Make home sparkly

Jo Isaac wrote:

What do your kid LOVE to do in the home? Do more of it. Buy more of it. Make home as sparkly as you can. Buy fancy foods, buy take-away dinners from different cultures, make extravagant hot chocolates, put your Christmas decorations up early, plan a cool advent calendar event, plan to watch a bunch of cool movies, etc.

—Jo Isaac

Sparkly Unschooling is a good match,
but the original is here on facebook
photo by Kinsey Norris
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Mix life up

Can you get out of the house more? Go do different grocery stores? I've suggested this ten times over the years and some people perk up and get it immediately, and some think I'm a small-minded dope. People learn from stimulation. Seeing things they haven't seen before that are not entirely unlike what they have seen will help them build brain trails and patterns. If you go to the same grocery store and walk the aisles in the same order every time, the kids won't learn anything but that pattern. They won't learn the range of what stores have, how differently it can be arranged, and how to shop by looking at labels and looking at what's stored near that product, instead of just heading straight to where you KNOW the soup you always use is. How will they ever see exotic new soup? How will they ever see bulk pasta if you always get the same bag of noodles of the lowest shelf near the same old same old same old stuff?

That can go for going to the post office, to the movies, to buy shoes, all KINDS of things. Mix life up. Take a new trail.

That's from a 25-year-old discussion:
Conversations With Sandra Dodd: Welcome!
photo by Sandra Dodd

Surrounded by words

My children learned to read without being taught. If my children were the only children in the history of the world who learned without being taught, it would still be a fact that some children have learned to read without lessons—that a child can learn to read without lessons.

But my children are not the only ones. There are many. There were many even before schools existed, though it was harder without being surrounded by talking video games and movies with subtitles and printed boxes all over the kitchen, and signs on every street and building and shelf.


Always Learning post, Sandra Dodd, 2010
photo by Denaire Nixon

Time, change, learning

What advice do you have for families who are new to homeschooling?

Don't spend money at first. Read, meet other families, let your children have time to do what they're interested in, or what they weren't allowed to do before because of school.

If they want to read or play in the yard or ride bikes or watch movies or draw or paint or play games, make that possible for them.

While the children are recovering, the parents can learn about what they want to do and why, and how. There is more online about homeschooling than anyone could ever read. Find the writers and ideas that make sense to you, and pursue that. Don't rush into anything. Parents should learn to be calm and thoughtful instead of panicky and reactionary. It's better for health and decision-making, and it sets a good example for the children. Don't live in fear when you can live in joy.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/successful
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a fence my sister made
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Memory

I took this photo in 2014, on a beach on the east coast of Australia. A man walking his dog told me what caused those tiny sandballs that were here and there. I remembered, for a while, but I don't know now.

It was an interesting mystery at first, and now it is again! I would love to blame over-activity or aging for this, but it's just the way I am. My oldest said once that it must be great for me to be able to see movies again and still be surprised by the ending.

Some things I remember well, and some I don't. Some recipes I look up every time. Some spellings I double check. Names and faces elude me the first several times; it takes a while.

Be patient with yourself and others, about details. Discovering something the second time can be fun, too. Some people are aging, and over-active. Stress never helps. Be kind. Repeat yourself with a smile.

SandraDodd.com/memories
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Connections coming and going

Diana Jenner wrote (not "lately" anymore):

Football has been a big connector lately. Hayden loves claw machines and on our trip won (bought) a KC Chiefs window hangie thingamabobber. He thought we should send it to the "unschoolers who sing the Kansas City Song" (Ken & Amy Briggs). When we were at Burger King the other day, the kids' prizes were NFL related. He first found KC Chiefs and reiterated his connection to the team, which led to a talk of the Briggs' actually living in NY -- "NY has TWO teams!!" As he browsed the other teams, he happened upon Cleveland Browns -- "Oh! Now I get the joke on Family Guy!! Cleveland's last name is Brown, I thought it was because of his skin color, well it is! Both!" I didn't realize how many football jokes have been on that series, but Hayden knew of a few others and it is just now that they're connecting and beginning to make sense.

I never knew how multi-layered most movies and television shows are, until I lived the freedom of no censorship with my kids. I'm excited to watch Shrek again with Hayden... we've not seen it in over a year and I know his sense of humor has drastically changed, he's more aware of innuendo, it will most likely be a whole new movie for him. I will miss his *younger* perspective as much as I look forward to this *older* one.

—Diana Jenner

SandraDodd.com/dot/hayden

also consider SandraDodd.com/again, about watching things again

Hayden playing in a fountain,
photo by Gail Higgins, I think,
or maybe by Diana Jenner

Links and connections

Sarah Anderson-Thimmes wrote:

TV topics are a great conversation link between my kids and schooled kids. They can talk about favorite movies or shows or actors or musicians. These topics are much better than, "What grade are you in?"
. . . .

It connects us generationally. My kids can talk to their grandparents about shows they mutually like and they can watch them together. My grandparents don't go to the skating rinks and sledding hills and zoos with us, but they can watch Mary Poppins with my kids and laugh and bond together.

