A smile instead of a frown

"Love that sunset. Want to tell you that magnet sits on the door of my fridge and the words have allowed me to move forward so many times when I would have been stuck in a negative place. Sometimes just knowing you can give a smile instead of a frown is all it takes."

—Davina

SandraDodd.com/magnets
Photoshop by Holly Dodd
Photo and quote by Sandra Dodd
(The magnets are business-card sized, not as big as the image here.)

That photo with more sky, no words: Waking up Happy"Love that sunset. Want to tell you that magnet sits on the door of my fridge and the words have allowed me to move forward so many times when I would have been stuck in a negative place. Sometimes just knowing you can give a smile instead of a frown is all it takes."

—Davina

SandraDodd.com/magnets
Photoshop by Holly Dodd
Photo and quote by Sandra Dodd
(The magnets are business-card sized, not as big as the image here.)

That photo with more sky, no words: Waking up Happy

Ideas and trivia

Learning isn't in fancy books or computer games, it all happens in the ideas children have, in the trivial facts they fit together to come up with their view of the world—past present and future. You don't need a lesson or a unit to show a child what's wonderful about woodgrain, ice crystals on the windshield, or birdsongs. Five seconds worth of pointing and saying "Look, these trees were not native to North America" might possibly lead to an hour long discussion, or a lifelong fascination. Bringing something interesting home, browsing in an antique shop, listening to new music on instruments you've never heard—all those build neural pathways and give you a chance to be together in a special place.

Quote from the 1998 article "All Kinds of Homeschooling"
photo by Holly Dodd
of art by Holly Dodd
which happened to catch a rainbow

Learning at home, and in other special places

Learning isn't in fancy books or computer games, it all happens in the ideas children have, in the trivial facts they fit together to come up with their view of the world—past present and future. You don't need a lesson or a unit to show a child what's wonderful about woodgrain, ice crystals on the windshield, or birdsongs. Five seconds worth of pointing and saying "Look, these trees were not native to North America" might possibly lead to an hour long discussion, or a lifelong fascination. Bringing something interesting home, browsing in an antique shop, listening to new music on instruments you've never heard—all those build neural pathways and give you a chance to be together in a special place.

Quote from the 1998 article "All Kinds of Homeschooling"
photo by Holly Dodd
of line art by Holly Dodd
which happened to catch a rainbow

Passing real tests

Sandra Dodd, of Holly Dodd (Holly was 12 and told an older story, in 2003):

My husband's oldest brother came to visit and she and Marty discussed how to deal with his quizzy questions, usually math. She told me a story from when she was littler, maybe eight. Uncle Gerry had been here, and Holly was brushing her teeth. He stood watching her, and started in about how important it is to brush teeth and floss, because (as Holly reported, he said in a teacherly voice) "Do you know how many sets of teeth you have in this lifetime?"

Holly said, "Two?" (in a kind of "is this a trick question" tone) and she said he was already holding up his index finger as the "one" of the coming "right answer," and he added another finger and sheepishly said, "That's right. Two."

So Holly won a big point and never even told us about it at the time. Cool story. I don't think he quizzed them this time. It's getting to the point that they're likely to know something he doesn't know and he likes to maintain his semblance of superiority. LOL!

original (2/3 down that topic)

Update in 2021, Holly 29 years old, and Gerry having recently been in town when Holly was here, too. Holly was very helpful to her uncle, driving him to an auto parts store and helping him figure out what his plan might be to get back to Alamogordo, if his car couldn't be fixed easily. She's nearly 30 now, and he's in his mid-70s. After she left, he went on for a while about how helpful and good-hearted and wonderful she is. I appreciated hearing it, and passed it on to her later.

---

SandraDodd.com/betteranswers
photo by Irene Adams (Holly's aunt; my sister)

Holly was seven in this photo, with more of her first set of teeth, casually preparing for Uncle Gerry's quiz-to-come the next year.

Learn by playing

Children learn by playing. Parents can learn about unschooling by playing.

Parents can learn about their children by playing, too. Don't try to control the play. Be the guest in your child's play sometimes. If you've forgotten how to play or he doesn't want you to play, just watch, then. See if you can help by providing more of whatever he might need: space, materials, a surface, boxes or bags or tools or a photo of what he's done so he won't feel so bad about taking it apart, maybe. Maybe he needs a light to keep playing outside at night, or maybe a darkened room in the house to play with something that glows.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd of flower fairies by a younger Holly Dodd

Beams of light

My daughter worked on a farm for a few years. Now she is working for the county, helping people learn to farm and to produce food for community uses. The program's students visit working farms, as part of what they do, so they can see what works well in this area, and ask questions. They help out, while they're there.

