The Ladies Fixing the World
Three Moms, One Podcast: Conversations on Unschooling and Parenting
In Season 2 & 3 of The Ladies Fixing the World, Cecilie Conrad is joined by renowned unschooling pioneers Sandra Dodd and Sue Elvis to redefine what learning can truly look like. Together, they explore the philosophy and practicalities of unschooling—where curiosity, trust, and relationships replace rigid curricula—and how this approach transforms both families and personal growth.
The Ladies Fixing the World
S2E7 | Unschooling is Carried by Conversations
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Dinner tables, car rides, bedtime chats, café corners—this episode dives into the real places where unschooling lives and grows. Cecilie Conrad, Sandra Dodd, and Sue Elvis examine how conversations—often unscheduled, informal, and unplanned—become the central structure of a learning life.
They discuss the Danish tradition of the daily family dinner, the rigid rituals of American mealtime culture, and the café catch-ups that shaped Sue’s large family. The conversation travels through memories, cultural habits, and practical insights into how families can hold space for curiosity, connection, and growth—without curriculum, tests, or set agendas.
From Barbie movies to Shakespeare, from family language to late-night moral debates, this episode makes a clear point: talking is the work. The learning isn’t beside the conversation—it’s inside it.
🗓️ Recorded February 20, 2025. 📍 Finhan, France
🔗 Links & Resources
- https://sandradodd.com/latenightlearning
- https://sandradodd.com
- https://storiesofanunschoolingfamily.com
- https://cecilieconrad.com
In season 3 of Ladies Fixing the World, host Cecilie Conrad is joined by longtime unschooling voices Sandra Dodd and Sue Elvis to explore unschooling as a lifestyle.
So welcome . Today we are recording episode seven of the Ladies Fixing the World , season two , and we decided to be a little organized and introduce ourselves . I'll quickly do it . I am Celia . I'm from Denmark , I'm currently in the south of France and I am here with two of my good friends talking about unschooling . So do you want to say hi ? I'm Sandra Dodd .
Sandra DoddHi , and I'm in New Mexico in the United States , and that's all . That's all . I've unschooled for a long time , so I'm in the warmest middle place when we're scheduling these things . I've unschooled for a long time , so I'm in the warmest middle place when we're scheduling these things and I'm Sue Alphus from Australia .
Sue ElvisWe live a little bit south of Sydney in the state of New South Wales . Looking forward to the conversation , Sandra and Cecilia .
Cecilie ConradYeah , and conversation is the word today , because we're having a conversation about conversation , about how unschooling is . Often we say that unschooling is carried by conversation , or the means of transportation is very often conversation . It seems like it's just one long conversation . So that is the hat we're putting on today . And before we started recording , sandra prompted me to talk about the Danish dinner and I can't remember Sandra . Did we ? Did we talk about that on the last episode ? Why did I start ?
Sandra Doddit was afterwards . It was after the you had stopped recording .
Cecilie ConradLast time you told us about it , okay so meanwhile , in between the last recording of the ladies and now I have talked to the lady who wrote the book um , the danish way of parenting . On my other podcast that I host with my husband , self-directed and this is a funny book , like . There is a book called the Little Book on Hygge and the Little Book , another one called the Little Book on Lykke , which is can somewhat be translated to happiness . These books are fascination of my culture and I picked up this , the danish way of parenting in a bookshop somewhere and I thought I don't need to read this . Obviously I'm danish . And then I talked to that lady and and she's american , she married a danish guy , she lived in rome and then they moved to denmark and maybe they lived other places , I can't remember and it was interesting to get this outside perspective on where I come from , because my way of thinking comes from the Scandinavian style , the Danish style , and one of the things that we do , which is still an institution and parenting in Denmark is we have this idea to be a good parent , to be a good family .
Cecilie ConradYou have a sit-down dinner every day and it's a home-cooked meal . That's falling a little bit apart like in the rest of the world , but less so in scandinavia than in many other places I've visited . Um , you have a sit-down dinner . Everybody joins no phones on the table . You have a conversation . You stay at the dinner table if you're old enough to hold a conversation . If you're a little one , you run off . It's not , it's not , it's not old-fashioned in that way . It's more like you bring the family together , you make sure you catch up with everyone , you make sure you reconnect , and I took that for granted . I take that for granted , that everyone does that , and I realize now that I've been traveling that they don't . That that's not an axiom , that's not a given everywhere , that you have a sit down dinner on a daily basis , which , especially if you have a life where you don't unschool , where you go to your different corners and your different projects every day , well then , when do you have a conversation ? The whole family .
Sandra DoddI don't know . I think in New Mexico we travel a lot because things are far apart and there's not public transportation , because things are far apart , because there's not that many people for as much land as there is , so we're in the car a lot and that was where we shared a lot of information and music and stories and questions . Just as an answer to your question , when could it happen if it wasn't at the table ?
Cecilie ConradI can't remember why we thought that this would be the perfect opening for the conversation on how unschooling is carried by conversation .
Sandra DoddWell , I think a lot of people have that assumption that if there's a family dinner that's when you can talk . But someone pointed out once in an unschooling discussion that if everyone's been out of the house off to work , off to school , and they come back , that's their chance to say what happened that day .
