Bigger, friendlier world

Karen James wrote:

Unschooling, done with too much attention on the one way of living being the only right way, can make the world seem smaller, scarier and full of confrontation.

Unschooling done with the understanding it's one choice among many, makes the world a bigger, friendlier, more dynamic place.

—Karen James

Find your options
photo by Hinano
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Once upon a grocery list...

In a past year, Karen James to her son Ethan: I'm going to the store. Do you want anything special?

Ethan, after a pause: Yeah. Lettuce.

Karen: Lettuce?

Ethan: Yeah, lettuce...and other good snack food like that.

Karen: Okay.

SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Sandra Dodd, at an allotment garden in West Sussex
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Eating

Karen James to her son Ethan: I'm going to the store. Do you want anything special? Ethan, after a pause: Yeah. Lettuce. Karen: Lettuce? Ethan: Yeah, lettuce...and other good snack food like that. Karen: Okay.

SandraDodd.com/food.html
photo by Jo Isaac

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

Favorite tools

People who use tools find some more useful and comfortable than others. Even three spatulas that might seem the same to strangers can have subtle differences in weight, flex, ease of washability, and heat transfer.

Cooks, artists, woodworkers, workers in tile, plaster, painting, brickwork or concrete—think of any field of work or art—know their tools, and maybe yearn for better. Gardeners and farmers know which shovel is best for their own height, strength and intentions.

Maybe ask for stories, from tool-using friends. Perhaps consider gifts of tools, but don't feel bad if the old one is still the favorite.

in another post, Karen Lundy's kitchen utensils, laid out nicely
photo by Karen James (and the container is her art and artistry)

Learning by looking

"When my son was little, we would go to the zoo and try to show him the animals—any animals. His attention was on the lights, grates and plumbing of the zoo! He observed these everywhere we went, no matter the place!" —Karen James

Little Things, where Karen left that comment in 2010
photo by Sandra Dodd

A clearer, brighter light

Sandra Dodd:
Principles that applied to the kids applied to the adults, too, and we all experienced and shared more patience and understanding.

Karen James:
The deeper we applied the principles of unschooling to our lives with our son, the more we saw each other in a clearer, brighter light.



Each quote above is slightly longer at this link,
Spouses / Partners, where Karen's is in the first comment.
photo by Gail Higgins

Everything special

"Looking through some old photos. I just really liked this one. Nothing special. Everything special."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames
photo by Doug James
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Live in the learning

"Child-led, 'wait til they ask'" isn't the way radical unschooling works. It's a way for unschooling to fail, if the parents are twiddling their thumbs waiting for the child to lead, or ask to learn something.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/marginal
photo by Karen James, of stained glass by Ethan James

Live a Learning Life

"Child-led, 'wait til they ask'" isn't the way radical unschooling works. It's a way for unschooling to fail, if the parents are twiddling their thumbs waiting for the child to lead, or ask to learn something.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/marginal
photo by Karen James, of stained glass by Ethan James

Questioning and learning

Pam Laricchia said:

I recall when I was beginning unschooling, my days were typically a mix of learning about how natural learning works and starting to question a lot of the conventional wisdom I’d absorbed growing up. There are many ways that preconceived ideas and prejudices can limit people’s thinking and get in the way of moving to unschooling...

—Pam Laricchia

Changes in Parents with Sandra Dodd
photo by Karen James, of her own art (process and progress)
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The nature of things

Things do what they can do. Some things we affect, and others we can't.

Rivers are flowing whether people are looking or not.

Children play, and ask questions, and examine new things, and ideas.

Children will learn whether people are looking or not, but for unschooling to work well, parents should be involved in providing an environment of safe, soft, interesting materials and experiences. They should be new and different sometimes and comfortingly familiar sometimes. Not the same all the time.

When relationships are comfortable and adults are attentive, learning will flow even when you're not looking.