When Holly sent this photo, she called it "God's Tractor." I suppose it was on one of the farms they visited. Sunbeams. "Beam" is an interesting word—"light beams." Wood beams—those are just heavy, solid things. The wood doesn't beam down on us; that would be dangerous. Both uses of "beam" are very old, though.

The "beam" terms used by gymnasts and by aviators are newer. Holly's paternal grandfather was a Navy pilot in the Pacific during WWII, doing reconnaissance flights. He was a flight instructor, but he told us that unofficially, in Hawaii they used a local radio station to return to base, rather than the prescribed military method. That's one meaning of "on the beam"—to follow a beaming radio signal toward its source.

Seeing sunbeams shining right down on something could easily be part of the reason for sun-based religions. Coronas and halos are sometimes shown as beams of light, in religious art and in kids' imaginations and drawings.

It's good, when a photo of a tractor in New Mexico can lead to the history of England, and of English; to ancient Egyptian religion (and Mexico's and Peru's...); to medieval and Renaissance art in Europe; to Hawaii, and to women's gymnastics all over the world.

I googled a question. Here:
Are light sabers beams of light?
photo by Holly Dodd

Fifteenth Anniversary!

Images and parts of the text are links.

First post, with some nice comments, from 2010:

This would need more candles now, but...



May the richness and riches of this trove of words and photos seep into your soul and give you sweet dreams and good ideas.

---

With this, there are 5,343 posts. A few were deleted in the past for lacking longevity (announcements, temporary info). Some have been repeated for being especially good. They are labelled four ways, to keep it from being one big label/tag, so if you would like to see some "greatest hits," these are clickable, and are called

again (72 of those)

again! (147)

re-run (151)

repeat (136)

For today, then, if those are excluded, there are 4,837 non-repeated posts. Still around 5,000.

Most posts link to an unschooling page or two on my website. Most of those pages link back to this blog (from a little link in the upper right corner).

If you would like to help fund the maintenance of that site (from which most of the quotes come), there is a donation link at SandraDodd.com (which can also be accessed from this image on most of the unschooling pages:


The donation link is halfway down there. It's PayPal, debit or credit.

I can accept checks or Christmas cards to:

Sandra Dodd
8116 Princess Jeanne NE
Albuquerque NM 87110     USA

(If cool foreign money, save it there; consider photo request below!)

Also useful would be photos for the collection from which I try to pull a match for a text. Not all get used and some get used very late, but it's nice to have a variety. Send just a few you love, so I'm not overwhelmed, and tell me how to credit you (full name or truncated how). Those can go by messenger or by e-mail to Sandra@SandraDodd.com (and larger files are fine).

SandraDodd.com
tree art by Bo King
cake photo by Sandra Dodd
photos by many different people at the repeat/again links

P.S. I want the website to last a long time, so if I'm not able to collect funding assistance someday, maybe find Holly Dodd or Vlad Gurdiga and see if they need financial help keeping it going. It's a bit less than $20 a month these days; might go up as things might do. Thanks.

Rainbows on cookies

I'm singing in my head, "Rainbows on cookies, and whiskers on kittens..." Not a good combination, perhaps, as sanitation goes, but I wanted to mention combinations.

People can be single-minded and see the world in a granulated form, as individual, unrelated things, but that limits learning. Sometimes two things meet unexpectedly, and happily, and new thoughts arise. Look for those connections and welcome them!

---

If you want to sing along with "Rainbows on cookies," here is a link to an interestingly illustrated version of the song, sung by Julie Andrews (with the original words).

Photo by Holly Dodd
Cookies by Sandra Dodd
Rainbow by a combination of the sun and a crystal in the kitchen window

Gentle moments

"Gentle moments call for a calm mind."

—Holly Dodd

Gentle, patient and generous
photo by Holly Dodd

Right here, again

Holly Dodd wrote a warm memory:

I am seven years old. I am sitting comfortably with a convenient, safe place to rest my face. Safe. On my father's lap . . . Knowing it is not only ok, but expected of me, to fall asleep. Right here where I already am. My dad will tuck me in when he is done holding me, and it will hardly be my business.

I left out the middle. There is more at: Sleep-related memories
photo by Holly Dodd

Doing Nothing, and finding balance

Halfway between the past we can't change and the future we can only imagine, we find ourselves in the present. Not just the present year, but the present day; not just the present day, but the present moment.

From Balancing in the Middle Ground:

[Some families] had stopped doing school, and then stopped making their kids do anything, and now their kids were doing NOTHING.

Aside from the idea of the rich potential of their "nothing," the parents had gone from making their kids do everything, to "making them do nothing." And interestingly, it did make them "do nothing," at first. Or at least the parents couldn't see the new things they were doing.

Rather than moving from one edge of a dichotomy to the other, the goal is to move to a whole new previously unknown middle place.