Cecilie ConradBut if most of the family has been together all day , they don't have as great a need for a review or report , I agree , and also they don't have the same need for reconnecting . So if you go to different corners , you say goodbye . Maybe you say goodbye to smaller children who are maybe less comfortable being away from home . There is an emotional need to feel that we're we're a group again , that we belong , that we have each other's back , and that dinner table kind of is the ritual where you reconfirm we're a unit and it can be horrible because a lot of emotion comes out .
Sandra DoddSue , when all of your kids were home and you had eight children did you have a 10 person dining dining ?
Sue Elvistable we do . For many , many years I had my eye on the perfect table and I never got it until quite a few years ago now , but some of my kids were grown up by that stage . But I always wanted a big , long pine table with 10 chairs around it and , for financial reasons , space in our previous homes all that kind of thing . We were always . Our table was okay , we always sat around it and there was enough room for everybody . But it wasn't the table of my dreams . I imagined having this beautiful table , extra spaces , if we had people coming for dinner and it was . The table would be the centerpiece of our social life . And I got this big table . Now I've only got one shower at home .
Sue ElvisAnd I begin to think that it's not so much having the beautiful table , it's the number of wonderful dinners we had all scrunched up around a smaller table and we went to the garage and we got fold up chairs for extra people and we didn't seem to care . It wasn't the table , it was the act of sitting together together . But I do love my table , but these days mostly it's a place where we put the clean washing when I'm sorting out the washing . But the other ? We have two tables . We have one well , it fits more than 10 people all around 10 people with
The Role of Conversation in Unschooling
Sue Elvislovely matching chairs , but there's room to squeeze a few more chairs in . But in another room we have a table and chairs for six people and we never , ever used it because there were too many of us .
Sue ElvisAnd that's coming into its own these days when my kids come to dinner on Sunday , or my local kids , because some of my kids don't live near us anymore . We all get there is there are six of us and we sit around that table because it's cozier . We don't want to all spread around the big table and we always , on Sunday evening , gather around the table and catch up from our week . But the two things were . We enjoy sitting around the table chatting , but the other thing was the passing of time . I could never imagine a time when we would use that table , uh , so I guess it's um , we're still talking around the table but , as she was saying , sandra , um , conversations happen anywhere but the other place .
Sue ElvisWe've had a lot of conversations does involve a table , but in cafes we're cafe people . Most of my kids have worked in hospitality at least for some part of their working life , and that's where we go for our social time , and our catch-up time is that we go out together , one-on-one , sit around on opposite sides of a cafe table and spend a couple of hours talking , catching up . So tables are good , but I must admit there are times these days when there's only two of us at home , or always three of us , but sometimes my youngest doesn't make it home from work in time for dinner and I think it's not really worth setting the table anymore . I guess I have these visions , you know , you see them in the movies big , long table and there's a mother and a father , one each end of the table , and you're shouting between the two of you and I thought , no , that doesn't feel right anymore . But yeah , I miss conversations around the table .
Sandra DoddI was going , I what we . We had a conversation about this that wasn't recorded a while back , and one thing I said I would do is I would tell Cecilia why I was a little jittery and opposed to making people sit at the table , and I think it's because , you know , they say that American culture is too puritanical . But the Puritans were up in the Northeast , west , southeast , all along . The bottom is people came from Ireland , scotland , protestants , england some and they were very harsh , and what they call the Bible Belt now is made of those people who have been there for a long time two or three hundred years of of basing their lives on a religion that was threatening in a way you know what they call fire and brimstone , and so the model of those dinners I didn't live with them because my parents had been of that group but they weren't themselves very religious . They wouldn't let me cut my hair or pierce my ears because they were that religious , but they didn't go to church anymore . So the culture is still there , even without the churchiness sometimes because there have been so many generations of . This is what you have to do or be to be good . So the dinners that would happen in a family like that would be be there on time , be dressed right , sit right , hold your fork right , but not yet , not until after the prayer . So they say grace , and sometimes grace is even threatening a little bit about being good . And then you . Now it's a test . The rest of the meal is a test . Do you know how to sit ? Do you know how to not lean on the table ? Do you know which fork to use Not which fork , but you know what I mean which utensil to use , how , and don't get up until you're joy in that tradition . And I know there are lots of American families who have great dinners together and have a good time , and there are a lot of religious Southern families who managed to pull that off too , who are not harsh . I've seen the harsh families who managed to pull that off too , who are not harsh . I've seen the harsh , and I could not meld that with unschooling .
Sandra DoddAlso , by the time we were , our kids were old enough to eat adult food , you know , so that we weren't just giving them something easy for little kids to eat . They had things going on , activities , and so sometimes there someone just wasn't there at dinnertime . So I would usually make food and then some of us would sit down Two or three people might sit down and somebody might eat at the computer and somebody might have to come back and get theirs later . We'd have saved some by , and so , even with only five people in the family , it wasn't something that became a tradition with us , but some of those activities I was the driver , so I got to talk to my son twice a week all the way to karate class and back . My daughter would take theater and dance classes and I would be the driver . Sometimes there's another kid with us ice skating lessons and hockey at a place that was about 15 miles from where Kirby did karate and they were a half an hour offset .
