TV, video games, computer use, food, marginal utility

Schuyler Waynforth will speak on these ideas at the Life is Good conference this fall, and this will be a way for her to see what questions and concerns she might want to add to that presentation.

When the discussion arose about this chat, Schuyler wrote:

I would love to have a chat on and about video games / television / computers all those sorts of bugaboos. Since it is what I'm going to talk about at Life is Good it might be nice to have a practice question time. I know you did a food one for the first one which I missed. It might be a nice subject to encore, or even to be part of a discussion about television. They all fall under the same rubric, really, the idea of marginal utility. At least that is where they fall in my head.

To get to the transcript:
http://sandradodd.com/chats/schuylergames

Transcript of Pam Sorooshian chat

Pam Sorooshian answered questions about her family's history, religion and experiences on January 6, 2009 in a chat. The transcript has been edited for easier reading and is here:
http://sandradodd.com/chats/pamsorooshian

Guest Post on "Blogging 'Bout Boys"

Today I'm the guest blogger at "Blogging 'Bout Boys."

http://bloggingboutboys.blogspot.com/2009/02/guest-post-sandra-dodd.html


The chat transcript and links from the Kirby Dodd/WoW chat are sufficiently edited that I'm willing to have people go there:
http://sandradodd.com/chats/WoW

Other chat transcript pages will be forthcoming.

Thursday, February 12 Ren Allen will be the guest on the chat.

Monday (maybe Monday) later in the day, maybe another discussion on World of Warcraft with members of an unschoolers guild, and others.

Wednesday, February 18, Schuyler Waynforth will chat about video games, TV and computers

Details of chats are at
http://sandradodd.com/chat

Do It, and "We're onto something big."

If you're going to unschool, do it now and do it well.
SandraDodd.com/doit

Contentment, Abundance and Joy
http://sandradodd.blogspot.com/2009/02/contentment-abundance-and-joy.html
We're onto something big. We are creating and maintaining an international co-op for helping to see the beauty and the power in everyday, peaceful, happy learning.

Kirby and Pam S; Reading; What should people eat?

I have a new chatroom on my own site which I'm just LOVING. If you're reading this while it's new, there's a chat later today and one tomorrow, same time. Thursday, January 5 it's Kirby Dodd, my 22 year old firstborn, about World of Warcraft, and tomorrow it's Pam Sorooshian on unschooling and parenting and life. Details are here:
http://sandradodd.com/chat
and from there you can go into the chat room any time to check it out, maybe make yourself an account and upload a photo (or get one of your kids to do it for you, if they're old enough to upload). But the room allows for anonymous participation and also guest-with-a-name presence.

These are also new:

Joyce on learning and reading (third item, righthand column)
http://sandradodd.com/bookworship

What should people eat?
http://sandradodd.com/eating/diets

There are recent photos of me in a few recent blogposts, in case anyone who reads this isn't a blog follower:
http://sandradodd.blogspot.com

Paths, watching others, boundaries, young children

How to Avoid Trying to Control Husbands, regarding unschooling
New by De/Sanguinegirl
http://sandradodd.com/control
(bottom of the page)

Me, quoted very nicely, in an article by an eclectic homeschooler:
http://www.homeschooldiner.com/basics/family_matters/watching_video_games.html

If the child's boundaries should be respected, what about the parents?
http://sandradodd.com/peace/newview
Robyn Coburn, third item on that page

One of the live chats is now a page. I'm not quite finished with the right column, but it's worth sharing already.
http://sandradodd.com/youngchildren

Unschooling Chats Online

http://sandradodd.com/chat

Two chats have passed (sorry I didn't mention it here; they came on kind of suddenly) and there will be one Friday and one Monday.

(This may blossom or might be a brief spate of excitement that goes away.)

Me, speaking 12 years ago

Thanks to the interest, know-how and generosity of Lauren and Lee Stranahan, there is another recording of me available for you to hear or to download freely.

