Sandra Dodd

Because of the recent accidental change in the way people join this discussion, now facebook asks people to say why they want to join. We never used to ask before; people just joined. Two, in my mail this morning, one person said she wanted encouragement and support and another said she wanted to be part of a community.

I know people do want those things, but I want to remind everyone that a discussion of ideas might not seem encouraging or supportive when the ideas are foreign or scary or seem odd. Yet that's what the Always Learning discussion is and always has been. We're going to discuss ideas as ideas, to help people (whoever wants to) understand those ideas well enough to use them to become unschoolers at their own homes, in their own lives. Not in a community, but in their own hearts and minds—in their understanding and reactions and behaviors.

If one person here benefits from a discussion, that's fine. It's fine if it's not the person who actually asked the question. :-)

If someone is sensitive and offended and goes away, that's also fine, as long as someone else saw the exchange and learned something useful from the interation.

"Community" isn't something we can provide here, nor is it always a desirable thing. Someone can have a real-life community of people who aren't unschoolers, and still learn about unschooling here.

Here are some problems with "community." It's also quite cool if, from online exchanges, in-person meet-ups and from conferences, an unschooling family finds other families to do things with, to visit, to hang out with. But that is separate from unschooling itself.

http://sandradodd.com/unschoolworld

Sandra

Sandra Dodd

Even though this "support and community post went out two days ago, yesterday someone complained about a post being returned, that was a local question.

Here's part of my response:

-=-How do you judge who can post on this topic? I am interested in how you think and the spoken and unspoken 'rules' you moderate by for the Always Learning list.-=-

It's not who, it's what.

You can read more about the philosophy behind how the discussion has run for a dozen years here (the page and its links):
http://sandradodd.com/lists/alwayslearning

Not everyone will like the Always Learning list, but those with the urge to complain should just find a different place to read and post.  
I said twelve years.  It's eleven years and eleven months.  11:11, to the day. :-)     
The #12 anniversary will be 11/24/13.   The first post was by Deb Lewis, and she still sometimes reads and posts, which is a treasure.  Pam Sorooshian and Joyce Fetteroll have been helping from the very beginning, too.  I don't think there's another discussion anywhere as solid and reliable as this one, and I'm protective.  

Sandra