Sandra DoddSo Holly would ride with me . I don't remember the order anymore . I would take Kirby and then take Marty and then go pick up Kirby and then go pick up Marty . It was pretty much just drive , drive , drive . So Holly got to be in these conversations with her brothers and I got to talk to them , sometimes both of them in the car . I loved those times . That was really rich , and they would have stories as soon as I picked them up , stories of how that went , that session , that lesson , whatever it was , and so I just think of the car . A lot People criticize Americans for having cars and then they overlay a map of Europe on the United States and then they never say that I'm in . I'm in a state that's the fifth largest state and only has two million people , so we have a lot of space and you can get anywhere without driving .
Sandra DoddI mean people learn to drive at 15 or 16 because it's an inconvenience for the family if they don't so that I live in a car , so I wouldn't be the one to criticize you for your car I love my car , I love the roads , I love a good highway . Well you know , conversations can happen while you're driving , even if just two people are awake .
Cecilie ConradSometimes that's the best someone needs to keep the driver awake well , driving conversations in the car can be very , very good conversations . It can be all five , six of us . It can be the kids hanging out in the back doing their thing and my husband and I talking . That's maybe not so much about unschooling but about my relationship with my husband , homeschooling but about my relationship with my husband . But most of our conversation happens when we drive , because we drive a lot when we travel and you can't do much other when you drive .
Cecilie ConradIt's hard to sit in the car and work and it's hard to focus on other stuff .
Cecilie ConradSo it's a good time for conversation , which actually means that sometimes we even try to make up an excuse to go somewhere because we need to talk , which is stupid . But if we stay in the same place for a long time , then once we leave and need to drive a thousand or two thousand kilometers , it's really nice because we get a lot of time to talk and and I definitely don't think that the dinner table is the only place to talk and I do not think that you have to do that sit down dinner . That is is an ideal for the Danish way of parenting , I think getting together on a daily basis , checking in , catching up . Trying to be one group now and then maybe daily , when the kids are not very small , can be a good thing if it's managed in a good way . But if it's a regime and it's all about the rules who speaks in what order and how do you hold your fork , and when do you do and say what and how fast do you eat , and all these things then it's obviously horrible .
Sandra DoddI grew up with that I forgot to say no singing at the table . No laughing at the table . Don't talk if the adults are talking . There were just too many things that made it not fun , and I have been to relatives' houses where I accidentally took a drink of tea or whatever before the prayer . It's so bad . Everyone just stops what they're doing and stares at you like the devil is sitting there . I hope that's fading . I'm sure it's fading because I'm old now and so maybe those were things that are fading everywhere . I'm being generous to people I know who are trying to keep it from fading .
Sue ElvisWell , it doesn't sound like a very enjoyable way of spending time with family . In our house we never met for breakfast or lunch . Those were meals where people got up and got what they liked and ate where they liked and where it fitted in with their life . But yeah , we always gathered at the table at the evening . But it was like , it was a sense . We had a sense of belonging , this was our circle . And if there weren't any rules ? But obviously different families have different traditions , different ways of doing things , and I guess for us that was a way of bonding us together . It's like having a family language or family jokes , or this is what we do in our family . And then when we had visitors or guests of my children , they joined in around the table and I always remember my kids wanting to you know , come and meet my family , sit at our family table . And for us it was a totally different experience to the one you're describing , sandra , but I can understand how that could come about .
Sandra DoddPerhaps , I was just living in reaction to knowing that it could be negative . I think I was afraid of it .
Sue ElvisI don't know . We didn't have any rules . If somebody was working late , we put their dinner to one side . It was heated later on and they ate by themselves . We did say grace , but I don't think we frowned on anybody . If they started early , Well , you wouldn't frown at your visitors , would you ? That would be totally rude . I think you were more likely just to pass over quickly and get on with eating to make them feel comfortable . But yeah , I hadn't thought about that before . Sandra , it's amazing how you judge things on your own experiences , and it's so interesting to hear customs traditions , the way people do things in other families .
Sandra DoddIt isn't the whole united states ,
The Importance of Family Dinners
Sandra DoddAnd just because I was traumatized a little bit or spooked doesn't mean I should generalize that to anyone . So there's my disclaimer , or a few are still up , because when things get still and quiet and kids start to think they can ask questions that they might not have asked at the table or in the car because things were flowing quickly or they might think too many people are listening to them and somebody might laugh or make fun or make light of it . But if it's sometimes a one-on-one or two-on-one conversation late at night , some of those are the very best . And so early on in my unschooling I was encouraging people to let kids go to sleep . When they're sleepy , don't schedule life so much , because sometimes in that time when someone is maybe getting sleepy , their thoughts are different . Their thoughts are . I think you may be already getting to the point in your day where your brain is starting to sort and organize and file me and anyone , anyone , what happens in europe .
Cecilie ConradI'm , I'm at that end of the day at least . Oh , yes , you , yeah , you're at night time . I'm in the middle of the day and sue's early morning .
Sandra DoddSo when you're getting to that point where your brain is starting to slow down , I think some wonderful thoughts come . People go to bed whether they're sleepy or not . I saw in those examples conversations that were educational I don't like the term very much but conversations in which topics were turned over , slowly , examined nicely , interestingly . So in those conversations the children get information they didn't have before and the parents see what the child knows . I think that's one of the most valuable parts of any of these conversations is that's how the children learn . That's how the parents learn what the children are knowing and thinking about .