—Sarah Anderson-Thimmes

from a much longer list of Why I Love TV
at SandraDodd.com/t/learning

image is from The Simpsons,
and is in reference to a Leonardo da Vinci's
Vitruvian Man

Climbing mountains and baking pies

In response to someone saying her child would rather take the easy route than try something tough, Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

It's human nature to avoid what we feel is a waste of time, energy and resources.
It's also human nature to pour energy into what we find fascinating.

If someone is made to climb a mountain, they'll find the easiest path, and perhaps even cheat.

If someone desires to climb a mountain, they may even make it more difficult—challenging—for themselves if the route doesn't light their fire.

If it were human nature to go the easy route, I wouldn't be sitting here writing out a response! No one would write a novel. No one would climb Mt. Everest. No one would bake a cherry pie from scratch. No one would have kids.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/pressure
Photo by Sandra Dodd, of Holly Dodd riding a steam train restored and largely operated by volunteers. The easy route would have been for them to stay home and read books and watch movies about trains.
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Learning without Reading

I didn't know how much children could learn without reading, until I immersed myself in unschooling and my children's lives.

As their reading ability unfolded and grew, I learned things I never knew as a teacher, and that I wouldn't have learned as an unschooling mom had they happened to have read “early.” Reading isn't a prerequisite for learning. Maps can be read without knowing many words. Movies, music, museums and TV can fill a person with visions, knowledge, experiences and connections regardless of whether the person reads. Animals respond to people the same way whether the person can read or not. People can draw and paint whether they can read or not. Non-readers can recite poetry, act in plays, learn lyrics, rhyme, play with words, and talk about any topic in the world at length.

The second paragraph above is on the page
"Unforeseen Benefits of Unschooling," SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Holly Dodd
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A learning world

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Unschooling is not leaving kids to their own devices until they show an interest in learning a given subject.

Unschoolers do not expect interests to arise out of nothing.

As an unschooling parent I offer ideas, information, activities, starting points, and material to my children as opportune moments arise, not out of nothing, but out of the experiences that are created by mindful living in the world—walking in the woods, visiting museums, watching movies, reading books, going to the theater, swimming in the ocean. Every moment in life offers opportunities for learning and investigation.

. . . .
Unschooling families live in a learning world—no division of life into school time and not-school time.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/learningworld
photo by Karen James

Contentment and happiness

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

While unschooling parents should keep the environment lively, bringing in new things to leave about—see Sandra's Strewing page—new or old favorites of yours TV shows and movies, taking them places—a new playground, a new grocery store, an historical re-enactment, a polo match—the indicator of how well you're doing should be your kids peace, contentment and happiness."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/introvert
photo by Sandra Dodd, in Schuyler's back garden
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Learning from Cartoons

Each family discovers the value of choices in unique and wonderful ways. Well, not every family–only those who actually do start giving their children choices, and in which the adults work to see the choices they are making as well.

One surprise is that programs the parents had thought were "stupid" have led to discussion and research on the autobahn, the metric system, classic movies, technology, international sports, geography, segregation, famous speeches, sportsmanship and ethics, live theatre, opera, oil and mining, hygiene, reproduction, Australian food, life cycle of frogs, hurricane formation, trust, cooperation, classical music, Vikings, religion, art, how different animals survive the winter, Galileo, Japanese mythology, cooking, geology… this list could be twice as long without leaving that section of my website.

One trail went from a mummy cartoon to Egypt, to Pharaohs, to slavery, to the Civil War, to Abraham Lincoln, and to other presidents. The Simpsons' parody of Schoolhouse Rock led to a discussion on Thoreau and Walden.

text from page 141 (or 153) of The Big Book of Unschooling
and that page links to SandraDodd.com/t/cheesy and SandraDodd.com/t/learning
cartoon portrait by Gina Trujillo, my niece, based on this self-made photo

As kids deschool...

Kids who haven't been to school are different, but here is
Joyce Fetteroll's advice for helping kids deschool when needed:

The best thing you can do while they're deschooling is let them play. And help them play. Make play dates. Make sure they have things they enjoy playing with. *Be* with them. Find out why they enjoy something so much. When they feel free—rule of thumb is one month for each year they've been in school, starting from the time when you last pressured them to learn something—be more active about running things through their lives: movies, TV shows, books, places to go: ethnic restaurants, museums, monster truck pulls, walks in the woods, funky stores ....

Look for the delight in life and it will infect your kids. 😊 As long as it's *honest* interest and delight! If it's fake interest to get them to pay attention to something you think would be good for them, they're going to notice and avoid it. It's the tactic they've been awash in since kindergarten: "Learning is Fun!"

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/deschooling
photo by Cátia Maciel

Generalizations and exceptions

How easy would it be to define dogs as four-legged animals?

Yet there are three-legged dogs. Many. Some people have never seen them. I knew one personally, and have seen three others closely.

My children learned to read without being taught.

If my children were the only children in the history of the world who learned without being taught, it would still be a fact that some children have learned to read without lessons—that a child can learn to read without lessons.

But my children are not the only ones. There are many. There were many even before schools existed, though it was harder without being surrounded by talking video games and movies with subtitles and printed boxes all over the kitchen, and signs on every street and building and shelf.


