Geek intelligence

Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences has a category that explains serious hobbyists, gamers, and comic-book collectors:

Naturalist intelligence involves recognizing and categorizing things. Birds and clouds, certainly. Trees. But it also applies to flags, heraldry, automobiles, computer components... the talent for recognizing a widget or a seed seems to be the same.

If your child knows all the Pokémon and their stages, a hundred Minecraft tricks, or the history and evolution of My Little Pony, this is a strong ability to discern the nature of things—to identify and analyze. Each child will have other intelligences, too, and those blend together to help him or her learn easily and to make fun connections.

SandraDodd.com/intelligences
(The middle paragraph is on that page, the rest I added here just today!)
Focus, Hobbies, Obsessions
photo by Andrea Quenneville

Life changes

Impermanence is irritating, but can also be a relief.

A few centuries ago, people believed strongly in the wheel of fortune—that circumstances would change, and did change, and that nothing good or bad would last forever.

You can't keep air, or save rain. Clouds are wet and wispy.

The weather of the soul
photo by Sandra Dodd

Trees let the light in

When the shady days end, deciduous trees do us a favor and let the sun shine through to help keep the ground warmer. If you've seen this happen 20 or 40 times before, remember that to children it's exciting and wonderful. Slow down and see what they're seeing.

Happy Springtime to readers in New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa.

Equatorial folk, keep enjoying your tropical flowers and birds. Know that you live with beauty that most others will never see in person.

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Andrea Justice

Oxygen

Get oxygen into that part of you that fears the tiny monsters.

SandraDodd.com/TinyMonsters
photo by Gail Higgins
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Luck in life

People come and go and we change each other. We amuse each other if we're lucky and frustrate each other if we're not so lucky.

SandraDodd.com/philosophy
photo by Sandra Dodd

Learning about food

Moms feel self-righteous when they worry. And they sometimes feel fantastic when other moms approve of their concerns. While the moms are congratulating each other about being so controlling, the poor kids are sad and hungry.

Chat transcript, discussing the pages on food in The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by JR Terry

Purposes and principles

Something that inspired me to choose principles over rules:

We were at my mother-in-law's house and I offered to help with dishes, so she set me to dry, as she washed. The dish towel got so wet it wasn't doing any good, so I asked for a dry one. She said "Just use that one."

I continued to "help," but it was NOT helping. I was just wiping a wet cloth on already-wet dishes, which wasn't drying them at all.

If the principle of helping is to make things better, and if the principle of drying dishes is to wipe them dry, I was twice removed from what I had intended to do.

SandraDodd.com/rulebound
photo by Sandra Dodd
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