Cecilie ConradI think also a lot of learning or realization growing happens in conversations . We're having one right now and as I was walking out to the van to have this podcast recording in my end relatively late in the day , I was thinking can I even stay awake ? I'm so tired , how can I do it ? And once we start talking , I'm ignited . It's interesting , I'm alive and and I'm thinking , my brain is working and and that was the reason we thought we would have a conversation about how important conversation is to unschooling , because that's where it all happens , that's where the juice is and it's not important whether it's around a formal or informal dinner table or happening in a car or late at night in the sofa or whatever .
Cecilie ConradAnother very , very good um context for conversation is walking . At least in my family , we really like going on long hikes . We used to have a rule of doing at least 10 kilometers once a week because that just unwinds everything and everybody has enough time to to talk about everything we need to talk about with everyone in the family . Talk about everything we need to talk about with everyone in the family , and I think this , this way of connecting but also exploring together in a very informal format of just chatting . Basically , there's no , there's no agenda for a conversation around a dinner table . There are no exams . No , you know , you will not grade it afterwards . It's it's just a long ongoing thing .
Sue ElvisYou may , might , pick up something from yesterday , you might put in a new idea , you might want to share something you just learned I think one of the good things about talking around a dinner table is getting used to uh , communicating well with other people and listening , and not using dinner . Take the dinner table as a formal way of teaching communication skills , but it sort of comes up naturally that we learn to listen to each other and to take turns and to make sure everybody is part of the conversation , and even things like storytelling . We learn how to tell a story , we learn how to , yeah , just share what's on our minds , but the thing I think mostly that we have learnt from the dinner table is to include everybody , because there's lots of us there and I think one of the worst things that we have sometimes if we're around the table and side conversations break out or somebody gets lost in and doesn't get to say anything , especially when you've got a lot of people . I just remember when one of my children was I don't know a teenager maybe , and she went somewhere , somewhere socially , and she said that all the other teenagers were very good at talking but none of them were good at listening and you had to really fight to say something and they weren't really interested in what she had to say anyway . So she gave up and she said they haven't learned , mum , to listen to the other person and to take an interest . All they're concerned about is to tell what they want to say , which it might be interesting .
Sue ElvisBut conversations are back and forth between people . We all have an input , we all say something . It's not a monologue , and I think that around the table does give us a chance to make sure that everybody is able to talk if that's what they want to do . It's good preparation for social occasions , I think , but in a natural way it's not like . This is a training ground and these are the rules we have to do . You sort of just say hey , you know , let somebody else say what . Somebody over there wants to say something . Let's listen to her in a very informal way . But I think that's what we've got out . Another thing we've got out of having conversations with quite a few people around a table .
Sandra DoddIt sounds wonderful . I have a story that I found . I started making a page because when this comes out I definitely want to embed it , because I didn't have a page on conversation . So I was looking up what on my side I could bring to quote . I worked on it all morning . So here's a story that I found . I wrote it in 2002 , but it was earlier because let me think he was born in 86 , so this would have been early 1990s .
Sandra DoddI had bought the books what your First Grader Needs to Know , what your Second Grader Needs to Know . When we first decided to keep him home , we were going to unschool but I just wanted to have that sort of like a checklist on the side . One night he wanted me to read him to sleep and the littler kids were already asleep . List on the side . But then one night he wanted me to read him to sleep and the littler kids were already asleep , and so I was reading . This is what I wrote Once when Kirby was little , I was reading him to sleep with what your first grader needs to know and he got so excited about the definitions of music that he got up to go tell his dad that music has melody and rhythm .
Sandra DoddHe was clapping a pattern I had shown him . His dad , having been a musical guy since childhood , wasn't surprised at the news , but he was glad that a five-year-old could be so interested . So what made me think of that was Cecilia saying that if you're sleepy but then you get a conversation , you wake up more . So he certainly did . I mean he wanted me to read to him , but then he said I have to go tell daddy . That was so cute . I still remember that night I stayed in the bedroom and I overheard him telling him two rooms away . It was sweet .
Sue ElvisThat reminds me of . It's not directly related , but I had this idea , memory come back , about an art of conversation course that I did once with a group of other parents , and the person who was leading the class said that when we're talking with people , especially people that we don't know very well , if we want a good conversation , if we want to make that person feel part of the group , we have to find their turkey . And he gave the story about this woman who nobody could include in the conversation . She just everything came . You'd say something and she would give a one word answer . Nothing really got her excited until somebody brought up the topic of turkeys and all of a sudden she just came to life and turkeys were her passion . So , yeah , she wanted to talk about turkeys and , um , she was a different woman .
Sue ElvisAnd when somebody is passionate about something in a conversation , it's contagious , isn't it ? That all of a sudden , even if you don't like turkeys , you see it through the other person's eyes and you think , wow , maybe turkeys are interesting after all . So within our family we have this phrase find somebody's turkey , so that if you're talking within a group and you don't
Conversation Alternatives: Cars, Hikes, and More
Sue Elvisknow someone very well , just keep on trying until you find their turkey . And once you found their turkey , the conversation will really flow . They'll feel included , they'll feel somebody , they have something to contribute to the conversation . But not just that they'll be excited and might be excited as well .
Sandra DoddI was introduced at a party one time by a friend of mine who was a good hostess , and so she introduced me to someone I didn't know at all and she said oh , this is so-and-so , he's an attorney . This is my friend , sandra . She's a writer . This is so-and-so , he's an attorney . This is my friend , sandra , she's a writer . And she took off and I was left there with big eyes speaking to an absolute stranger and he said oh , what do you write ? And I thought for a couple of seconds and I said humorous how-to .
