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November 24, is the 20th anniversary of the creation of this group. Children have been born and grown up past unschooling age in that time. Some who were kids then are parents themselves, now. Thank you for being here, and I hope you'll stay. If you scroll down at /g/AlwaysLearning you can see a chart of how many posts there were per month. It's sparse now, but it doesn't have to be. You're welcome to stir up the discussion. If you're shy, send me a note on the side and ask me to create a topic for you, or get another friend of yours to do it. We should discuss the ideas and not the individuals anyway. On that page there are some glitches, from when the group was moved. A few posts show as being older than November 2001, but it's what happens when a huge amount of info is moved, as all of this stuff was. I am VERY GRATEFUL for groups.io having enabled us to import the archives from the old yahoogroups site AND to have arranged things so that we can still use the group! It's like a miracle. Thank you one and all! Sandra P.S., thank you Davina H. for letting me know when it was time to say THANK YOU to everyone. (and if I wait until it's the 24th in Albuquerque, most of the rest of the world will be way past that, as usual)

In 2009, I wrote this chapter on problems with the idea of a child "being gifted." It's a school term, and mostly disregards any idea of multiple intelligences. It's also tied in with testing, and "IQ" (intelligence quotient, determined by test scores). In The Big Book of Unschooling, it's three pages long—first edition, pages 71-73. Second edition, 78-80. Recently I stumbled upon a serious criticism of one phrase in that writing. :-) I'll share that in another post, because this is already way long. Giftedness Words, words. Years have passed since I first objected to labeling a child "gifted." Years of my life, the lives of others who grew up with me, labeled and maybe wishing they had been, because the opposite of "gifted" is "not gifted"—nothing special. My own first epiphany concerning labels, growth curves and permanence came one day when I went home from college and saw a friend I'd gone to school with since we were in elementary school. She was tall, no doubt about it. In fourth grade, she was taller than the teacher and taller than any of the boys in our class. Just tall. Really tall. Years passed without me thinking of that label, and she stepped off her bicycle and was shorter than I am. I'm 5'4" so she was 5'2" maybe? Neither of us was tall. But I had never been tall, so there were no expectations on me. Nothing but the words in my own head made her short that day. Expectations and "goals" and assumptions about other people are not direct seeing. They're not direct being. They're threats, and dares, and challenges, and relief and joy writ large, in dust. Of course some people are better at things than others. Some can write a first draft and it's publishable. Some can make up a song and it's worthy of recording and selling. Some begin in the middle, even on their first day, of a sport or art or handicraft. Some think in patterns from birth, and so mathematics will seem obvious to them. Some dream in emotions and see people's hurts and potential whether they're raggedy and homeless or all dressed and made up and on stage. Psychology will seem elementary to them. Some have photographic memories, which is good if they're remembering a map, and bad if they've seen a serious injury. These things are not necessarily "gifts." I believe that the idea of "talent" and "giftedness" comes from the Bible, and the idea that when God gives a person a gift, the person owes that service back to God. How that came to be measured by "IQ tests" and turned into government policy could probably fill its own book. The school didn't "gift" your child, though, and he doesn't owe the school. To peek at school for a moment, there are gifted programs so that schools won't lose some of their students to private schools and so they won't be sued for failure to educate all their students (or that was some of the reason fifty years ago). Then there came to be teachers for the gifted and talented. That created jobs, programs, special equipment and more specialists. Those jobs need to be protected. Turn away from school now, and back to your own children at home. It is possible that a child who reads at the age of three will be tired of reading by the age of ten. It is possible that a child who first really reads at the age of ten will become a professor of literature and a great author. A child who can recite prime numbers or reel off the infinitesimal pieces of pi might not be able to wipe his own ass. What kind of gift is that for anyone? It's just a thing, like being able to pogo stick for an hour, or to learn all the dialog and songs in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." It will neither save nor destroy the world. Parents complain about children living in fantasy worlds sometimes, and not growing up and facing reality. I think probably in every single one of those cases, it was the parental fantasy of what the child ought to be doing that was really the problem. Now, unschooling: The principles of unschooling work the same way no matter how quick or slow or skewed-in-talent any particular child is. Helping each child do/see/experience wha

Next Payment Due: Oct 23 Amount: $220.00 Today is the day. If anyone would like to donate to the cost of this group's continued existence, I've set up some options here: https://sandradodd.com/donate This is the amount groups.io asked of yahoo groups migrating to this site, so I will keep paying it, because if I mess with amounts or levels, it could end up costing more, as we have so many members. Many quotes on my site link back to their post of origin, and because there are so many wonderful discussions in here, I think it's worth the cost. On November 24, this group will be twenty years old. Thanks for being part of it. Sandra

THANK YOU. The cost is covered now, for this group and the website, too. Twenty people swooped in and provided for all of us. If you missed this year, calendar-up for October 2022. If I'm not around, someone contact Holly Dodd or Marta Venturini Machado / Marta Pires / Marta and one of them will take care of things. Sandra P.S. It would be more fun if the swooping and providing could involve us all being in one place for a few days, and seeing if there were people willing to go fishing, shopping, to cook, to sing, to play group games with the kids... :-) Let's let this take the place of that fantasy gathering, and we can all stay safe at home. (If this doesn't look like Sandra Dodd's e-mail, it is one. "AElflaed" is my medieval-studies/SCA name.)

