Learning about Learning, and House Concerts

Madeline wrote something wonderful a few days ago at http://barn-raising.blogspot.com/2008/07/trying-to-take-break-from-learning.html
It's not technically on my site, but a link to it is.

Trying to Take a Break From Learning

Sandra Dodd's Learn Nothing Day has arrived! Unschoolers everywhere are finally taking a break. Kids who go to school get many breaks. Now we get one too.

So... how is it going? Well, my kids are at a fort-building camp this week and are staying with their cousin so I can tell you that they are not participating. Gillen told me on the phone that he is taking notes about this fort they are building so that he can come home and build one here. I am hoping he will then teach me to build a studio in the yard.

As for me, I have failed, as I knew I would, and am learning about all of the back-logged thoughts in my head that are having room to be heard in this quiet house.

There is no such thing as not learning. I challenge you to try! That is what makes our chosen path - unschooling - so delicious. We are learning all the time, even when we are "just" having fun, doing what people might term extra-curricular activities and even when we are quietly doing nothing—just letting what we have learned marinate and giving it space and time to morph into something new.

Six years ago, when I was reading about unschooling on discussion lists for the first time, I was intrigued by the idea that kids' natural curiosity, accompanied by committed parental support of their passions, could start them on a journey that would teach them everything they would ever need to know. Having embraced this philosophy for over five years now, I see that it is true. The more I trust that they know what they need, the more they thrive.

I expose them to a lot of possibilities and they pick and choose. They expose me to new ideas and pursuits as well. They talk and I listen. Sometimes I talk too much, and they don't listen and that's always a sure fire way to create a road block to relationship and joyful learning. Things go much better when I shut up more and really listen.

Sorry to talk so much on learn nothing day. I am embracing my failure to not learn and am recommitting to trust this process even more completely from here on out.

And a different thing:

http://sandradodd.com/kellylovejoy/houseconcerts

Dads, Obsession, Sleeping

I've added some blogs of unschooling dads here:
http://sandradodd.com/dads
If any of you know of others that might be added, please let me know. Thanks.

Focus, Obsessions, Hobbies
http://sandradodd.com/focus
Page updated, new title art by Holly (not hand done this time, but something she knows how to do that I don't.)

Because of KT's Learn Nothing Day post, I added photos of her kids to this page:
http://sandradodd.com/sleeping
If you click them you can see her original post, which leads to Learn Nothing Day, which leads to a long list...

Well here:
http://sandradodd.com/learnnothingday
which has a growing list of sites and blogs with a link to Learn Nothing Day, which is only two or three days away (two and a half at my house while I write this, and maybe two if you read it Tuesday morning). There's a lot of reading to be had on those links!

The Learn Nothing Day contest has some entries in, and I figure other images will be made on the day itself and sent afterwards. My plan is to have the entries gathered and available for viewing by the 28th, and winners announced by the 31st.

Thank you all for your interest in my own personal obsession!

Messes coming and going; Attentive Parenting

http://sandradodd.com/day/amandaflour

Children picking things up for others
http://sandradodd.com/chore/shift
(new story at the top)

"Attentive Parenting," with links to similar things
http://sandradodd.com/attentiveparenting

The first Learn Nothing Day images are in:
http://sandradodd.blogspot.com/2008/07/images-arriving.html


FEEDBACK:

"When I move thru your site, I feel like a child in a candy store, or like I'm in a fantastic meandering castle with hidden secret rooms and magic doors to new realities."

Melissa Dietrick wrote that. She's the translator of the Italian Learn Nothing Day page:
http://sandradodd.com/learnnothingday/italian

Photo/Image Contest for Learn Nothing Day

Learn Nothing Day Photo/Image contest with four categories:

Animal, Mineral, Vegetable or Video

Each image submitted should include the Learn Nothing Day logo/art. If you buy a t-shirt or magnet or notebook or something, that could be in the photo. Time is running out, so order soon to get things by the 24th!)
http://www.cafepress.com/LearnNothingDay

Alternatively, the image in a variety of sizes may be lifted freely for use:
http://sandradodd.com/learnnothingday/images

• Animal: The photo/image should have at least one animal of some sort, and the logo.
  
• Mineral: The mineral is... a mirror. Silicon as in glass. Or silicon as represented by a computer. Mirror or computer (not pottery or bricks or sand or rocks, though they can be there secondarily, of course, in any of the photos). And the logo.
  
• Vegetable: Plant(s) and the logo. The photo can also have people, animals, whatever... but having a botanical element is the ticket.
  
• Video: The logo in a video or animated gif or flash cartoon or something. An image that moves, and that I can put on a webpage.

More details (contest rules and suggestions and pep-talk and disclaimers) are here: http://sandradodd.blogspot.com/2008/07/contest.html

Thanks for reading!!

"Common knowledge"

This was posted on AlwaysLearning by DaBreeze21/susanmay15. The first part is something I wrote:

-==It goes against "common knowledge," but if common
knowledge were worth a damn, wouldn't this culture be a paradise of
mental health and joy, with empty prisons and long-lasting marriages?
Sandra=--

This quote is GREAT! Made me smile, laugh inwardly and outwardly and I
think that it should be posted somewhere, anywhere, carved into a
granite mountain, or flown in the sky, maybe cut into a cornfield by
aliens... somewhere where lots of people can read it! :-) And I think
that it is a pretty gosh-darn good argument to have at my fingertips
whenever someone is questioning parenting methods that are counter to
popular beliefs... thanks Sandra!

---

This is as close as I can come to carving it into a mountain.

A Day Off is coming, FINALLY!

After years and years of learning every day, here comes a holiday for unschoolers!



It's less than a month away now, so start thinking of how you can be ready for this momentous, first annual day of leisure for learners.