(The quote is from this topic, about 4/5 of the way down.)
photo by Sara McGrath

Looking and learning

Amy Carpenter wrote:

For us, right where our kids were—loving music and TV and video games—was a great starting place for more. Going to concerts, finding out how different bands have influenced each other, figuring out how people have made the movies they've posted on YouTube, researching FAQs, talking with other gamers, looking up weapons that are used in the video games, playing the music we've heard in video games, pretending and finding new connections through our pretend games, talking through the logic of different strategies, looking up actors on IMDB—all of this keeps leading to more and more learning about how the world works, about how the creative process works.

—Amy Carpenter

SandraDodd.com/activeunschooling
photo by Rhiannon Theurer
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First aid for scary, sad days of doubt

I wrote this on March 10, 2000:

Sometimes it's kids, sometimes it's parents.

Let's list ideas for cheering up, and de-funkifying.

I love "breathe."
Whether it's jogging or breath-holding, or laughing, or spinning or meditation—whatever causes a sudden more concentrated and less thought-laden intake of oxygen is relaxing.

I like happy music or funny, familiar movies—the stuff you already know and can put on as background, which reminds you subliminally of more peaceful and carefree days.

I like comfort food, playing with ice cubes, going to the store just to buy something cold (lettuce, apples, ice cream, a small soda for all to share, special juice or fancy tea in a bottle—something cold and soothing, and no doubt this works better in the desert than it might in Minnesota this morning).

Painting—not fancy elaborate painting, but big brush strokes on big scrap paper, or a sign for the dog, or painting on a playhouse outside or something that doesn't involve stress (if it's quickly available).

Mix it up: Wear something you haven't worn for a long time. To assist a kid to do this, get out the off-season clothes and see what's not fitting, or find some funky old thing of yours and see if the kid wants it, or stop at a garage sale and get a t-shirt for a quarter or something. A new color, a new picture, some soft cotton or silk. Marty got a silk shirt at a thrift store the other day for $3. He's thrilled. Wears it like a jacket over t-shirts. Touches the sleeves a lot.

While this stuff is being done/discussed/reviewed, the depressing problem is being dispersed, forgotten, avoided. Next time the depression comes (if it does, if it's a long-term thing) the kid or parent will approach it with a more relaxed mind and calmer body.

More ideas??
. . . .
What works at your house?

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Read responses with other ideas here: Conversations with Sandra Dodd


photo by Alex Polikowsky

Osmosis and television shows

A cranky person wrote to me:

I do unschool but I obviously do not subscribe to your radical view of unschooling where children are expected to learn by osmosis and television shows.

To the Always Learning discussion list I wrote:

When the environment is rich, children learn by osmosis, if the membrane through which ideas pass is their perception of the world. What they see, hear, smell, taste, touch and think becomes a part of their experience, and they learn. And they learn from television shows, movies, paintings, books, plants, toys, games, movement, sports, dancing, singing, hearing music, drawing, sleeping.... as if by osmosis, they live and they learn.

SandraDodd.com/tv
photo by Sandra Dodd of a tractor covered in lights
Albuquerque Bio-Park's "River of Lights," 2011

Fantasy gifts

From an article about coming-out parties for unschoolers:

What if you could give magical gifts? How about the ability to change bodies long enough to see the world as your children see it? Perhaps just a few doses of magic to make time stand still, just a little while. More time and space? Unlimited patience! Friendly neighbors. A perepetually well-running van in the mom's favorite color. Intuitive knowledge of child development would be a good gift for homeschoolers and all their friends, neighbors and relatives. If you figure out how to produce such gifts, please remember me after your friends have all they need.



Unschoolers' Coming-Out Parties: Wishlists for Unschoolers
photo by Bea Mantovani
The link above has lots of actual practical non-fantasy ideas, but it was written in 1999. If you read it, keep in mind an iPad, a Nexus tablet, or a Kindle. At the end of the 20th century, that would have been as far-fetched a fantasy as the list above, but many families own at least one—and they have music, logic puzzles, games, humor, books, movies and more!

So I will add one more link for today: Abundance

Learning with and from kids

from a set of questions going around in 2009:

Question:

What ways have you found to continue your own learning? What kinds of things have you gotten interested in since having kids?

Sandra Dodd's response:

My kids have introduced me to music, movies, games and humor I wouldn't have known otherwise. It's been wonderful. Kirby moved nearly two years ago, but he still sends me recommendations for things to see and hear. I've met lots of unschoolers and their children, and corresponded with 20 times as many; from them I've learned more and more about unschooling.

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Janine Davies
(or a camera in a theatre lobby)

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I tagged it "costumes, but it was a board with cutouts for them to stick their faces in, so... not sure how to tag it. I first learned about the musical "Cats" from Roxana Sorooshian, and then Holly Dodd, different aspects.

A Playful Attitude

Some people think of play as frolicking, or as make-believe, but it can be a pervasive mood and include the way people bring groceries in, and watch movies, and sort laundry and sing in the shower.

A light and playful attitude changes everything.


Mindful Parenting
photo by Sandra Dodd