TV [iPad (internet)]

There's a lot to be learned on TV and from watching TV. If your trust stops short of the TV, it's not much trust yet.

Trusting your heart and trusting your kids and trusting how learning works will all enlarge the range of things you see as learning situations, until the time when you don't see things except in terms of what can be learned.

Then TV won't be a problem.

Those are my thoughts.

—Sandra Dodd, 2001

Unschooling with the TV in the house
photo by Tara Joe Farrell

Unphotographable

Because the primary "method" of unschooling is living a rich life with a focus on learning and relationships, it's difficult to photograph.

I've had newspaper reporters want to come and photograph my children unschooling, at our house. I told one reporter once that if she wanted to send a photographer, my kids were at various places around town, and I named places and times for the next couple of days. The gaming shop; Kirby teaching karate; Holly playing Harry Potter at a comic book store. I told her if they came to our house what unschooling would look like was a kid on the computer, or watching TV, or playing with toys. She was certain I was missing the point of what she "needed" to have photographed.

Typical Unschooling Days
photo by Sandra Dodd, who could tell stories about that bench, that tree trunk, those onions, the way the sunlight was hitting that water, the cinderblock bricks and the fence they came off of... but the photo doesn't illustrate the history and connections and realities of the everyday objects in the picture

An unschooling high

Some years ago, this enthusiastic story was written by a mom named Alexandra:

Today I had an unschooling moment.

We had movie and tv restrictions before, and gave them up after reading here. Today, we were driving somewhere, and went down a road near where the tide comes in (we live near the Bay of Fundy), and after renting The Lizzie McGuire movie last week, and seeing the state of the tide, naturally I burst into "The tide is high..."!!—joined happily by my three daughters.

Sometime after the nth rendition of that song all together, I thought, here we are doing something happily all together, and from that space, anything can happen, questions, answers, laughter, silence. Thank you Lizzie McGuire, thank you people of the unschooling.com message board, I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like that....

(end of quote)

---

Just today I was interviewed and mentioned all the writings that were lost when that message board was taken down, and AOL's forum before that, and the user group I used to access when *Prodigy was new. So many ideas, so much writing, poofed away. And I said that's why I wanted to collect and preserve writing now. Thank you, readers, for your appreciation of my hoarding at SandraDodd.com.

SandraDodd.com/list
photo by Sandra Dodd
The song was part of the credit sequence of that movie, and you can watch and hear it here: Lizzie Mcguire the Movie: The tide is high (and this version was by an English girl group called Atomic Kitten)

Better expectations

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

What gets in the way of so many new unschooling parents is unreasonable expectations. They think kids must learn to read, spell, do math by a certain age, do chores, do what they're told, not eat more sugar than Mom thinks is right, bathe and sleep when Mom wants... They think unschooling parents have a magical way of getting kids to do those.

Some parent expectations come from how they were parented. Some come from school. Some come from friends and other parents. Some are accepted as truths just because the message is ubiquitous.

For unschooling to flourish, parents need to look directly at their kids. What does *this* child need? What is *this* child reaching for? If a resource helps a parent let go of unreasonable expectations and look directly at their child, then that's supportive of creating a learning environment. If a resource helps a parent understand their child better, that's a good thing *if* it removed a barrier to directly looking at their child. It's not a good thing if it puts a new filter between parent and child. (It's funny how parents who fear TV see addiction in their children. When they let go of their fear, they see engagement.)

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/waldorf
photo by Sarah Peshek

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

Accepting help (and cake)

Deb Lewis wrote:

I always get in trouble with analogies, but I'm going to try one here. If I wanted to make a cake, and had never baked or cooked before, a cake recipe that just said "do whatever seems best to you, use your imagination" probably wouldn't be that helpful. If my friend, who always had lovely cakes (devil's food?) had given me this recipe, I would have to assume cake just didn't work for my family.

It would have been much more helpful to have an ingredients list and a plan for putting them together.

Ok, kids are not cakes, and maybe there's no ingredients list for unschooling, but I would hope, before I pour a bottle of vinegar in my batter, someone who knows about cakes would stop me. I would hope, before I add a text book or take away TV, someone who knows about unschooling would stop me.

—Deb Lewis
(original, on Always Learning)

SandraDodd.com/witness
photo (and cake) by Sandra Dodd,
when this blog was ten years old

Let joy replace fear

There is a kind of magic thinking that says television can rob people of their imagination, but that if parents sacrifice televisions, children will be more intelligent.


. . . .[A]mong unschoolers there are many who once prohibited or measured out TV time, and who changed their stance. Learning became a higher priority than control, and joy replaced fear in their lives. I can't quote all the accounts I have collected, but I invite you to read them.
SandraDodd.com/tv

The quote is from page 136 of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo of Holly and Orion by Sandra Dodd
This is a re-run from 12/31/10, when Holly was a teenager and Orion was a little boy.