Learn Nothing Day

The art above is by Sandra (me) and Holly Dodd (my talented daughter).

Screwing it up, Learning, Eating, Italy

How to Screw Up Unschooling
http://sandradodd.com/screwitup

New story on Late-night Learning
http://sandradodd.com/latenightlearningcomment.html

New link to a PBS program online about problems with food controls added here:
http://sandradodd.com/eating/longterm

Italian links added here:
http://sandradodd.com/world

There's some new stuff here, and something beautiful by Pam Sorooshian:
http://sandradodd.com/unschool/radical

Unschooling's second cousins
http://sandradodd.com/unschool/unitstudies
http://sandradodd.com/unschool/marginal
http://sandradodd.com/unschool/vsRelaxedHomeschooling.html

Yes, Why, Considerate Children and more!

I've been saving this hoping to add more to a couple of those pages
before sending. I will add more, haven't yet, and when I do I'll
send the links again.

Here's the news:

http://sandradodd.com/yesGraphic
A graphic representation of thoughts about saying yes to children.
For the visual thinker!
(For everyone. By Katherine Anderson.)

http://sandradodd.com/why
I especially like the links on this. I like the way they look, and I think that if someone read that page and those six links, it would change their lives enough for them to improve their children's lives in wonderful ways.

http://sandradodd.com/unschool/gettingit
Something new there.

http://sandradodd.com/modeloftheuniverse
Your Own Model of the Universe

http://sandradodd.com/consideratechildren
Thinking I might have the only webpage in the world called "Considerate Children," I went to check. Just google, just one search. Results 1 - 10 of about 199,000 for considerate children. Of those first ten, seven were describing the traits of particular dogs. "The breed does fine with older considerate children" and such. One was being critical of a child (but not mean; slightly sarcastic, not bad). Two referred to an Emily Post book called Emily Post's The Gift of Good Manners: A Parent's Guide to Raising Respectful, Kind, Considerate Childrenhttp://www.amazon.com/Emily-Posts-Gift-Good-Manners/dp/006018549X

Second page had an article in Japanese, but in English it said "Considerate Children to Be Educated ..." I don't think it's a public article; can't read Japanese anyway. Two on the Emily Post book; the rest about dogs.

As comparison to the 199,000 hits for "considerate" and "children" even on the same page, I thought I'd look up "brat." I don't like that word, but I'm guessing there will be more than 199,000 occurrences.
Ah. I was right:
Results 1 - 10 of about 31,000,000 for brat

And so based on that, I hope my page on considerate children will continue to grow. If any of you have stories of your children being considerate that would help some of those millions of people who might never have considered it possible, please send them to me. I'll get it if you reply to this list (and it won't go through to
everyone).

An update and comment on rude feedback:
http://sandradodd.com/feedbackrude
Joy truly is invaluable.

2000 article newly available

I've scanned an article from the local paper. It's eight years old, but hey.... I didn't have a scanner then. For a while, after it was new, it was freely available online, but no more. (Now it is again, in a home-job fashion.)
http://sandradodd.com/media/ABQjournal

There are two other articles I had already scanned, and some of you might have missed them the last time they came around, but now they're linked on another new page:
http://sandradodd.com/media

Addams Family, "Doddian," Allowance, Movies

WOW.
First part of the first episode of The Addams Family is quite an unschooling extravaganza, and I had just the place to put it!
http://sandradodd.com/museum


"Doddian"—I've become a footnote AND an adjective. Cool!!
http://theexcitingworldofcricket.blogspot.com/2008/05/problem-essay.html
Read the solution essay, too.
http://sandradodd.com/game/zach
has links to his essays easily found from my site.

Allowance never had its own page before. Now it does.
http://sandradodd.com/math/allowance

On the movies page I'm adding lists of movies that might be good for discussing relationships. There are three lists:
relationships between younger children, between older children, and between children and adults. They're in the righthand column.
http://sandradodd.com/t/movies

There's some more positive feedback, some in Spanish, and I put the most fun negative feedback I ever got on its own page, because of language (use of "the f word," in reference to MY LIST! How shocked should I be? Yeah, not very...).
http://sandradodd.com/feedback
http://sandradodd.com/feedback/rude

I've been spending lots of time outside in my gardenYARD, in case I seem to be less productive online lately, but most of you are probably busy outside too and didn't even notice! (It can't be "garden" for not having rows of food (I have decided). Maybe a flower garden, but nah... yard.)

Food, Math, Kirby

New writing, lower left:
http://sandradodd.com/eating/monkeyplatter

News on an unschooler who chose school, and how his math went
http://sandradodd.com/math/schoolmath
and it's linked at
http://sandradodd.com/math, beginning of the links section on the left.

Recently on the Thinking Sticks blog:

REAL libraries
Food, History, Fun!
Numerals and Counting
Mystery Art

Keith, Holly and I visited Kirby in Texas:
Birds in Texas
Holly [one morning]
Kirby in April
Monday with Kirby
Twinkies, Texans and Tortoises

Rebellion, Successes, "Help!" and Myths (not the good ones)

http://sandradodd.com/rebellion
I had forgotten about this, so much so that when someone asked a straight-out question about rebellion, I didn't send this link. I found it in fortuitously accidental fashion (as usual).

There are additions to these pages:

http://sandradodd.com/unschool/gettingit
http://sandradodd.com/feedback

New title art (by Holly) and rearrangement; deletion of deadish links.

http://sandradodd.com/help
(still working on that one)

http://sandradodd.com/myths
This one looks fine on my Mac, but not so good on the kids' PCs. It's readable either way.
NEW (but not on my site): Two thirds of the way down is a link to something new by an unschooled teenager in Iowa, about parenting and video games. He interviewed me for it.