Hi! I am hoping someone can help me find where I read a bit about respect or being your child’s partner. I remember a story or example that went something like this - let’s say your child came home in a huff and slammed the door and threw their coat in the floor and then flopped down on the couch. You then demanded that they go and pick up their coat. Now imagine that was your friend, how would you handle it. - something like that. I would really like to read it again and am not able to find it on Sandra’s website. If anyone can send me a link or remembers where I may have read something like that, I would be very grateful. Thanks!!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2021 Laundry as love, therapy, and mindfulness practice Summer MacDonald wrote: Laundry is love. I love each person whose pants I am washing and folding. I love each meal I have shared with my family, that needed cloths and towels to wipe up the spills afterwards. (and more) This new page is a match to the one about owning and washing dishes. It is about gratitude, abundance, service, and life. https://sandradodd.com/laundry photo (a link) by Sandra Dodd

If I live long enough, I will fix up every page on my site. :-) Today, for a couple of reasons, what has surfaced is http://sandradodd.com/sex and while it will still have some rearrangement to make it easier to read vertically (it was quite horizontally laid out), some of you might have a need now that you didn't have before, or you might be new to all of this. Mostly that one page ends up being about what kids might come across online, and it's from when my middle child (now 33) was a young teen. That matches up with a more philosophical page called online safety. Some of the ideas are as good as ever, though the dangers of plain old online safety, for kids, have expanded in the more recent crazy days. Yesterday I revamped and polished up https://sandradodd.com/pudding about "The night Holly was in trouble." These are all related in the "does unschooling guarantee kids are good / trouble-free / 'successful'"—you know the kinds of questions. And all these things came up, and there are links to similar others. https://sandradodd.com/guarantee So now I'm building a page with what I wrote in 2017 about "me too." That one tends toward the philosophical realities of helping kids/teens be safe, too, but right now my daughter (nearly 30) is sitting here talking to me, so I'll finish that later. :-) It will be https://sandradodd.com/metoo but so far, it's insufficiently completed. :-) Sandra

Karen, maybe this is what you're remembering. If not, it's still pretty cool. https://sandradodd.com/chores/relationship This and much more there, mostly by Joyce: Think about how you’d want a friend to ask for your help fixing a car or doing something you didn’t really enjoy. You could probably think of dozens of other things you’d rather do with your time. And that’s something your friend should realize and appreciate. So how could your friend ask for help? And how should she treat you while you helped? And how should she treat you after, to acknowledge that she really appreciated you giving her some of your valuable time to do something she knew you really didn't want to do? _______________________________ I hope this has what you needed, and I hope it's not too late! Sandra -- (If this doesn't look like Sandra Dodd's e-mail, it is one. "AElflaed" is my medieval-studies/SCA name.)

"Yes!" and Positivity and "lifting a finger" I lifted Joyce's amendment of "Always Say Yes" and so there is new art and formatting and a direct link: https://sandradodd.com/joyce/yes.html NEW completely, about not sharing negativity, and why it's harmful. Accounts of more joy, photo, links: https://sandradodd.com/sharingnegativity New "phrase to avoid" added: "...won't lift a finger to help around the house" (plus commentary and links) https://sandradodd.com/phrases ________________________________ Also new, but still in editing: https://sandradodd.com/chats/bigbook/pages123-125_Experiences_BuildingNest.html Chat transcript about the sections of The Big Book of Unschooling, on Experiences, and Building a Nest. pages 123-125 of The Big Book of Unschooling (2009 edition) (pages 135-137 in 2019 edition) Other things are having repairs, refurbishing, debuts, very often these days. Happy September! Sandra -- (If this doesn't look like Sandra Dodd's e-mail, it is one. "AElflaed" is my medieval-studies/SCA name.)