Holly Dodd, and the false sea onion

photo by Holly Dodd in 2009
original post, 2010

Right here

Holly Dodd wrote a warm memory:

I am seven years old. I am sitting comfortably with a convenient, safe place to rest my face. Safe. On my father's lap . . . Knowing it is not only ok, but expected of me, to fall asleep. Right here where I already am. My dad will tuck me in when he is done holding me, and it will hardly be my business.

SandraDodd.com/sleep/memories
photo by Holly Dodd

Holly is 25

November 2 is Holly's birthday, and in 2016 she's turning 25.
Holly grew up with two older also-unschooled brothers.
Thank you, all who have befriended
and been kind to Holly.

SandraDodd.com/holly
photo by Holly Dodd herself

Helping grown kids

Holly gets her firewood from our house. Her dad splits wood for fun and for exercise. He enjoys organizing his woodpile as a hobby. In addition to the split wood, she takes kindling, and I make "waxy wood" a time or two a year, by splitting short sections of straight cedar and dipping each stick in melted wax.

If Holly got cold, she could come to our house, or I would lend her blankets, or make corn bags for her to heat up in her microwave. We would pay her gas bill if she needed that sort of help. But for now, we share our fireplace know-how and the by-products of Keith's wood-processing hobby.

Share what you can share. Do what you can do.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Holly Dodd

Trust

Joanne Murphy wrote:

Just yesterday a friend and I were discussing what we thought of as a distilling 'factor' that must be present for unschooling/mindful parenting to be successful. The factor that came up was TRUST.

With trust, the world opens up, horizons expand and life can seem exciting and limitless. Without trust, the world shuts down, gets narrow and petty. Each moment matters in the wrong way. I want more expansiveness in my life, not less."

—Joanna Murphy

SandraDodd.com/trust
photo by Holly Dodd

Stir up some peace

Sandra Dodd (in 2017—general discussion, not unschooling):

There is a natural need in people to know the "us" and the "them." Those who want an inclusive, multicultural, liberal, accepting life will still have a "them." It's easy to revile "the enemy." It might be impossible NOT to have the idea of "other." But creating a "culture" or nation that is created of a combination of others won't save any individual from their own instincts.

Deb Lewis wrote (in the midst of other things):

You can't clean up a pile of shit by shitting on it.

Sandra Dodd, to that:

The people who are cleaning up can feel hatred for those who keep shitting on it (whatever the "it" is they're cleaning up).. . . . Hating those other people makes you hateful.

There isn't a final solution, but there are things to make it (the big pile of shit) worse, and ways to make our own moment in time better. Enough good moments might make a good day. Don't collect shit unless you want a shitty day.

Back to nowadays...
I know it's not the most uplifting quote, but a reminder that negativity is negative might help parents of children who are still at home to be positively sweet and present. Stir up some peace.

SandraDodd.com/antagonism
photo by Holly Dodd

Whole and in the real world

If they're whole people from the beginning, a lot of those problems and stages don't even exist. They're artificial, and they have to do with school.

Sometimes people say, "Well how will your kids know how to live in the real world?"

And I say "What do you mean by 'the real world'?"
And that's a trap.🙂

17:30 on the recording of An Interview with Sandra Dodd
photo by Holly Dodd

Changing gears

Deschooling is like changing gears. Go slowly. Go deliberately. SandraDodd.com/gradualchange Don't goof around. Don't stall. SandraDodd.com/doit How can both be true? The clutch and the gas.

---

photo by Sandra Dodd, of
coloring by Holly Dodd, years ago, and
light switch plate by Sandra, years ago

Shifting gears

Deschooling is like changing gears. Go slowly. Go deliberately. SandraDodd.com/gradualchange Don't goof around. Don't stall. SandraDodd.com/doit How can both be true? The clutch and the gas.

---

photo by Sandra Dodd, of
coloring by Holly Dodd, years ago, and
light switch plate by Sandra, years ago

Doozy Dodd

This is what unschooling, though, has done for Holly. She is not a student. She is Holly. She is not a fourth grader. She is Holly Dodd. She has been since birth, and she will be until or unless she decides to go by another name, but that will be her decision. The world is hers in a way that the world has never been mine, not even now as an adult. Sometimes I see myself as a messy amalgamation of experiences, certificates, test scores and labels, just come lately into the real world.

I see my children living full, real lives today, right now. I don't see them as students in preparation for life, who after a number of years and lessons might be considered "completed" or "graduated." It was a long way to come, and I never even had to move. I just had to look at what I considered to be real.

---

That was written in early 2002,
when Holly was ten years old.
At twenty-one years old, she goes by Doozy.

SandraDodd.com/fullofyourself
photo ("Holly Dodge") by Sandra Dodd