No road blocks

Kelli Traaseth wrote:

When I started unschooling, I thought it was just an educational approach. But as we went along in our lives, so many other things popped up. If they were learning as they were playing, as I knew they were, how could I limit that? How could I say, "time to go to bed now?" Or "time to shut the TV off now" or "shut the video game down now". Unschooling is such a continuum. If I did those above things, I would see them as huge road blocks in my child's learning. I want their learning to be a big freeway, things coming, things going, no road blocks.

—Kelli Traaseth
2004, 8th post or so down

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Cally Brown
(not a freeway, but pretend...)

---

At the old, preserved forum (link below Kelli's name), you can go backward and forward a bit by changing the page number at the bottom left of the page. (In case you want to, in case you go there...)

Television and video media

There is a kind of magic thinking that says television can rob people of their imagination, but that if parents sacrifice televisions, children will be more intelligent.


. . . .[A]mong unschoolers there are many who once prohibited or measured out TV time, and who changed their stance. Learning became a higher priority than control, and joy replaced fear in their lives. I can't quote all the accounts I have collected, but I invite you to read them.
SandraDodd.com/tv

The quote is from page 136 of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo of Holly and Orion by Sandra Dodd

Visions and knowledge

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.

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Holly Dodd, from inside an auto-rickshaw

Visions and knowledge

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.

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Holly Dodd, from inside an auto-rickshaw

Far-reaching effects

Dede wrote:

I finally let go of my control issue around TV and video. In its place I found trust which created a deepening of love and respect in my relationship with my son and my family and everything else in my life. It is amazing how far reaching the effect was. Just wanted to share this.

—Dede

Unschooling: Getting It
SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Megan Valnes

Enough

"A pretty cool side-effect of unschooling—knowing when you've had enough (food, cake, money, candy, TV, or anything else). And being happy."

—Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/generosity
photo by Sandra Dodd

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

Subjects

Kirby was five and not going to go to school that year when I decided to keep the whole idea of a structured curriculum divided into subjects secret from him for a while. So we carefully and purposefully avoided using these terms: science, history, math.

He was too young for us to need to avoid terms such as "social studies" (which doesn't come up outside of school anyway) or "grammar," but I was prepared to rethink my list of terms to avoid as he got older, if he continued to stay home.

By the time his brother and sister were unschooling, some of those "names of subjects" (in school parlance) had been discovered on TV shows about school, or in jokes or songs. Don't know much about history; don't know much biology… By then, though, I was ready with confident answers, and we were all sure natural learning could work.

If you can avoid using school terminology, it will be helpful in many different ways that you will figure out if you don't already see them.

SandraDodd.com/subjects
photo by Sandra Dodd, at The High Country, in Chama, 2011

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

On a peaceful day...

Watching the news on TV, or following too many news sites, can harm the peace of an unschooling home. Some moms, especially when their children are young, have found more peace if they focus inward on their children than outward far away.

If someone WANTS to be afraid and pissed off, even on a fairly peaceful day, all it takes is to turn the news on and let it affect your entire nervous system, your digestive system, your adrenal glands and hormones, your chance of trusting your neighbors, or of sleeping peacefully.

SandraDodd.com/news
photo by Sandra Dodd, of someone else's puppet

Value kids as kids

Meredith wrote:

Generally speaking, kids are Busy people. Its good to see that and value what they are doing. When we don't, its easy to slip into resenting them for "just goofing off" while we grown ups are busy doing the "important" stuff. An important aspect of radical unschooling is valuing kids as kids, not adults-in-training, and so valuing kid-stuff. Playing Green Dinosaur smashes Legoland, watching tv, daydreaming, all are just as important as cleaning the kitchen.

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/priorities
photo by Sandra Dodd

Action and Creation

"Be who you believe it's best to be. Act according to your own values. Create an atmosphere where making a kind choice is easier than making a hurtful choice. Create an atmosphere where everyone feels safe."

—Joyce Fetteroll

Joyce Fetteroll, at Always Learning in 2013

A good link to go with it might be Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Sandra Dodd

Excitement, peace and humor

It's possible for a childless person or couple to live a long life without ever thinking about values. It's possible to go along with the crowd and get a nice place to live and a car and watch TV every night and pay the bills and not think about what might have been better or different.
        . . . .

What if a family wants to step off the path and look around on their own? What if a family wants to take a different path to the future that's quicker, or more dangerous, or more leisurely, or funnier? Will their values then involve excitement or peace or humor?

the quote is from a page called "Values" in The Big Book of Unschooling,
but it is linked to SandraDodd.com/priorities
photo by Elise Lauterbach