindfulness
photo by Sandra Dodd
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photo by Sandra Dodd
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Something looks like this:
architecture,
brickwork,
instrument
Monday, January 2, 2012
What if a parent is afraid?
Part of my response to a request for advice to fearful parents:
Turn away from the school and look directly at your children. Look at them as individuals, rather than as students, or third graders or eight-year-olds. Look at their potential, their interests, their sweetness, and find ways to preserve and nurture those.
. . .
Don't do school. Do life as though school didn't exist. Live to learn; learn to live. If after really trying it as hard and as honestly and fully as you can for an extended period of time you can't get it to work, then you can always go back to a curriculum.
School has already taken twelve or more years of your freedom and individuality. You don't have to let it take your adult life as well. You don't have to let it have your child.
SandraDodd.com/interviews/successful
photo by Sandra Dodd
__
School has already taken twelve or more years of your freedom and individuality. You don't have to let it take your adult life as well. You don't have to let it have your child.
photo by Sandra Dodd
__
Sunday, October 23, 2011
A Mindful Lifestyle
Joyce Fetteroll wrote:
Although unschooling is often described as a homeschooling style, it is, in fact, much more than just another homeschool teaching method. Unschooling is both a philosophy of natural learning and the lifestyle that results from living according to the principles of that philosophy.
The most basic principle of unschooling is that children are born with an intrinsic urge to explore—for a moment or a lifetime—what intrigues them, as they seek to join the adult world in a personally satisfying way. Because of that urge, an unschooling child is free to choose the what, when, where and how of his/her own learning from mud puddles to video games and SpongeBob Squarepants to Shakespeare! And an unschooling parent sees his/her role, not as a teacher, but as a facilitator and companion in a child's exploration of the world.
Unschooling is a mindful lifestyle that encompasses, at its core, an atmosphere of trust, freedom, joy and deep respect for who the child is. This cannot be lived on a part-time basis. Unschooling sometimes seems so intuitive that people feel they've been doing it all along, not realizing it has a name. Unschooling sometimes seems so counterintuitive that people struggle to understand it, and it can take years to fully accept its worth.
This was the description at an online discussion for many years—at the UnschoolingDiscussion list.
SandraDodd.com/lists/description
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Although unschooling is often described as a homeschooling style, it is, in fact, much more than just another homeschool teaching method. Unschooling is both a philosophy of natural learning and the lifestyle that results from living according to the principles of that philosophy.
Unschooling is a mindful lifestyle that encompasses, at its core, an atmosphere of trust, freedom, joy and deep respect for who the child is. This cannot be lived on a part-time basis. Unschooling sometimes seems so intuitive that people feel they've been doing it all along, not realizing it has a name. Unschooling sometimes seems so counterintuitive that people struggle to understand it, and it can take years to fully accept its worth.
SandraDodd.com/lists/description
photo by Sandra Dodd
__
Monday, April 11, 2011
Practicing on Small Things
Some people homeschool because they think schools teach too much and aren't controlling the kids well enough. Some people homeschool because they think schools teach too little and control too much. I don't mind my kids learning things schools fear to teach, or having choices in their lives. Practicing on small things gave them knowledge and experience when they were old enough to practice on larger things. Some families homeschool to limit their children's access and freedom. For us, it's the opposite.
photo by Sandra Dodd, of petroglyphs west of Albuquerque
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