Ever-changing opportunities

Each little experience, every idea, is helping your child build his internal model of the universe. He will not have the government-recommended blueprint for the internal model of the universe, which can look surprisingly like a school, and a political science class, a small flat map of the huge spherical world, a job with increasing vacations leading to retirement, and not a lot more.

Unschooled children can organize their knowledge in free and better ways. They never need to feel they are through learning, or past the point that they can begin something new. Each thing they discover can be useful eventually. If we help provide them with ever-changing opportunities to see, hear, smell, taste, feel, move and discuss, what they know will exceed in breadth and depth what any school's curriculum would have covered. It won't be the same set of materials—it will be clearer and larger but different.
Seeing It
photo by Catherine Hassall
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Snakes and wild berries

When a science-minded kid loves to take the dog down by the river and look for wild berries and snakes, some parents say, "My kid just wants to play. He's not interested in learning. He'll never learn science just playing."

Each little experience, every idea, is helping your child build his internal model of the universe. He will not have the government-recommended blueprint for the internal model of the universe, which can look surprisingly like a school, and a political science class, a small flat map of the huge spherical world, a job with increasing vacations leading to retirement, and not a lot more.

SandraDodd.com/seeingit
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Distant visions

I love being able to see, and to share, pictures of things I have seen, or have NOT seen, in this blog. Jen Keefe's family went to New York City, and the technology of the day allowed her to share some of the things she saw. Her generosity lets me pass it on.

When I was a kid, our teachers encouraged us to have pen pals in other places. The purpose was to broaden our knowledge of foreign states and countries, but there weren't photos involved, and certainly not videos with sound! Messages weren't quickly exchanged.

Being able to see and hear other people, places, accents, languages, birds, animals, trees, foods... appreciate this as the recent miracle it is! Our worlds have expanded, even from inside our houses.

Your Own Model of the Universe

photo by Jen Keefe

Perspective and patterns

The patterns you and your children see are worth exploring and expanding. The connections you make are your model of the moment, and ultimately part of your model of the universe—past, present, future, imagined, revised, spooky and sweet.

SandraDodd.com/perspective
photo by Annie Regan

Natural residents of Earth

So how do unschoolers learn geography? Better than I did in school. They learn it with flexibility and a lack of awareness of having "learned geography." They learn it from games, movies, satellite photographs, globes, the history of ships and airplanes, of cloth and houses, of the Okinawan karate and of Roman bathhouses. Their model of the universe is better than mine was when I was their age. Their confidence is better than mine is now! They are learning about THEIR planet. I felt like an unwelcome guest here, when I was "just a kid." They feel like natural residents of Earth, and they do know their neighborhood.

SandraDodd.com/geography
photo by Olga Degtyareva, while visiting Stone Town

Naming things

Seeing new things and learning their names is the way babies and toddlers learn their native languages and how they learn about the world. It works for people of any age.

Each model of the universe requires identification, sorting, relationships between things, and other patterns. Whatever seems trivial in one context is of central importance in another.

Names and words and labels and descriptors have a glory about them.

Naming Things elsewhere here
photo by Denaire Nixon, of a young red-footed booby

Get the world swirling

If you want unschooling to work just because you stick the curriculum under the couch, it won't! Get the world swirling around you (first) and your children (second) so there are sounds, sights, smells, tastes and textures for them to process and build their internal model of the universe from. GET MOVING, mentally and physically.

SandraDodd.com/addlightandstir (from 2002; pretty old)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Swirly world

If you want unschooling to work just because you stick the curriculum under the couch, it won't! Get the world swirling around you (first) and your children (second) so there are sounds, sights, smells, tastes and textures for them to process and build their internal model of the universe from. GET MOVING, mentally and physically.

SandraDodd.com/addlightandstir
photo by Sandra Dodd

Wheelbarrows

History, science, gardening, tradition, the physics of simple machines, color, art, children's games, materials, geography...

No matter what topic you choose, what collectable objects you favor or trivia that appeals to you, following that interest will lead you to many "facts" and "truths." Trivia perhaps, but enough trivia will create a detailed model of the universe.

Wheelbarrow things
photo by Sandra Dodd

Trivia

A huge amount of learning is taking place, and the child's internal model of the universe is starting to form up. You can help!

SandraDodd.com/trivia, in a quote that links to SandraDodd.com/piaget
photo by Colleen Prieto

A better emotional neighborhood

Good people make better parents. Better parents make better unschoolers. If some of your transitional energy is spent being a better person, your child's working model of the universe, which only he or she can build, will have a better foundation. It will be built in a better neighborhood, with cleaner air and purer water.

Right and good
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Whole individual learning

Whole individual learning is the ONLY way anyone can learn. Each child builds his own internal model of the universe. School tries to insert one but it can't. It just can't be done.

SandraDodd.com/research
photo by Marin Holmes

A better emotional neighborhood

Good people make better parents. Better parents make better unschoolers. If some of your transitional energy is spent being a better person, your child's working model of the universe, which only he or she can build, will have a better foundation. It will be built in a better neighborhood, with cleaner air and purer water.

SandraDodd.com/issues
photo by Sandra Dodd

Enough trivia

Enough trivia will create a detailed model of the universe.

Joy said "That is a poem," about the text above, when it appeared here. I decided to create a new page for this poem to link to.
SandraDodd.com/trivia
photo by Sandra Dodd

Enough trivia?

Enough trivia will create a detailed model of the universe.


SandraDodd.com/trivia
photo by Trista Teeter (click it)