Sandra is a long-time unschooling mom of three—Kirby, Marty, and Holly—who are now adults. She’s also the creator of the awesome unschooling resource, sandradodd.com.
In today’s episode, I ask her ten questions about her unschooling experience.
Quote of the Week
“If your child is more important than your vision of your child, life becomes easier.” ~ Sandra Dodd
Ten Questions for Sandra
1. I’ve always loved your short essay, “Rejecting a Pre-Packaged Life.” I’ve linked to it in my intro to unschooling materials for years. I’m pretty sure I first came across it way back in 2002 and the paradigm shift you talk about was both fundamental and inspiring at the beginning of my unschooling journey. Can you talk a bit about that shift?
2. Before you began unschooling, you were a teacher. What were some of the challenges to learning that you saw in the classroom environment?
3. When you children were young, I imagine that with three at home sometimes conflicts arose. Can you share some of the ways you approached them?
4. As your children got older and spent more time in activities in the community, what were some of the differences you noticed between the schooled and unschooled kids?
5. One topic that pops up pretty regularly in unschooling groups is online safety—there’s a lot of fear wrapped up in there. How did you handle that?
6. Another essay of yours that I love is “Public School on Your Own Terms.” In it, you talk about how, even if unschooling isn’t an option for a family at the time, there are ways to lessen the power that school exerts over their lives. Can you share some of those ideas?
7. Your children have taken some college courses over the years. Can you share a couple of stories about their experiences?
8. What’s life like for you and your husband now that all your children have moved out? Can you still feel the influence of the unschooling lifestyle in your days?
9. You’ve continued volunteering your time and effort in the unschooling community—answering questions online, speaking, sending out Just Add Light And Stir blog posts every day, and maintaining your extensive and amazing website. That’s awesome for us all! I’d love to hear what has drawn you to stay involved, even after your children have become adults.
10. Looking back now, what, for you, has been the most valuable outcome from choosing unschooling?
Links to things mentioned in the show
Sandra’s extensive unschooling website: sandradodd.com
Sandra’s daily inspirational posts: Just Add Light and Stir
Sandra’s essay: Rejecting a Pre-Packaged Life
Sandra’s Marty story details: What do you say about sex?
Sandra’s essay: Public School on Your Own Terms
Sandra’s yahoo email list: Always Learning
You can find Sandra in the Facebook group: Radical Unschooling Info
Sandra’s magical unschooling search page: is here
If you’d like to submit a question for an upcoming Q&A episode, just go to livingjoyfully.ca/podcast.
I’m just lapping up these interviews with all my favourite unschoolers!
I started unschooling and investigating unschooling at the end of last year when we decided our 10 year old with OCD would be better at home. He has thrived!
Now my 13 year old is trying out homeschooling with this week being our first week. He adored it!
I think I am the one struggling most with it all of course. They are just off living and exploring.
I have Aspergers and am finding the lack of structure tricky especially as our teen is a night person and our 10 yr old a morning person.
How do we find the time to do things together…and not stress about it!
Also the perfectionist in me feels pressure to strew madly and run around finding things everywhere. I find it hard to turn that off and can become a little overwhelmed.
However once we sort those issues and I calm down a little, I’m sure it will be wonderful, as it is already. It sure beats doing the school run and homework!
Love all you do.
Thanks so much.
Jazzy Jack
Hi, Jazzy Jack!
I totally remember the overwhelm of the first year or so. But you’re right, as you figure things out, learn more about unschooling and about each other, things will settle down. 🙂
And it sure does beat the school run and homework. Haha.
Have fun!
Thanks so much for the podcasts and TUC talks. Our family loves audio…there’s a much-used radio in almost every room in the house :). I love the “quote of the week” above from Sandra. It struck me especially because it reminded me of the Patricia Evans books on verbal abuse (which includes emotional abuse that’s non-verbal too), in which she describes the opposite of making the child (or significant other, etc.) more important than one’s vision of that person. She says that is what leads to verbal abuse: constantly comparing someone with your ideal of them instead of trying to know them with them as participant. This seems to relate very much to institutional schooling compared to unschooling.
Glad you’re enjoying the podcast and talks, Fern! 🙂
I love Sandra’s quote too, and that’s an interesting connection with Patricia Evans’ books. Your comparison with school seems apt as well—test marks and grades are a comparison of each student against a fictional ideal.
Interesting!
Laughing with you guys, so funny! I have totally told my daughter to go watch TV for the same reason!
Update: Marty got a bachelor’s degree in Economics with a minor in geography, in May 2018. His wife and baby son were there, and a month ago (March 2020) they had a baby girl.
He works from home on a contract helping with the maps Siri’s using, for New Mexico and Colorado. If Siri steers you wrong, let me know and I’ll pass it on.
Kirby, the oldest, is working from home, too, now, for a while, and has the girl mentioned in the interview (whom he adopted), and two more since then. They live a third of a mile from us.
Holly moved back home, and is working on a vegetable farm closer to the Rio Grande. She’s thinking of moving closer to there someday, perhaps with enough land to grow some things. (Our own yard is too full of trees to grow any vegetables. We grew shade.)