Sandra Dodd

A quote from a crazy-long discussion on facebook:

-=-for some of us we just learned about unschooling.. and it works the same as children.Treat us shitty and get a shitty response but treat us with respect and get it in return. :) I quit school and unschooled myself so i know there is no end..I was just a bit annoyed at Sandra and I still am...She has tons of info on how to treat children but doesnt follow her own advice towards aduts :)-=-

I thought once I started a set of people saying "You don't treat me the way you claim to treat your own children," but I can't find it and couldn't find out how to search on this list or my own page. (I mean several attempts to search failed to turns things up.)

I'll start it with this one, though, at
http://sandradodd.com/issues/neediness

Sandra

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Tamara

I think this might be the thread you are thinking of:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlwaysLearning/message/60990

The thread was called 'What Unschooling is Not'. Below is the relevant excerpt.

<<-=-I KNOW you don't treat your children like that so why me?-=-

#1, you're not the child of anyone here.
#2, you're not a child.
#3, you came to a discussion group as an adult.
#4, you have children at your house. We would like to help you treat your
children the way we treat ours.

This complaint is made a time or two a year. If a mother wants to be treated as
a child, that's beyond the scope of this list. We KNOW that many adults had
insufficient nurturing and would like to be babied and soothed and rocked and
sung to. We can't rock and sing here anyway, but mothers can heal their own sad
childhoods by babying, soothing, rocking and singing to their own children.

http://sandradodd.com/issues
http://sandradodd.com/being/healing
http://sandradodd.com/rentalk>>


--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> A quote from a crazy-long discussion on facebook:
>
> -=-for some of us we just learned about unschooling.. and it works the same as children.Treat us shitty and get a shitty response but treat us with respect and get it in return. :) I quit school and unschooled myself so i know there is no end..I was just a bit annoyed at Sandra and I still am...She has tons of info on how to treat children but doesnt follow her own advice towards aduts :)-=-
>
> I thought once I started a set of people saying "You don't treat me the way you claim to treat your own children," but I can't find it and couldn't find out how to search on this list or my own page. (I mean several attempts to search failed to turns things up.)
>
> I'll start it with this one, though, at
> http://sandradodd.com/issues/neediness
>
> Sandra
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>


BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

I have been reading that discussion since yesterday and I have a question.
"can someone that has so many incoherent thoughts and that says one thing in one line and the opposite in another unschool.
I mean , if the parent is so unclear of what unschooling and cannot even think clearly  is that parent  a good candidate to unschool their children?

Sure some take longer to start understanding unschooling more deeply than just not doing school .
It is when I someone that is just so unclear in her own thoughts and her own ideas about everything, not just unschooling, that I wonder of that person will be able to really do it well.




Alex Polikowsky

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BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

I have had, and  still have , my thoughts, words and way of thinking challenged often.
I usually stop and I think about it before I go on and on on a rant and before I feel attacked and go on a personal attack towards whoever challenged me.  I like being challenged. I learn a lot from it.
One of the things I have learned and am learning so much from the discussions in this list is to stop and think about my words. Think about why I am using them. Realize that the words I choose matter. They can change the way I think about a situation.

Today when I feel like "I have to" do something  I stop and think :" I do not have to, I can choose to or not"
Just a change in how we words something can make a huge difference in how we see a situation.
Its making my thinking so much more clear.


 
Alex Polikowsky
 
 
 


________________________________

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plaidpanties666

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY <polykowholsteins@...> wrote:
>
> I have been reading that discussion since yesterday and I have a question.
> "can someone that has so many incoherent thoughts and that says one thing in one line and the opposite in another unschool.
> I mean , if the parent is so unclear of what unschooling and cannot even think clearly  is that parent  a good candidate to unschool their children?
*****************

My experience, having known more than one mom like that in person, is that they eventually give up on unschooling. They get a curriculum or put kids in school - and discover that "works better" because for them it does.

Unschooling isn't for every family, but it doesn't often help to say "you know, I don't think you're cut out to unschool your kids". I've tried ;) and the response is usually to tell me I'm being dogmatic. I don't think I am - I'd much rather see a family homeschooling or schooling relatively peacefully than "unschooling" where the mom has a host of contradictory goals and expectations.
(I just wish so many "alternative" moms didn't think unschooling was cool - can we somehow get it to be un-cool? That would save a lot of time and energy.)

---Meredith

Jenny Cyphers

***can someone that has so many incoherent thoughts and that says one thing in one line and the opposite in another unschool.
I mean , if the parent is so unclear of what unschooling and cannot even think clearly  is that parent  a good candidate to unschool their children?***


It really depends on how open they are to examining their own beliefs and how open they are to changing.  I really don't think parents who refuse to examine their own thoughts and are unwilling to change will have very good results in unschooling.  I think there are some parents that have too much baggage to unschool.  It won't stop people from trying though.  It won't stop people from doing whatever they do and calling themselves unschoolers.

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