Playing with connections

I found something to share, but it seemed too long. While looking for a place to put it, I came upon a link to posts in this blog that are about play and playing.

These two images came up one after the other. They were posted seven years apart, but they're similar, and the posts they link to were called "Playing around" and "Play around." They're links here, and the quote follows.


Someone wrote in 2011:

I do worry about my boys playing computer all day.

I responded:

I have three kids who have played hundreds of games among and between them--Holly learned two new card games just this month that nobody else in the family knows, even her dad who has been a big games guy all his life. There is no game called "computer." I think you mean playing ON the computer. HUGE difference.

We have dozens of nice board games here, and table games (games involving cards or other pieces, to be laid out on a table as play proceeds), but those aren't referred to as kids playing board, or kids playing table.

The computer is not itself the game. There are games on the computer. There is information on the computer. It's not really a net. It's not really a web. It's millions of ideas, words, jokes, pictures, games, a ton of music and videos and.... But you know that, right?

Clarity can begin with being careful with the words you use. Thinking about what you write will help you think about what you think!

(The quote is from halfway down here.)
photos by Sandra Dodd and Karen James

Looking back

I think every moment an unschooling parent spends reflecting on what
and how
and where
she learned things is time well invested.

Reflection/Unschooling (in a discussion from 2005)
photo by Nicole Novakovics
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Little surprises

If it happened when you expected it, it wouldn't be surprising.

Be open to finding joy in the unexpected.

Something Surprising
photo by Jo Fielding

Simple and beautiful

"I think unschooling has done as much for me as it has and will have for my son. When you get down to it it's just so simple and so beautiful. It's helped me to reconnect with my older kids too and make amends for all the times that I made mistakes. So many things that you don't even know will be changed when you start living that different kind of way."

—Jessica Sutton

Unforeseen Benefits of Unschooling
photo by Karen James
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Stand up tall

People don't bend to become unschoolers. They stand up tall enough to look all around.

That was in response to a put-down of unschoolers, years ago.
photo by Heather Booth

Fill yourself up

Generosity makes you generous. Kindness makes you kind. Respecting others, and their ideas and their interests, makes you full of respect—respectful. These are little things that build up quickly.


SandraDodd.com/becoming
photo by Janine Davies
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Generalizations and exceptions

How easy would it be to define dogs as four-legged animals?

Yet there are three-legged dogs. Many. Some people have never seen them. I knew one personally, and have seen three others closely.

My children learned to read without being taught.

If my children were the only children in the history of the world who learned without being taught, it would still be a fact that some children have learned to read without lessons—that a child can learn to read without lessons.

But my children are not the only ones. There are many. There were many even before schools existed, though it was harder without being surrounded by talking video games and movies with subtitles and printed boxes all over the kitchen, and signs on every street and building and shelf.


(The quote is from this topic, about 4/5 of the way down.)
photo by Sara McGrath