Posted by Frank Maier on June 6, 2009 at 7:29pm in New to Radical Unschooling

A confession, an apology, and a story, all wrapped together in a melange of flavorful goodness. Sorta. So little to say and so much time. Strike that. Reverse it. Let me begin in media res.

Back in the last millennium when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and the internet was being worked on by Al Gore, my wife, Ronnie, started interacting with the eminences grises, the doyennes of unschooling. There were several and they all deserve mention in the greater scheme of things; but this is a particular story, and it's my story. So I'm gonna talk about Sandra Dodd.

I did not follow or participate in those early online forays of Ronnie's except when she'd call me over once in a while to view a particular message or thread. After about a year of these sporadic, limited looks into those discussions, I opined to Ronnie that it seemed to me that that Sandra Dodd person was pretty blunt and maybe newbies would be put off by her style.

That brings us to the confession portion of this post. Yes, Sandra, my first impression of your online self was that you were awfully blunt. Perhaps too much so. Ronnie demurred and said that when Sandra or the other blunt speakers were offline, threads would drift into odd and unuseful directions. Stuff like: Well, if *you* feel it necessary to limit tv, then maybe you should. Ok, I understand that you're saying that you differentiate a swat on the butt "spanking" from hitting and I guess that's ok for you. Etc. You get the idea.

A lot of years passed and a lot of stuff happened during those years but let's fast forward to here and now. Viewing and participating in, briefly, this recent spate of threads has prompted me to state publicly what I learned in those intervening years.

Sandra, you are a saint with the patience of Job. I hereby officially apologize for thinking otherwise all those years ago. Ronnie was absolutely correct and I was absolutely wrong. Your "bluntness" is blindingly necessary and your patience is vast, especially compared to my own. I'd typically rather be playing with my wife and kids than writing on any ng and that's where I'm heading now.

Sandra, thanks for being you!