Sandra Dodd is one of the oldest ‘unschooling-voices’ on Internet. She started advocating for this way of living and learning back when conversations took place via platforms such as Yahoo-groups. Her website dates back to 1999 and gathers writings from many contributors. She keeps a blog with the delightful name Just Add Light and Stir where she posts (almost) daily inspiration and encouragement for unschooling parents. Sandra lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her husband Keith.
If you were to define unschooling in three words, what would they be?
I wouldn’t. It’s too easy to mislead. Too often, people grab a phrase or idea and run off and make a mess with it. If it’s used lightly though, I don’t mind “learning from life”.
That’s a valid point. I think misconceptions about unschooling are very common. Some lives may be more conducive to learning than others, what are the essential components for unschooling to flourish?
Perhaps it’s more process than component. Parents must deschool themselves. Gradually, but not TOO gradually, they should examine the schoolish ideas and assumptions that come up in them, and see if they can lay them out to dry. They can file them away as school memories, and as outdated assumptions, or as tools that could hamper unschooling’s success.
Even if parents were to create the richest physical environment and a schedule for their kids that involved being home plenty, and going out into the interesting world often, if the parents are looking at the children through school-colored glasses, it will not become unschooling.
Some parents find themselves unable to relax and to gradually transform themselves into unschooling parents. Sometimes one parent can and the other can’t. I think the marriage and family (or partnership and family, when there are co-parents of any sort) should come before unschooling. I’ve seen it ruin families, and it shouldn’t.
So togetherness, curiosity, joy, contentment, a sense of wonder…those help. The lack of ALL of those would prevent unschooling completely. Money helps. Transportation helps. A home small enough to see and hear each other, but large enough to give people a chance to be alone sometimes is good.
There is no one single list of requirements, and different families have different personalities, circumstances and needs. “Better” is a good goal. “Closer” is a good direction.
So focus on the journey, rather than the destination? What can you suggest parents do, to help their own process of deschooling?
I think the best thing to do both for initiating unschooling and for its continuation is for the parents to make choices. “Make the better choice.”
The choices I’m talking about aren’t longterm like “have a child” or “don’t send the child to school.” I’m talking about each touch, and response, and decision. At first, if the parent is aware of three choices in one day, where she thought of two or more options, and chose the one that is most like the unschooling mom she wants to be, that will help her remember to make the fourth choice, and soon there’s no counting.
Living in moments, and planning to make a good choice next time, or even a better choice, moves a person along toward “better” (and better). Using those choices, a person can move toward being more accepting of a child’s quirks, ideas and wishes – towards being more patient, sweeter, kinder.
Your children are all grown today. When you look back at your own journey of motherhood, what has challenged you the most and how did you deal with it?
I didn’t like it when my children were unhappy, with their friends, or a situation, or a disappointment. I tried to provide a soft place and some peaceful, sweet alternatives when they were sorrowful or frustrated. Pain is inevitable and it’s hard (maybe impossible) to “prepare” children for emotions, and impossible (or at least hard) to make things better. I dealt with it by trying to make a series of moments better, and by reminding myself (and maybe my child, though sometimes the best thing to say is nothing—just be there and be soft) time will help, this will pass.
How did learning unfold in your home over the years? Can you give some examples of ways that your children acquired different skills or knowledge?
We watched musicals, and children’s shows with lots of songs. I had music for the car, on cassette tapes and CD. What one child was learning from a song might not be the same as another was. There might be numbers or days of the week, or ideas about being kind, and one child might be listening more to the tune and harmonies, or to the phrases and rhymes. It didn’t matter. Eventually, they would all have taken several things from each song, or story, or program.
Games with parents, with friends of theirs, with each other, as they got older—verbal games played “in the air,” while we were traveling or waiting, card games, board games, Nintendo and Playstation. Kirby learned to read maps from The Nintendo Players Guide, when he was too young to read words, but was playing the original NES Mario game, and the book had diagrams of the “world” of each level, stretched across several pages. Marty learned to read words from using the player’s guide to a game called “Breath of Fire.”
Moving from one curiosity or hobby or challenge gradually into another seemed to be the fabric of life. They were usually doing two or three things at the same time – visiting with friends, snacking, playing a game, petting the dog or cat (finding and cleaning any wounds or removing stickers).
There’s a lot of play and playfulness in that. Did you consciously choose not to have structured lessons, or did it just not seem necessary?
I unhesitatingly turned my back on structured lessons. Those would not only have been unnecessary, but would be steps in the opposite direction, from unschooling.
We had a single math workbook that was fun, and funny, and in full color. It was based on a TV program my kids loved. We kept it with coloring books, and mazes, and dot-to-dot books. It was not hidden, and was not elevated above or beyond other books that kids were welcome to pick up and play with.