In Full Flow
photo by Karen James

Time flows

Every ghost town used to be alive. Every "haunted house" was once new. An abandoned car started with good tires, a running engine, and a happy owner. Each adult was a child.

The flow of history
photo by Karen James

Happiness, excitement and enthusiasm

Joyce wrote: "You can learn a lot by letting go of what you think you're seeing and really look."


"Don't fear your children's happiness, excitement and enthusiasm. Your kids are already experts on learning. You knew it all once too. But it's gotten buried beneath layers of "expert" ideas on how and what kids need to learn *in school*. You can learn a lot by letting go of what you think you're seeing and really look."

—Joyce Fetteroll

The quote was a light in a darker discussion.
Read more by Joyce here: http://joyfullyrejoycing.com
photo by Karen James
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See the good; reflect it back

"Get to know your kids' strengths and set them up to succeed at using those strengths in all kinds of ways. Don't burden them with the perceived shortcomings you find. Let them navigate their own challenges while you focus on their potential. See the good in them and reflect it back. That seems to have been the best gift I've given my own son so far."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/partners/child.html
photo by Gail Higgins

Tiny sparks of imagination

Lyle Perry wrote:

Unschooling is like the tiny sparks of imagination that arc through a person's mind when they really watch a bird fly for the first time, and the huge lightning bolts of clarity when they realize how that miracle can actually happen, that make unschooling work.

I think one of the most difficult things for people to grasp about unschooling is the time factor that can be involved between connecting those tiny sparks to the huge lightning bolts. It may be days, months, or years between the time a person watches something happen and the time they understand why or how it happened. But the time factor doesn't make the event any less important, and in many cases it's the time factor that makes all the difference. A person understands when they are ready to understand. No time schedule can ever change that.

—Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/lyle/definition
photo by Karen James

Respect

Karen James:

Your kids will learn to respect you when they come to understand from experience what respect feels like to them.

Sandra Dodd:

It can't happen all at once, but without taking the first steps, and the next, it will never happen.

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Amber Ivey
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Playing with connections

I found something to share, but it seemed too long. While looking for a place to put it, I came upon a link to posts in this blog that are about play and playing.

These two images came up one after the other. They were posted seven years apart, but they're similar, and the posts they link to were called "Playing around" and "Play around." They're links here, and the quote follows.


Someone wrote in 2011:

I do worry about my boys playing computer all day.

I responded:

I have three kids who have played hundreds of games among and between them--Holly learned two new card games just this month that nobody else in the family knows, even her dad who has been a big games guy all his life. There is no game called "computer." I think you mean playing ON the computer. HUGE difference.

We have dozens of nice board games here, and table games (games involving cards or other pieces, to be laid out on a table as play proceeds), but those aren't referred to as kids playing board, or kids playing table.

The computer is not itself the game. There are games on the computer. There is information on the computer. It's not really a net. It's not really a web. It's millions of ideas, words, jokes, pictures, games, a ton of music and videos and.... But you know that, right?

Clarity can begin with being careful with the words you use. Thinking about what you write will help you think about what you think!

(The quote is from halfway down here.)
photos by Sandra Dodd and Karen James

Swirling

"The top itself was not what caught Ethan's attention. For me, it was. For Ethan, it was the swirly lines that were the treasure he happened upon and wanted to explore more."

—Karen James, 2017

Strewing in Action
photo by Holly Dodd, 2009

Who children are right now

Meredith Novak's words:

It was hard for me to realize I wasn't being kind or generous to my kids - I think of myself as a pretty kind person, in general, and I was certainly doing things I *thought* were generous... Part of the problem I had was that I wasn't thinking about Ray's interests and desires in the moment, I was thinking about the person he might become. I was being kind and generous to the adult I hoped he would grow into, doing things that were "good for him" so he could become that adult. Setting up life lessons for kids ignores who kids are as people in favor of theoretical adults - which isn't kind to who children are right now.

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/beginning
photo by Karen James