It makes much more sense

Ben Lovejoy wrote:

When we learned how to ride a bike, we thought that first way that we learned was the only way that a bike could be ridden. There was just no other way. Having ridden over 10,000 miles of roads and over 50 bike trails in the past six years, I can tell you that my initial experience on a bike was nothing like I've had as an adult. As with my cycling, I've realized there is more than one way to live our lives. Living life based upon principles is a better way for me than living by rules. It's more honest, respectful, truthful, and makes much more sense. Principles have allowed me to figure out that music is a journey and not a destination that ends when I reached a certain age. Principles have allowed me to realize that riding a bike is a means and not an end. Principles have allowed me to think further about better ways to parent than using someone else's rules. Principles, in short, do not limit me the way that rules once did.

—Ben Lovejoy

SandraDodd.com/benrules
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Curiosity, wonder, fascination, and enthusiasm

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Take them to the grocery store.

...While you're there, look at the weirdest thing in the produce department. Bright orange cactus? BUY one. Go home and get online and try to figure out what to do with it. Or just slice it open to see what is inside.

Or buy a coconut—shake it to see if it has liquid inside. Let the kid pound on it with a hammer until it cracks open. While they're doing that, do a quick google on coconuts so you have some background knowledge. Don't "teach" them—but if something seems cool, just say it as an interesting, cool thing to know, "Wow, coconuts are SEEDS! And, oh my gosh, they sometimes float in the ocean for years before washing up on some island and sprouting into a coconut tree."

How about a pineapple—bought one fresh, lately? Talked about Hawaii? Just say, "Aloha," while handing the kids a slice. Or, maybe you'll get really into the whole idea of Hawaii and you'll see connections everywhere—Hawaiian shirts at the thrift store, flowers to me leis, someone playing a ukelele, a video of a volcano exploding (maybe that will inspire you to want to make your own volcano with baking soda and vinegar).

I'm not saying to prepare a lesson on cactus or coconuts or pineapples. I'm saying that if you're not already an interesting person with interesting information to share with your children, then you'll have to make an effort to be more interesting. The way to do that is to develop your own sense of curiosity, wonder, fascination, and enthusiasm.

—Pam Sorooshian

Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Sandra Dodd

Geography without maps

As far as I know, the best way to know that deschooling has happened is that kids start asking you (or telling you) cool things, trivial things, that they might have learned in school if they had gone, or maybe that would be in books clearly marked "science" or "history," and they're no longer avoiding school subjects (if they went to school).

Or if the kids never went to school, it's when the parents can see math without numbers, and language without writing, and "writing" without handwriting, and history without kings and wars and dates, and geography without maps.

SandraDodd.com/stages
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a restaurant in a building that was once a fire station, in Albuquerque
__

Turn toward joy.

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

"Often if I'm stuck not being able to see the positive in something, I need to quit looking at it. I need to look at other things. I need to find something to move forward to instead of whirling and twirling around the angsty thing. Make the angry thing small and insignificant, turn away from it, look for bright and shiny things to distract you, look at tiny things that give you pleasure, look at large things that you didn't appreciate fully the first time around. Turning toward joy will definitely make it harder to feel stymied in the negative."

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Sandra Dodd

Do what it takes

"Rather than worry that I'm not doing enough for my family, I'm doing what it takes for me not to wonder about that. Working to improve children's lives seems to ripple across generations."

—Sylvia Woodman

SandraDodd.com/stories/sylvia
photo by Sandra Dodd
—

Too much "no"

One reason principles work better than rules is that they require thought every single time. The best answer to most questions is "it depends."

If a person is answering most questions with "no," that is putting trouble in the bank to collect interest.

SandraDodd.com/principles
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

A better three year old

"A three year old isn't a better three year old by being able to read. A three year old is a better three year old by being helped to do what fascinates her." —Joyce Fetteroll

on the Always Learning list January 10, 2012
photo by Sandra Dodd