Sandra DoddI couldn't think of how else to describe it because at the time I was writing partly about homeschooling and partly about parenting and partly about this medieval studies club I was in , mostly about virtues and behavior . You know how to be , how to think . And I thought how can I summarize what kind of writing I do ? Humorous how-to . That's all I came up with .
Sandra DoddSo he didn't know what to ask after that . But I didn't know what to say , because when you say somebody's a writer , somebody else assumes that they're making money doing that . Right , and so I'm good at something that I don't make money at , that's fine . And I , I do write , I do , I write plenty . But the thing about the turkeys is no one knew right , it just accidentally came up randomly . Yeah , so it was with kirby and the music theory chapter , because I thought I was finding a boring section that would help him go to sleep , and so I thought , well , he's five or six , however old . He was six probably , and I'll read to him about music theory . But he just perked right up and ran out of the room , so yay and wanted to talk about it more with someone .
Cecilie ConradThat's the interesting . One interesting element is that we don't like talking about learning too much when we talk about unschooling , but then again we are talking about how learning happens in a different way and and it's just so clear that the things we share with our stories and we want to explain to someone else that we just had this realization or we just learned something , once we share it , it sticks more , it becomes part of our vocabulary , becomes part of our vocabulary , part of our knowledge , and I see in in , in the unschooling that I'm doing . It sounds weird , it's a weird way of phrasing my life , but I mean , I'm living this unschooling life with , uh , three kids who are still home and they , they come and they share things with me every day . They want to explain and and they want to tell me things they figured out or thought about . And I think , if we're talking about unschooling as as something that happens to a great extent via conversation , it's important to maybe not sit around a dinner table but to make space for that conversation .
Cecilie ConradI've had a lot of conversations with my husband about how much coffee I drink and how much it looks like I'm just hanging out doing nothing , because I'm just chatting with the kids all day . But he understands now that's my job , that's my role in the family to be the one who listens and asks questions and wants to know . And I'm available . I'm not trying to not be busy doing something else , making space for this conversation and also learning to hold it . I would say , like you have a formal setting around the dinner table . There are some , maybe some , guidelines you have . Sometimes I need to tell my kids . I cannot listen to what you're sharing with me right now because I'm not focused . I'm halfway doing something else . Will you please let me finish what I'm doing so that I can hear this thing you just learned about ? I don't know . I just heard today about how the potato was introduced at the French royal family once . And yeah , whatever that the French royal family wants , and yeah whatever , and they know how to say potato in Polish .
Sandra DoddI remember that from another episode , chimniaki . Exactly , I think anything that a family does that's peaceful and the kids are interested in doing is great . It's perfect . I also think that because I used to teach , teach and maybe you two have taught too , and Sue's husband is teaching when I used to plan a lesson or an activity , I would think of it this way . I have 30 kids It'd usually be 25 , but I think of it as 30 because when I was younger that's pretty much how big classrooms were . So I think 10 of these kids already know and don't care anymore . They're not going to listen to me . Really 10 of these don already know and don't care anymore . They're not going to listen to me . Really 10 of these don't know , don't care , are not going to listen to me , and 10 of them are maybe interested . So I would aim at those middle kids and , if it's interesting enough , the kids on the other ends will pick up something different things . Everybody's picking up something different , but still it takes time and I'm on a . They attach it to everything it could attach to inside them . They're not distracted by other people asking them about what they're going to have for lunch .
Sandra DoddThe opportunity to learn quickly is so available all kinds of times of day , all kinds of places . With unschooling . It's wonderful .
Sandra DoddWe had a friend , young single , not an unschooler , had been very schoolish and he had probably a master's degree in math . But he had gone math , mathy , math , math , math . You know , college , prep school , college , college , college . So he's hanging around at our house , thinks it's weird what we're doing , doesn't get it that he wanted to learn to play recorder and I gave him a little trap family book and a recorder and some others of us were playing recorder . He wanted in on it but he couldn't read music . But I knew how mathematical he was and I said okay , listen , see this . I showed him like notation and I said horizontal is the speed , the rate and the rhythm , vertical is the speed , the rate and the rhythm , vertical is the pitch . And no one had ever told him that before . It just looked like a mishmash of lines and balls .
Sandra DoddYeah , when somebody said you know , it's a graph , the graph with two pieces of information on the same graph , he just went and learned it that night . You know , it was a beginner book , so he . So he went and looked at it and saw the different kinds of notes for different lengths of pitch , you know , because that goes with pitch too is how long do you hold this note ? And he just came back the next day and was reading music and I thought that's the sort of thing that I didn't say see , that's how unschooling works .
Sandra DoddI didn't rub it in , but that's the way unschooling works is that he asked the question in a , in a receptive moment , when he actually did want to know , and I knew him well enough to know what clues to give him . I didn't say this is the time signature , this is blah blah , blah , blah , blah , blah , cause he wouldn't have . You know , it would have been boring , irritating . He'd probably heard that before . So I jumped straight to the , the thing I thought he would get , and I did that with my kids for years and I'm still doing it sometimes with my kids now that they're grown ?