Twice I bribed Kirby, when he was seven, I think, to do a reading lesson. Twice, he participated reluctantly, and I gave him the Ninja Turtle at the end. The third time, when I asked him to read, he started crying and thumped his head down on the table. I apologized, gave him a Ninja Turtle toy, and said let’s not do this anymore.
My “inspiration” to pressure him was the disapproval of my mother-in-law. I saw the risk of turning him against reading. I saw the potential damage to our relationship. I knew that these could be totalities, while the improvement to the approval of my mother-in-law would be very small even if he could suddenly read fluently.
That was a failure on my part, and it didn’t happen after that.
What about in their teen years? Did learning continue to happen naturally and informally?
It did. By then, they had a pretty good network of friends involved in table games, video games, film- and music-interests, and a medieval studies club we were all in (two still are). By mid teens, each of the kids had a job, too, so they were learning from what they were selling or making, learning about shop upkeep, dealing with money and with customers.
As teens, each traveled alone, too, by road-trip or plane, to gaming conventions, or to visit other unschooling families. In various combinations, each went to several unschooling gatherings, from a large hotel convention to smaller gathering – sometimes one or two of them with me, sometimes our whole family.
Conversations were where the learning showed. The questions they asked and answered, the things they did with and learned from other teens, parents, and younger children were clear and obvious.
What was your role as the parent in all of this? I know you talk about the concept of strewing but can you expand on how you have been involved in and supported your children’s learning over the years?
I was there, and usually their dad was too. Sometimes other adults were there – friends, we had housemates two times, for a while. The house was full of activity and conversation, movies, music, assistance to open or repair or figure out how to use things.
When I saw something interesting, outside, or at a thrift store, or in a catalog – a wooden carving, or a model of a church, some magnets, interesting rocks, a tiny bird’s nest that had fallen out of a tree past-season – I would bring it in. Without ceremony, I would put it on the table, or on the counter in the kitchen, and someone would find it and play with it, or ask about it, and sometimes we would look something up.
We got video games and new Nintendo systems for our oldest, who loved those games. If we found interesting scarves or costume parts, those came home for the costume box. We shared with each other new music or videos, or discoveries of older things. That still happens.
Did you keep track of their learning in any way (either for yourself or to meet official requirements) and if so, how?
I didn’t “keep track” in any formal or schoolish way. I’m glad that New Mexico, where I live, didn’t require it. A few states do, but most don’t. Unschooling is hampered by such requirements, because the parents are self-conscious and end up pressuring the child or being overly proud of things that would be better left casual and quiet.
When my oldest was very young and we were still experimenting, I used to look at the “Scope and Sequence” documents. I looked after a week or two, and then after a month, and then I forgot for months at a time. When I did look, he was on or ahead of “schedule.” I knew that as he got older it would be more schoolish and particular, so I didn’t even obtain the lists for older kids. By then my confidence was solid and I wasn’t worried about how well connecting ideas and asking questions could work.
Your children are 31, 34 and 36 now. How did their lives evolve as young adults “after” unschooling and what are they doing today ?
The two older ones are married, and have children.
They’ve all had jobs since their mid-teens. Kirby does computer tech for a large engineering firm, but he has been applying for other jobs in the hope of working from home so he can be with his children more.
Marty is married and has two kids. In his mid-20s he got a degree in economics and geography, and is working as an analyst for the Albuquerque Police Department.
Holly is 31, and not married. She currently works as an assistant trainer, in a program called “Grow the Growers” for the training of those who wish to farm, or to make better businesses of small farms. There are fewer than ten students each year. Her hobbies involve a women’s support group for new mothers (even though she’s not one, but she has many friends who are), drum circles, singing, and dance.
It’s been more than 30 years now, since you started unschooling. Society changes and so does the cultural framework for parenting. Many parents find it hard to navigate particularly the ‘screen issue’ today. Do you have any words of advice on this?
I don’t think there should BE a “screen issue.” It’s evidence that parents are lumping everything in together.
Telling children that their interests are dangerous and will ruin them goes back a long way, and parents should be very cautious. The book Bad for You: Exposing the War on Fun! is an interesting read on the history of the fear of new technology.
Arbitrary rules will never be better for unschooling, nor for any relationship, than thoughtful choices will be. Unschooling parents must gradually learn to make thoughtful choices themselves and give their kids the opportunity to make choices. They will all learn more about what is and isn’t dangerous, evil, and a waste of time.
Instead of wanting rules, and making rules, to measure and to control and to limit children, consider the principles of learning, trust, and relationships.
Editor’s Note: there are lots of writings on Sandra’s website addressing the topic of ‘screens’ – for example this page.
Looking back at nearly 40 years of motherhood, what is the most important message about parenting, that you would pass on to those just starting out on the unschooling path?
Be as gentle and sweet as you can be. Practice breathing and making the better choice, so you will be confident that you are being thoughtful.
Those small tools can build strong relationships.
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Interview by Luna Maj Vestergaard. Originally published (translated to Danish) in 2023 in the April edition of the digital magazine SKOLEFRI.
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