http://aboutunschooling.blogspot.com/2021/08/site-upgrades-and-dont-struggle.html I'm going to experiment with bringing the whole post, so if there's a mess from here down, sorry about that. ( https://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2021/08/safety-and-welcome.html ) The "struggle" page has a sweet new quote (up top) and a video restored. Cleaned up, narrowed... https://sandradodd.com/struggle I finished the restoration of Just Add Light and Stir ( https://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/ ). Links to photos needed to be changed—all of them, in early years (from photobucket to SandraDodd.com) and then for a few years half, and all the "http"s needed to become "https," and a few other formulaic format improvements. Of the nearly 3900 posts, I changed all but about 300 (which were the most recent, and already "up to code"). I finished that earlier this month, after a little over a year of working on it a few hours at a time as often as I could persuade myself. Now I've moved on to webpages. My advisor and rescuer in all of this is Vlad Gurdiga, who figures out little bits of code I can use to make big changes. Many pages have been made narrower, for reading more easily on a phone. Some can't be, and some I won't get to, but increasingly, gradually, things are better. Another thing Vlad found for me was a magic spell (okay, two lines of code, and the back-end support) that will put a folder full of photos up as a gallery, and I've made my travel photos work! When you're through looking at a set, click the "x" in the top right. Travel Photos: https://sandradodd.com/photos/travels Some of the blogpage links from this page might have some image glitches or missing videos, but I will eventually repair them all, I hope. photo (a link) by Sandra Dodd, at Archeon, in The Netherlands

At her work yesterday as a customer service representative, my 17 y.o. Daughter engaged in a good conversation among 30 and 40 y.o. adults regarding parenting skills they grew up with. As a majority of them were struggling with rebellious kids, My daughter offered her perspective and absolute happiness of having a positive relationship with parents who taught her HOW to think (independently and supported ), and not WHAT to think .She gave examples of how she and her 3 siblings have been given many, many choices mixed with a whole lot of Fun family conversation about those choices without criticism, and a lot of fun laughter during chats about how the choices either do/don’t work out the way they thought ( how big of a bowl of ice cream , or any food for that matter, makes them feel well or ill) . She said they are all learned personal experiences whether it be about personal opinions, food choices, bedtime/waking choices, ‘helping with chores’ choices , learning choices, etc. And the fun thing , she said, is that it leaves no reason to rebel because it’s just fun learning and maturing along the way in an environment of kindness and without judgement or criticism when given the choices . So, I say a huge Thank you to Sandra and the ‘always learning’ support for provided the assistance for parenting happily :) Kristen

I have been thinking a lot about the example Sandra gave a while back to a mom whose kid was hiding behind the door, waiting to scare the younger brother--the suggestion was, what if the mom were to say, loud enough for everyone to hear, "your brother is behind the door, act scared." This is so easy a solution, one little sentence that makes the whole thing a non-problem, and rather, turns it into a game that connects all the participants. I have been thinking and thinking about where that response could come from in me--who would I have to be to have that response. I've been facing how the current me would be a lot more likely (at least until I read that post) to have some half-formed thought in my head that the scaring kid should not be acting that way, and then thinking I had to do something to make the scaring kid see the wrong of it, so he would not do it again. So, I started thinking, (and this is just what I imagine I would be doing if I had said that, not trying to analyze what Sandra may have been thinking at that moment) that maybe that easy, fun response was about making that one moment a good one. It wasn't in the future about keeping the kid from scaring again. It wasn't coming from a picture of how the kid ought to be different than he was at that moment. It was just about making that one moment more fun and safe for everyone. How much easier to just tryto make one moment more fun and safe, rather than trying to manage all these future (imagined) moments by trying to get the kids to change into (my idea of) fun & safe people. That makes *me* NOT fun, and NOT (emotionally) safe for my kids. Ha! Turns the whole thing on its head. I'm also struck by how just a little comment like that, relaying the idea of saying, "you're brother is behind the door, act scared," has set off such a chain of thinking and changing in me. Sometimes it is the tiniest thing that is able to get through the years of enculturated prejudice against children. I wanted to write this to thank Sandra and other poster who share the small moments of their lives here. Also, I'd welcome any further thoughts on this if I am out in left field somewhere. Maya

I'm going to quote something from a few years ago (from this group) because I came across a bit of it on Just Add Light just now, but that little bit isn't enough. But maybe this is too much. :-) The Just-Add-Light source: https://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2019/11/your-move.html The blog post I was quoting (which was that day not available yet on groups.io, and yahoogroups was about to go away) /g/AlwaysLearning/message/78147 The quote (mostly my writing): _____________________ Sometimes I’ve said that conversations, friendships, relationships, are like a chess game. You don’t get to plan out all the moves in advance and decide the end. You get to make ONE move. Then you wait. It’s a pretty good analogy, and has helped my kids sometimes when they were frustrated with lack of control or influence in a difficult situation. But here’s where the chess analogy is NOT good: Moon is rising. The night is cool, You’re sitting quietly in a place that was dark and now is lighting up. You say… "Look at the clouds." It’s like moving a pawn out. The other person might just say “hmmmm.” and indicate by that “I heard you, and I have nothing to add to that. I’m looking.” If it’s chess, it should be played out to the end. :-) But no one has a right to have the whole game/conversation played out. (Unless it’s a tournament, or you’ve paid for 50 minutes of talk therapy… none of my analogies are holding still!!) So make a move. Wait. Maybe the other person really wants to talk about clouds and weather and mystery and fairy tale, airliners and contrails and paranoid theories and North Korea. Maybe really truly NOT. -=- I have moments of such ease and flow, sharing something relevant with my child and then pausing to see if my child is interested or engaged before I share any more of my own observations or follow my child's lead of further inquiry (or not).-=- That sounds perfect. No human in all the history of the world has, or could have guessed right every time, about what to say, how much to say, how quickly, in what tone… Most humans can get a bit better at it, as time goes one. :-) I still say too much or too little with/to my husband, after knowing him for 40 years. It happened half an hour ago. Quick, it passed, but it happens. :-) ___________________ The particular post is linked above, but the longer conversation is Gaze without speaking and/or explore connections -- (This doesn't look like Sandra Dodd's e-mail, but it is one.)