Cecilie Conraddon't you think we do it with everyone when we have a conversation ? A conversation is between people . Someone is talking to each other , which means I know you and you know me . We have a relation . Some relations have years on their back , some relations are deeper , some relations are professional , some are personal , but we have something is sticking , there's a glue of humanness to the conversation . In a way element of the .
Cecilie ConradThe transport of information , I think , makes it more interesting and easier for us to absorb and pay attention , especially if we , if , if it's a voluntary relation , if we like the people that we're talking , if we want to talk to them , like your son who ran out of the room to share a piece of information with his dad because it was so interesting . That moment was a moment of learning for everyone in the house , or at least the three of you , and I think one of the reasons the conversation becomes such an important part of unschooling is because you know exactly when to pass on that piece of information . That guy who learned that system . You knew him , you knew his personality , you knew his passions , you knew how he would absorb information . And he asked you , not just anyone in the universe . It wasn't a Google search , it was a person he was talking to , so he could just take it in instantly . Does that make any sense ? Oh yeah , feel I'm babbling a little bit .
Sue ElvisWhat about ? You know ? We're talking about passing on things to our kids through conversations . I think we do it all the time .
Sue ElvisBut I have learned so much from just talking to my kids it's a two-way relationship , as you say , cecilia that when we don't have any preconceived ideas about what we want or what we expect out of the conversation , this is not a vehicle for me to push information into my kids . It's a time to where we exchange ideas , thoughts , get to know each other , and I have been amazed at what my kids have taught me . My whole blog is full of it . You know . You sit there and have a deep conversation about something and then I think I've got to go write some notes about this because I don't want to forget what I've just learned , and I'll turn it into a blog post , because our kids see the world very different . Well , my kids have seen the world very differently to the way I saw the world growing up , to the way I saw the world growing up , and they're still teaching me things that I never saw . So it's like a two-way process . But the other thing I was thinking about is that in a conversation , anything goes , so you might disagree and put your side of your opinion . But you'll have to be willing to listen to the other person and accept what they say and you can have a really deep and interesting conversation if you are disagreeing , as long as it's always with that I say rule that you accept . You're not keeping squishing the other person all the time and preventing them from saying what they want to say .
Sue ElvisAnd I think this happens a lot with parents and kids . Kids might say something we don't agree with and then we get worried and think , oh , that's bad , and how can you believe that ? And we want to squish it before our kids have really worked it out for themselves and they're never going to work it out for themselves If the opinion is wrong . They're not going to work it out for themselves just by us telling them . They're just going to go quiet , I think , and then they're not going to talk to us about it . But they might be right . And that's the other thing I've learned is that sometimes I think where did they get that opinion from ? That's wrong . And then after a while I think , well , maybe they have that point there . Maybe I've got something to learn here .
Sandra DoddOnce in a discussion I'm sorry , no , go on . Once in a discussion a mom said someone who's skeptical about unschooling was coming and arguing with us , right , and saying yeah , but , yeah . But I said how will you teach your children morals ? And Pam Sirishian said by conversation , by experience , by their own , by examples from real life or from movies or literature , tv , you know , discussing what they see and what they're thinking . And it makes so much sense that it's not teaching , it's helping them work through their own observations and thoughts and concerns .
Sandra DoddWho are the good guys , who are the bad guys in some story or movie or situation at the playground where somebody did something that seemed nice but then it turned out it was self-serving or you know . So you get to talk about all of those aspects of personality and behavior as they actually come up . It's not theoretical , it's not making a list of rules . You know you have to do this , thou shalt do this . Only good people , all do this , and bad people do this . It's not like that , like you would do if you were teaching a group and you had a list of things to go through in a certain amount of time . But they see some behavior or action or plot element and they say why , what's that ? And at the moment that they really want to know , someone can give them something . Maybe not the whole answer , maybe not the right answer , but some information that they can bring in and process in their own way , in their own time . It may spark up that moment and it may take them a week or a year .
Sue ElvisI always thought that
Learning Through Conversations: Stories and Experiences
Sue Elviswe could have kids who parrot back what we would like them to believe , or so they have the same opinions as us , or we can let our kids work through things by themselves , and I think it . I would rather have a child who thought critically and thought their way through an issue and came to their own conclusion than just absorbed whatever I said , because I don't think that that is very strong and long lasting . I think kids are good at just , in the end , giving up and just telling us what we want to hear , and parents are good at getting nervous about whether their kids have actually picked up what they want them to know , and so they keep get suspicious and keep on questioning them about things . And in the long run , I think it's much better for everybody to be able to work things through in a supportive environment where you know you can say what you want and have these conversations , these discussions .
Cecilie ConradI think a base thing of the unschooling cultures , this question , everything , situation and another base thing that apparently , according to this lady who wrote the danish way of parenting , it's a very scandinavian thing . It's more normal in scandinavia I don't know , I haven't been everywhere but the leveling that I respect my children's point of view as much as I as they respect mine . I'm not , I'm not this authority , I'm not right or default just because I'm the parent . I know things , they know other things and and there's no end to the the number of examples I could come up with if I just sat down to actually write them down of when I've been wrong I thought I was right , but I was wrong and the style , the way we communicate . I don't assume I'm right , not even in the moral things that I think I've figured it out . I'll tell you good people do this and bad people do that . It's more , and this has happened especially after we started traveling .
