Old history

No one could make a website, or a book, or a library or a university with all the history you will come across in your life. Frolic! Delve.

Catch it in your peripheral vision. Learn it in relation to cooking or automechanics or learning which plants came from other countries when, and why. Why were airplane plants popular with Victorian ladies and with hippies? And the Victorian ladies couldn't have called them airplane plants, so what did they call them? And why did they have them? And what does NASA think of airplane plants? They're #1 on NASA's list! But wait... that's not just history. It involves geography, home decorating, botany and the space program. Don't stop 'til you get enough.

SandraDodd.com/history
photo by Sandra Dodd, of root beer on the dashboard
outside Bode's in Abiquiu, New Mexico
(AB-i-cue, and BOE-deez)

What is real

Sandra Dodd, response in 2000 to: Can anyone explain to me "unschooling"?

It's like "just say no."

Just say no to school years and school schedules and school expectations, school habits and fears and terminology. Just say no to separating the world into important and unimportant things, into separating knowledge into math, science, history and language arts, with music, art and "PE" set in their less important little places.

Most of unschooling has to happen inside the parents. They need to spend some time sorting out what is real from what is construct, and what occurs in nature from what only occurs in school (and then in the minds of those who were told school was real life, school was a kid's fulltime job, school was more important than anything, school would keep them from being ignorant, school would make them happy and rich and right).

It's what happens after all that school stuff is banished from your life.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/moredefinitions
photo by Amber Ivey
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Where the learning is

Even if you obtain the coolest tools or toys unschoolers could recommend, natural learning isn't in the toys, it's in the reltionship between the adult and child—in the freedom and peace and time to explore and to think.

JoyfullyRejoycing.com/how-unschooling-works
(The quote isn't there, but similar ideas are!)
photo by Janine

Kind of a background thing

Pam Sorooshian, on strewing:

Strewing might be what I did at the Live and Learn conference when I noticed that some of the leaves were turning colors and, as I was heading to our room, I picked some up off the ground and left them on the bathroom counter so that my daughter would happen to see them when she used the bathroom. I have no idea if she ever noticed them or not. Or it might be that I'm getting something out of a closet and I notice a game that hasn't been out and played in a while, so I set it out on the living room coffee table.

When the kids were little, I was very aware of and more intentional about this habit—I picked up interesting rocks or feathers, put out different kinds of paper or markers or tape or a puzzle or an old hat or anything that might, even if just for a moment, interest someone. Now it is just a way of life and I don't think about it, but we all do it. It is kind of a background thing that goes on in unschooling families—it is part of what creates a stimulating, enriched environment for our kids.

—Pam Sorooshian

Strewing: Definition and Suggestions
photo by Sandra Dodd

What really matters

Meredith wrote:

"I always wonder what people expect when they ask unschoolers what materials they use, since it's a question that does come up now and then, generally by academic homeschoolers but sometimes in a daycare context.... The flattering reason, I guess, is that they think we're all geniuses at "making learning fun" but it's ultimately the wrong question. There aren't any special materials. Our homes are full of normal things, commercial toys, cartoon pajamas and pokemon sippy cups, tvs and video games, with piles of things that need to be sorted and put away slumped in corners, or cluttering up the couch and stairs. Many families unschool on slim material resources. The magic of unschooling is in the relationships."

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/partners
photo by Rachel Singer

"The magic of unschooling is in the relationships." —Meredith
(I repeated the last line because it's good.)

Move toward "Why?"

I don't want to spend my volunteer time telling people what to do. I AM willing to help people move away from needing that, and toward seeing that WHY to do things will help them figure out hundreds and thousands of whats and whens and wheres.

SandraDodd.com/why
photo by Shannon McClendon

Loving answers

Why does...? Who will...? When did...? Where are...? What is...? Do you...? Can I...?

Because... I think... Let's ask... We can look... As far as I know... Sometimes. Yes.

Treasure your child's questions and offer loving answers.
Relationships are built of these things.

photo by Sandra Dodd
re-run from 2010