https://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2021/05/swirling-and-wonderful.html New things on the site, today. A sound file of a Robyn Coburn presentation from 2005. IF YOU SUBSCRIBE to Just Add Light, you might've noticed the e-mails are different. We were given just a couple of months to bail, as Google's subscription tool is dropping the e-mail feature at the end of June. The new one has some better options, but also some links to learn to ignore. :-) It's expensive to take those off, and I'm trying to get the site stable AND cheap, so it can last a long time. Four other blogs still have the option to subscribe to by mail, and those are linked from this announcement. Impermanence AGAIN!? https://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2021/06/impermanence-again.html These don't affect Always Learning directly, but I'm hoping everyone here is also reading other things from me, and there those are. :-) I posted a somewhat-retiring notice, too, on a group that's closed/archived now, so I saved my parts here: Retirement, spiritual retreat, cocooning... https://sandradodd.blogspot.com/2021/05/retirement-spiritual-retreat-cocooning.html I'm trying to go through all my notes and snippets of webpage repairs and additions. If you're in on SandraDodd.com and you find a page that's having problems **from a computer** please let me know. Lots of pages have problems from phones. I can't revamp a 20-year-old site because smart phones came along the other day. :-) (I use my phone a lot, but not for e-mail and not for webpages.) Sandra -- (This might not look like Sandra Dodd's e-mail, but it is one.)

There is a rich but obscure page with nine good questions and my advance-answers, before a visit to speak to a group in Kuranda, in Queensland. Unschoolers in Cairns had organized it, so I named it that before I knew "Kuranda." :-) I think it's a good read, and has lots of links, so if you or someone you know is new to unschooling, or just feel like seeing if you could guess my answers or something, here it is! Have fun. :-) https://sandradodd.com/cairns

My 11 and 13 year old daughters like to stay up late together. However my 13 year old has consistently been forgetting to put her retainer in before heading to bed. I usually get them a snack, give her before bed medication and ask them to brush their teeth before I head to bed around 11pm (the younger kids wake up early no matter when they go to bed). The 11 and 13 year olds sometimes want to eat later and so they don't want to brush their teeth but then forget after I'm already asleep. I need help with ideas, especially to help my husband, as he's concerned about how much we spend on dental work and orthodontics.

I'm working on some rearrangements and pillow-fluffing at https://sandradodd.com/deschooling/ and thought I would bring one new little bit here. At the bottom, I added three links. You'll see why if you go there. Just Do it. ( https://sandradodd.com/doit ) Don't talk it. ( https://sandradodd.com//quiet ) Be it. ( https://sandradodd.com//being/ ) I first went in to add this link: https://sandradodd.com/reallearning Even if you've unschooled for a long time, schoolishness will sneak back up on you. Some of your old beliefs and reactions might not have been triggered yet, because your child isn't at the age at which you had some thought, or pressure, or trauma (minor or major) in your own life. Consider taking your deschooling in for a tune up every year or two. Sandra -- (This doesn't look like Sandra Dodd's e-mail, but it is one.)

Balance and Perception Karen James wrote something new this week and I snagged it right up. New writing on balance, by Karen James, added here: https://sandradodd.com/balance#karen (That will lead right to it.) An older page, some new images, all links recently solidified: The Blindmen and the Elephant -- (This doesn't look like Sandra Dodd's e-mail, but it is one.)

Greetings! Am suddenly feeling quite anxious regarding this being a required testing year for my fifteen year old son. Is there anyone in this forum who lives in the State of Georgia who might be willing and able to offer some guidance? I do not test my son, and he has never been graded. I know we don't need to turn the test in but I don't even like putting my son through it. I don't feel like it's "right" not to do it either. Am feeling like a bit of a failure as an unschooling parent as we approach these so-called high school years. Sigh. Appreciate any feedback. Peacefully, Karen