Organic learning

Learning happens all on its own when the parents stop looking at life in a schoolish way, and can appreciate and encourage that sort of organic, constant addition to a personal body of knowledge.

SandraDodd.com/substance
photo by Sandra Dodd

Sixth Anniversary, Just Add Light and Stir

I missed announcing the fifth anniversary, in 2015. By the time I noticed, six weeks had passed. Happy anniversary to us all, 2016.

Sometimes it's hard to find a quote that hasn't been used. Other times I don't have a great photo to match the quote. But occasionally it's poetically magical, and I'm inspired, again, to continue.

Thank you for reading and sharing.



photo by Sandra Dodd, of someone else's good idea

Same but different

Some things are the same at a distance, or when the details are unimportant.

Up close, even things that are "the same" can be very different.

What you're doing, what people think you're doing, what you wish you were doing, all might be very different. By careful comparison and contrast, we can clarify our vision. Save the effort for things you care about, though.

SandraDodd.com/comparisons
photo by Sandra Dodd

One tiny step

Until you drop the idea of teaching, you won't see the learning all around you.

One tiny step opens up a new world of learning.

SandraDodd.com/teaching
photo by Eva Witsel
(Okay, maybe it's not a tiny step, but even if it's a series of awkward steps, get over there!)

Criss-cross trails

Do the best you can to survive the bumps and unexpected turns of the trails through the unschooling world, which will necessarily cross back over and through themselves, which is how learning works–a little now, a little more later to connect to what you've learned since, and detours that end up being short cuts.

The quote is from page 3 of The Big Book of Unschooling.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A mysterious little door

Sometimes a litle door might be literal, or sometimes figurative, but little doors can lead to many wonderful things! All the doors you've ever seen are connected in you. They open into all different places and spaces in your memory and your imagination.


Hidden secret rooms...
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Cleaning the future

I had been unschooling for years before a few people suggested on a message board that requiring kids to do chores could be as bad as making them do schoolwork. I perked up immediately, and everything they said has proven true at our house. The first principle was "If a mess is bothering you, YOU clean it up." Another one was "Do things for your family because you *want* to!"

It was new to me to consider housework a fun thing to be done with a happy attitude, but as it has changed my life and because it fit in so well with the other unschooling issues, I've collected things to help others consider this change as well.

In the same way that food controls can create food issues, forcing housework on children can cause resentments and avoidances which neither get houses clean nor improve the relationships between children and parents.

Also, studies of separated identical twins have shown that the desire and ability to clean and organize has more to do with genetics than "training."

SandraDodd.com/chores
photo by Sandra Dodd
"That's a rad picture; I think I was eleven." —Holly