Who's doing what?

Don't do what other people do, do what your kids need

I couldn't find the original, but Being Your Child's Parter is good.
photo by Sarah S.

Three layers down

In a response to the Always Learning discussion list, I wrote "The principles of unschooling and natural learning work the same regardless of a child's talents or abilities, but parental posture (emotional, behavioral postures) can keep unschooling from working well."

During a discussion with half a dozen other unschoolers, some from France and some from England, I said that much of my writing was untranslatable because it had to do with English. This might be such an example.

The word "posture" is usually used to tell a child to sit up straighter or to stand more gracefully and impressively. But posture can be relative to something else—a wall, a chair, or another person. Posture can be very subtle, too. Posture can be biochemical. It's possible to read anger in another person's hands or the speed of his facial movements. It's possible to see love in the way a mother picks up or touches a baby. Or it's possible to see frustration, or resentment, or fear, in a parental reaction.

I don't think this will be easily translatable into any other language, but for unschooling to work, the relationship of the parent to the child needs to become so clean and clear that the parent is being, and not just acting. This might involve physical posture, but also thoughts and feelings, reactions and clarity.

It won't happen all at once, and it can only begin to happen when the parent understands that some postures are better, and others are harmful to a better relationship with the child.

SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Gail Higgins
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Like fireworks

When Kirby was seven and eight, I used to see others his age who were pulled out of school already knowing how to read and write and think wistfully that maybe that would make everything easier. In the longrun, it didn't. Those kids have issues about that reading and writing that Kirby doesn't have. Their handwriting is prettier, but their spelling isn't always better, and their ideas aren't always better. But Kirby has a poise and a confidence that I think school would have immediately begun to dismantle and scatter. So it did take him longer to read, but in the meantime he was learning like crazy, like fireworks.

Teaching very little, maybe even nothing (last post there)
photo by Erika Davis-Pitre—not of Kirby, but of his daughter
(used once before, with different text)

Different route, same direction

Think of school like a train ride from New York to LA. It has specific stops at specific times and will last a scheduled amount of time.

Think of unschooling like crossing the country in an RV from NY to somewhere on the west coast. You won't be following the same route, won't be hitting the same cities. But you will be heading in the same general direction, following an interest-driven route.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Joyce Fetteroll on Unschooling and another thing or two
photo by Shawn Smythe Haunschild, of something interesting in Colorado
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Don't bring school home

From a newspaper article in 2000:

Whatever the long-term plans are, Dodd has some advice for those considering home-schooling or even the more radical step of unschooling:

"Don't rush. This is a hard but crucial piece of advice. Rush to take him out of school but don't rush to replace it with anything. Bring your child home, don't bring school home. You don't even have to bring their terminology and judgments home. You can start from scratch, brush off the labels, and find your son where he is. Forget school. Move to life."

Albuquerque Journal article, March 19, 2000
photo by Kinsey Norris
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Take a break (not yet; soon)

Here's a way to gauge your unschooling progress: Can you stop learning, at your house? Can you put the pause on unschooling?

Once a year, lots of people do that, as well as they can. Just one day. It's coming up next month, July 24.

I thought you might need some time to plan.


I used to own a full-sized poster of that art, but now it's in a better place—with an unschooling family in Utah.

Learn Nothing Day, in here, over the years

Becoming more open

Marta wrote:

What I'm starting to realize (by what I've been reading and learning, and by my own observations of my experience), is that we can most certainly choose alternatives that can lead us to more openness (like choosing more positive words to describe how we feel about something, or genuinely trying to relax and see what our children and partners see in something they like, etc.). And that if we do it often, we can probably rewire our brains, creating new neurological paths and becoming indeed more open.

—Marta Venturini Machado

SandraDodd.com/open
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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