Cecilie ConradWe've been in so many different contexts , so many cultures , so many weird situations , so many amazing situations , but different , so many amazing situations , but different . And what happens is we go to the car , we leave and then we have all those hours for talking and what we really talk about is how can we understand what just happened . It's not a judgmental conversation , it's just what happened . And how can we understand it ? And very , very often if I think I'm right and I figured something out the perspectives my kids put on the situation .
Cecilie ConradWhen we have this , how can we understand this situation ? Conversation is so interesting and I see that my point might be valid , but it's just not important in the context , because they saw something else , and that's when moral is taught . I mean even the question Sandra , how do you teach moral ? Do you teach moral ? If I'm teaching moral , I assume that I've got it . I know the system , I know what's right and what's wrong , and actually I don't . I have some values , I have a navigational , but I'm open to suggestions and my children are very , very good at calling it out when I'm just wrong calling it out when I'm just wrong .
Sandra DoddIn a kind of way , I believe that question had been asked by someone in the southeastern United States . Hearkening back to an earlier part of this talk , I think if you're within certain religious systems , morals are like a checklist , and so she was asking how will we teach this thing ? As though morality is a set of tools Same for everyone . That was interesting . So I like the idea that sometimes what the parents believe isn't the only way or isn't the best way or isn't the current way . And when Sue said sometimes the kids don't recite back what we think they should recite , my middle child , marty , when he was 13 or 14 , kenneth Branagh's Othello had come out when Lawrence Fishburne was playing Othello . Marty knew Lawrence Fishburne from from Pee-wee's Playhouse , a TV show here in . Lawrence Fishburne as Larry Fishburne , when he was young and wasn't famous yet , played Cowboy Curtis and he had a big cowboy hat and chaps and he'd go very funny character . So Marty knew this character . Now he's going to play in a Shakespeare play . Marty already knew some Shakespeare . He's good at watching Shakespeare . So Marty and I nobody else are watching Othello . We get halfway through and we're going to take a break to go and eat . We get halfway through and we're going to take a break to go and eat . And marty says this to me . I can't quote it exactly , but basically he said iago is a genius and that's not what you're supposed to take from this play . Iago is an evil , bad guy . But what marty was seeing was the way he was setting up this tragedy to blow up and unfold was good moves . It's like , okay , well , shakespeare wrote it , good moves , but but so we , we talked about . I said it's like chess . If somebody is playing chess and it goes easy , easy , easy , bam checkmate . That's kind of genius , that it's kind of evil . You know , or you know , chess isn't , isn't about morality . Okay , this is about math .
Sandra DoddBut a friend of mine years ago , for some reason in this club we're in , people are supposed to play chess and he said why don't you play chess ? And at the time I was a high level officer in charge of lots of groups and making people happy and making sure people knew what they needed and the rules and getting along and scheduling and all of this making everybody feel like they're having a good time I said I don't like chess , I can't play chess . And he said what I've seen . You manage and manipulate people , you know , in several states . You know , and I said I said that's not the same and he said it is .
Sandra DoddAnd I and I I was getting cranky because I was trying to go do something else and he's keeping me there talking about why I don't play chess . And I said you tell me which of these pawns used to be married to each other . Tell me which ones like each other , don't like each other . Tell me which of those pawns wants to move and I'll play chess . After that he didn't bug me anymore and I understood more about chess . You have to move upon , regardless of whether they want to move or not , because it's very pattern and mathematical . So I so that was that sort of overlays on othello , because if you just look at it as if you do this and then this and you set this up and you put the handkerchief there and you tell this story and no one there's no witness that can undo it , ta-da checkmate , although it involves sorrow , you know , and and betrayal . So for me I'm seeing all of the emotional part and marty's seeing the math , mathematical , um strategy part , and so he said Iago was a genius .
Cecilie ConradOh well , well , there are evil geniuses , right ? Yeah , I suppose that's the deal . And also , both of you got something new out of Rotello because you saw it together and you had your different styles of seeing . I think it's very important to teach moral and I think it's very important to teach moral and I think it's very important to talk about moral . And I would say Shakespeare is a big part of that , literature is a big part of that , life experiences is a part of that .
Cecilie ConradAnd from an unschooling point of view , I wouldn't say that I'm teaching moral . I would say that we discover moral together when we feel uncomfortable on top of something we saw or something we experienced , that being fictional or in real life . We have a conversation about it because it's unsettling , because we don't understand it , because something is not . You know , you're processing , and this processing is happening in the community of the family and the community of the people we are around . That's why we like talking , because we process things together , and I think a lot of moral discovery in my family has been happening through these conversations and I've been wrong often , very often , my kids have said you know what ?
Cecilie ConradWhat we're doing right now is not right or what we're assuming here . We're assuming on false grounds or on insufficient information , or they have come up with rules for behavior . I don't , I didn't . I may . I have rules for behavior . I have things and and then if I put them out there and I say , hey , you can't do that , then they will ask me why can't I do that ? What about this content ? Could I do it under these circumstances ? It can become really annoying , but and then we laugh and we have a conversation about that . So it's not like we don't care
The Balancing Act of Listening and Teaching
Cecilie Conradabout moral . It's more like an unschooling family wouldn't teach moral . They would maybe present moral and say , hey , we're in a culture where this would normally be considered wrong . How do we cope with that ? Can we do it ?
