Chaotic, random, effortless

"School is to unschooling as foreign language class is to learning to talk. The first is orderly, thorough, hard and hardly works. The second is chaotic, random, effortless and works like a charm."

—Joyce Fetteroll
July 2018

SandraDodd.com/definitions
photo by Rosie Moon

Awareness of options

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Lots of people go through their whole lives never feeling like they had choices in many many areas of their lives in which they really did. Just like it is useful for unschoolers to drop school language (not use the terms teaching or lessons or curriculum to refer to the natural learning that happens in their families) it is useful to drop the use of "have to's" and replace it with an awareness of choices and options.

How we think—the language we use to think—about what we're doing, matters.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/haveto
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Clear language, clear thoughts

Rhetoric and terminology can masquerade as thought or as progress. There are a few terms (and a very, very few) that have been used for many years in unschooling discussions, and they don't seem to have been harmful, nor to have had simple equivalents:‬ ‪SandraDodd.com/terminology

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SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Denaire Nixon

Chaotic, random, effortless

"School is to unschooling as foreign language class is to learning to talk. The first is orderly, thorough, hard and hardly works. The second is chaotic, random, effortless and works like a charm."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/definitions
photo by Julie D

The Museum of Everything

When you're talking to young children who are figuring out their new language and their new world, avoid saying "always" or "never." Instead of making rules for him or dire predictions, explain your concerns and thoughts.  Give him some "why" to go with his "what" and "where" and "when." Even give him some "why" to go with his "who." Don't forget that he won't know what "aunt" and "cousin" mean. He won't automatically figure out "neighbor" or "co-worker."

You're like a docent in The Museum of Everything.


The quote is from page 63 (or 68) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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All-slightly-better Everything

Someone wrote that learning about unschooling felt like learning a new language.

I responded

It's like learning a new everything, but an all-slightly-better everything.

SandraDodd.com/beginning
photo by Renee Cabatic

Don't be schooly or schoolish.

Paul McCartney was doing okay musically without knowing musical notation.

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I would hate to even start to imagine how many potential musicians just turned away from the idea of singing or playing instruments because they were pressed to learn music theory and notation at a young age.

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They can just learn. That’s what unschooling is about.

Take away the school, the school language and practices and expectations.

And all that’s left is the learning.

Don’t be schooly or schoolish.

Be UN schoolish.

Chat with Sandra Dodd on Mommy Chats, 4/25/07
photo by Marty Dodd, of a jack-o-lantern he started, and let squirrels finish

So logically...

Deb Lewis wrote:

Does TV create violence, really? Maybe guns create violence. Knives. Baseball bats. Hammers. Axes, shovels, saws? Rope? Dynamite? Sharp sticks, rocks? Maybe it's language causes violence because most killers spoke. Maybe it's books. Clothing? Day time night time wind rain snow trees birds frogs.



For lots of kids, even the bad guys on TV are nicer than the real life crazy people they live and go to school with.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/t/violence
photo by Tara Joe Farrell
The page also has this quote:

"There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?"

—Dick Cavett

On changing

A mom named Sara P. wrote:

This is still an ongoing process for me. I had to re-train myself in a lot of ways. I had to learn a new language. I had to learn to SEE again. I had to learn how to communicate. I had to learn patience. I had to learn how to put others first. .....WOW! Sometimes an old thought will creep in. Sometimes I find myself answering a question in *teacher tone*...but it is so few and far between, and I am so quick to catch it that nobody ever notices except me!

—Sara P

SandraDodd.com/change/stories
photo by Marin Holmes

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

Compassion for passions

Kelly Lovejoy, on the thoughts that help parents to deschool:

What are your passions? HOW did you learn to do those things? In a classroom?

Two of my passions as a child were dogs and horses. Dogs and horses are NOT taught in any grade, middle, or high school *I* know of. But I wanted to learn everything I could about them. My parents gave me dogs and horses. They bought me books and paid for me to take riding lessons and dog obedience classes. They paid for dog and horse shows and equipment. My passion threw me into reading every book I could find (there were no videos back then—nor "Animal Planet").

By twelve I could identify every breed of dog and horse that I had ever seen or read about and tell you how it was developed, where, why, and by whom. I spent every weekend and every afternoon at a dog show/horse show/event/trial or just hanging around the stable or kennel. I asked thousands of questions and "got my hands dirty." Many of my friends were adults with the same passions. Training, breeding, grooming, showing, husbandry—all of these things I learned because I was consumed by them!

But, of course, dogs and horses are NOT school subjects—and are completely unimportant in the school world. What if I had waited for a teacher to come along and say, "Today we are learning all about dog and horses"? Not only would I have waited all my life, the teacher would only have given me a "taste" of the subject!

OH! And you *can't* make a living with dogs and horses—right?

Stage one is often referred to as DEschooling. It's the period of time we need to give ourselves in order to "step away from the box" of school and school-think. Ask yourself why and how you learned your passion: whether it was music, cooking, flying, gardening, or long-distance running. Or even more "academic-like" passions, like Shakespeare, chemistry, World War II, or a foreign language. When you are comfortable with how learning happens by indulging in passions and making connections in your learning, you are quickly heading towards stage two.