It is here, with a disclaimer and some other notes and links:
Introduction to Unschooling

The art at right is by Dee Sanchez, who was the coordinator of the conference that year. The main speaker was Mark Hegener, and his daughter Jodi (then a teen) was there. The more conservative homeschoolers of New Mexico Family Educators changed things severely after that unschooling conference and the inclusivity of the statewide organization pretty much dissolved.

Then Dee published a newsletter/magazine called Enchanted Families for a few years, which is where some of my essays first appeared, and also Carol Rice's article about her son learning to read, which is on my site and has encouraged many parents.

The round art was on a t-shirt that year, and I colored the New Mexico flag yellow on mine and wore that shirt for years, and lost it somewhere. When I was speaking, my kids were 5, 7 and 9, I think I say in there somewhere. (I'll correct this if anyone who listens wants to confirm/deny, or if I listen to it later again.)

Reading and reality

Maybe these guys are saying "Slow Down!"

If life is all competition, then finishing first is "winning," when the stopwatch is out. But what if the goal is thinking new thoughts, and enjoying the artistry of someone else's words? What if it were museums we were talking about? Would moving through an art museum and seeing all the paintings and sculptures in fifteen minutes be better than if it took two hours? What if someone could train you to retain memories of what you had seen, and to comprehend it, even though you had walked as fast as you possibly could have and looked as briefly as possible at what took the artist months or years to create? Would you "win"?

Forget the hoity-toitiness of da Vinci and Jane Austen. How about a car show? If you run through the lot and see all the restored antique cars faster than anyone else EVER HAS, are you better at going to car shows than those who look closely at details and talk to the owners?

That's from this page on speed reading:
http://sandradodd.com/r/speed

...which I came to and spruced up because there's a new page on comprehension:
http://sandradodd.com/r/comprehension

and that's a cousin of another page on "real reading":
http://sandradodd.com/r/real

WoW, School, Family

gratuitous photo of Pam Sorooshian and Sandra Dodd at the display on personal computers at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

A new unschooler presents the joys she found playing World of Warcraft with her son, and what he's been doing lately when he's not playing.
http://sandradodd.com/game/wow
This new page is linked from "Tales of Happy Video Gamers":
http://sandradodd.com/game/tales

New from Joyce on textbooks:
http://sandradodd.com/school/textbooks
and an index page (very brief) on school-related topics
http://sandradodd.com/school

Public School on your Own Terms, revamped and comments added
http://sandradodd.com/schoolchoice

School can break family bonds
http://sandradodd.com/school/family

Peace, Learning Nothing, Obsessions

Some clean-up and rearrangement:
http://sandradodd.com/peace
http://sandradodd.com/mindfulness

A new photo collage:
http://sandradodd.com/learnnothingday/2008

A new entry into the Focus, Hobbies, Obsessions area
http://sandradodd.com/obsessions
and new writing about feeding obsessions
http://sandradodd.com/obsessions/feedpassions

sleep, principles, words, babies

A post on the images of babies in the winter (Jesus, New Year's day as an infant), with a link to the new doll Holly got for Christmas, and its journey to her, involving youtube and Ireland and...

Will kids sleep without a bedtime? Very peacefully, it seems.
http://sandradodd.com/sleep/
(two new photos of beautiful babies)

Understanding the Value of Principles
http://sandradodd.com/rulebound
Not new. Rediscovered. Touched up. Typo fixed. Links fluffed. Good stuff.

Word Histories
http://sandradodd.com/etymology
This page has been announced four times. It was new in January 2004. I tweaked and added a few times. There's something new at the bottom—a new chart of Indo-European languages. I like charts. And one of the links leads to something Joyce wrote, and of that long interesting article on the names of months, I've brought you this:

Here’s a translation of the month names from Charlemagne’s time:
Winter
Spring
Lent
Easter
Grazing
Plowing
Hay
Harvest
Wood
Vintage
Autumn/Harvest
Holy