Sandra Dodd

I really like that you brought the skeptics along on your own gradual
journey as a skeptic yourself. All that part is nicely phrased.

I have two points to make for your future writings and thought.

-=-My middle child has never been to school or even attempted anything
remotely resembling school; yet, at 7 he can read because he wanted
to.-=-

He can read because he was developmentally able to read. Wanting to
read doesn't enable reading. Many seven year olds want to read but
aren't ready yet (especially boys). Many four year olds would LOVE to
read, but very few are going to figure it out at that age, with or
without help. The danger of having statements like that out there an
unchallenged is that some unschooling family with a seven or eight
year old who isn't reading might say "unschooling doesn't work because
my child wants to read and can't."

The other thing is more minor.

"At this point I opened up my mind to the thoughts of unschooling and
started reading book after book about it. I realized that I needed to
throw away conventional thinking and open up my mind to the
possibility that what I thought of as learning may not be the only
path to knowledge. My discovery took place because of pioneers:
Holt, Gatto, Kohn, and Sandra Dodd."

Gatto and Kohn don't write about unschooling. So their books are
linked there but they're neither about unschooling. Not that they
won't help people move toward it; they can. Just as a technicality,
though...

Sandra



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