—Kelly Lovejoy

from "Stages of Unschooling"
SandraDodd.com/kellylovejoy/stages
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Lovable and respectable

(Warning people away from "unconditional love," I wrote:)

Probably the idea started, in the 1950’s, with Carl Rogers’ phrase "unconditional positive regard."

If you’re a big fan of "unconditional love," consider backing it back to "unconditional positive regard" to help clarify and ground you for the real world.

Unconditional Positive Regard (at wikipedia)

Also, try to respect your male partner if you have one. He’s probably doing some good for you even if it seems like he’s not giving you unconditional love. And the difference between "love" and "respect" is about language anyway. Try to be lovable AND respectable, whether or not you have a partner or an audience, because it makes you a better person. Try to be trustworthy and dependable.

Being a better person will make you a better parent.

“Deserve” is a problem.

The SandraDodd.com/deserve link followed that, but the quote is from a longer post, "Love and Respect," in the archives
photo by Janine Davies

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Note to clarify, years later: I think that in a long-established relationship with any other adult, raising children, that love and respect are intertwined. Biochemically, in more youthful people who are "in love," that has a reality beyond and apart from respect. In the context of the topic from which that was taken, it's clearer.

The Wikipedia article has been amended, in the past few years, to credit Stanley Standal with the concept, and the phrase "positive regard" (for therapists).

Learning social skills

Jihong Tang wrote (as part of a longer list):

Socialization and social skills. I think it should be one of the top reasons to homeschool. I see with my own eyes how my children develop their social skills by watching how I talk on the phone, interact with people and explain to them what to expect and how to behave under different circumstances. It has been a subtle and slow process until one day I noticed they used the same language I used and mimicked how I conducted myself at special occasions. I would say having an adult modeling in the real world makes a big difference.

—Jihong Tang

SandraDodd.com/whyunschool
photo by Cátia Maciel

Many things

Few things are just one thing. Most things are many things.

Karen James is doing ceramics these days, and so her bowls are a hobby, a collection, a puzzle to fit safely into the cabinet, or efficiently into the dishwasher. They are also dishes, and bowls.

Thinking about what things are is philosophy, and language, and a puzzle.

Liking your dishes is good for your mental health. Liking hobbies, collections and puzzles will make life better.

SandraDodd.com/dishes
photo by Karen James

Lively ideas; living language

Without becoming too critical or cynical, maybe consider, with your children sometimes, changes in knowledge (the platypus, Mars, Pluto, leeches, volcanic activity and virgin sacrifice compared to global warming's medicine men; anything smaller than an atom?), or geography ("Four Corners" has been in the wrong place all these years; the U.S.S.R. is still on maps in some public places) or spellings ("plough" or "plow"? wooly or woolly?).

Play lightly with these ideas. There's no advantage to getting huffy or angry about it. Just see it as the reality it is. People learn. People change their minds. Knowledge grows. Evidence is reclassified. Language is alive. People who are alive are changing and learning. You can resist that or you can ride it with gusto.

Fact/Fallacy/Opinion
photo by Sarah S.

Mindset and language

A reader named Eleanor wrote:

I was very grateful to discover your writings on ‘struggle’ and the compilation on your website relating to ‘struggle‘ a few years ago.

I still read it regularly and get so much more from it with each read. It sparked a change in mindset and language which improved our unschooling lives massively.

Lax and relax
photo by Sandra Dodd

Everyday patterns

Meredith Novak wrote:

Kids learn because they are observant. I don't only mean modelling, I mean the human brain is designed to notice patterns and there are patterns everywhere - in speech, in social interactions, in shapes of things, in the relationships between physical characteristics. Some sets of related patterns we call "language" some we call "mathematics" some we call "music" etc. Kids can't help but notice those patterns and think about them because that's what our big convoluted brains do best.

More, by Meredith

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SandraDodd.com/patterns
photo by Hema Bharadwaj

Language and thoughts

Watch your language, because then you wlll see thought processes you might not have seen otherwise.

Watch your thoughts, because without doing that you can't really learn to choose better reactions.

Sandra, in a discussion, 2007
photo by Brie Jontry

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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More than one thing

I always like the idea that most things are many things. Language is both too big and too small, sometimes.

If a chart is made of food or food can by played with; if a house is a home and a brownstone and a townhouse; if music is noise, and a pet is a dog and a stray and a mutt, it's even more impressive that kids can learn English (or whatever native language they find themselves born or brought into).

A sweet shortcut to more peace at your house is to allow things, and people, to have many facets and designations. I'm a mom, a wife, a sister, a writer, a mender, a joker, and sometimes I sing. Not so long ago, I became a grandmother. I maintain a webpage, and this blog. You, too, and each person you know, is more than one thing. Let your imagination and calmness extend that to chairs, tables, and blankets.

This post might be soothing or irritating, helpful or long. Same with lunch, or the next story someone tells me.

Find ways to be happy through all those words and thoughts.

Peace
photo by Cátia Maciel
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