Sandra DoddWorking on this page that I'm creating to enshrine this discussion when it's published , I found something I had written on Just Add Light and Stern and Short and I thought I better bring it to that page . But it says nothing . On paper is learning , Nothing recited is learning . Nothing in a conversation is learning . Learning is putting information together in one's own head so that it makes new and different sense . It always and only happens inside the learner . So whatever the conversation is or whatever we're watching when we have the conversation or considering doing , you know , is this okay ? Under which circumstances would it be okay ? Each person involved is learning something different . It's fun . I like it .
Sue ElvisWhat I like about conversations is that sometimes you can replay them later on and keep thinking about them . And you don't always get everything out of a conversation while you're having it , but a conversation can be so rich that you go away and ponder it a bit . And what I also really love is coming back later and going back into that conversation later on . I belong to a women's group and we have weekly discussion groups on weekly discussions and I think there's always value in coming back to the next meeting and , before we start our new discussion , revisiting the old one with what we have pondered in the week , because it doesn't all happen within the conversation . Sometimes it happens later on . We just uh , throw out the seeds there , we enjoy ourselves , but then later on we want to think more about it and maybe even do some research .
Sue ElvisAnd with my own kids , when , with our conversations , I did something very practical afterwards , I used to go , not while we're having the conversation , because it would have spoiled the moment , but I used used to get a notepad and scribble down all the things we talked about , and not only was that a good reminder for pleasure , it was also handy for those homeschool records Like Cecilia you were saying about , yes , but saying have you been drinking coffee all day ?
Sue ElvisYou've got a list of what we talked about this , this , this , this , this and this and it can be , from a practical point of view for people that have to keep records , that can be reassuring that we have something there , concrete to put in our records book . That's not why we have conversations , but I always found that our conversations were so rich . In some ways I just wanted to capture , like taking a photo , capture them in some way to re-enjoy them again . And then suddenly I realized , oh look , if I write this down , that looks pretty good for a records book and then we can spend more time sitting around the table drinking coffee because , uh , obviously we're all learning .
Cecilie ConradI'm wondering if you ever sleep , sue . I mean , how do you ? How did you ? You have double the amount of children compared to me and I remember when I was doing records like that , when I was writing things down , it stressed me out so much . I will admit , I wrote my first blog while the kids were small . I had at the time all four at home , which is half of the amount you had , and I was writing the blog . I wrote about 300 blog posts when they were small , but I did . I'm just amazed with all the things you say you do and you did . Then you would write down a conversation . You'd keep the Evernote . You'll do a blog . You also have to cook and wash the clothes and have all those conversations a problem .
Sue ElvisI had a big team around . We used to share the things like cooking I never cooked while my kids were um growing up , because somebody else always cooked but with their making record notes and things , uh , I think it's just a case of priorities . Is it important ? And it was important to me because without a good record system , we couldn't unschool , we couldn't even homeschool . It was just what we had to do and I was willing to do that so that we could live the life that we lived , that so that we could live the life that we lived . And I knew that if I didn't make that time to do it , we wouldn't get through our registration . It's just priorities , I think what was important to us at the time and what I felt I needed to do .
Cecilie ConradWell , if that had been the case for me , I would definitely have done it .
Sue ElvisAnd I found a good way of doing it because I came to a conclusion that I had to enjoy it . It wasn't something that I resented doing and so , as I said , writing those conversations down just in bullet point form and sticking them in a journal , it gave me a bit of pleasure , to think . You know how you capture something . Quite often I have an idea or a thought and I'm going to write a blog post about it , but if I don't write it down , it disappears and I think a lot of our good conversations do the same thing .
Sue ElvisWe start to tell somebody about something we were talking about and then halfway through the story we think , oh , I've forgotten most of the details , but it was a good conversation , and sometimes that's good enough . But other times , yeah , it was just beneficial for more than one purpose to write the um , just the main notes of the conversation down , but but I didn't do it all the time , I wasn't sort of hanging on my kids Well , we've had a good conversation . Quick go and do something while I write it all down . Some conversations got away from us , but if I had a spare moment afterwards I would just jot them down word , just jot them down .
Cecilie ConradI've been juggling with the idea of how I could find more time for writing because I have all these things I want to . Writing is a good way of thinking . It's an alternative to conversation . It's a good way of getting all the things kind of organized , and I have a long list of things I want to write , I want to unfold in the written form , but I kind of sort of can't find the time for it . So I've been juggling with the idea of writing instead of reading at night . But then I'd miss out on the books .
Cecilie ConradAnd the books are in our family . It's a big ignition for our conversations . The literature we talk a lot about it and we don't all read the exact same novels all the time , but some of them we all read , or two or three read the same book and and , and then maybe the rest of the family decides oh , I'm never going to read that book , so you're not spoiling it if you talk about it and other books we can't talk about because it's on someone's list . But but then a lot of these conversations that we have that are ongoing , where we pick up from yesterday , is about books we're reading and how they compare to that other book and yeah it's so wonderful , talking about books that you enjoy , isn't it ?
Sue Elvisand it's like um , sharing a friend that , uh , you really enjoy the book all over again because you're discussing it with people , mostly , who love the book as well . Sometimes somebody might not like it , but , um , yes , uh , just can't get over how conversations can be so enjoyable sometimes and how they can enhance like a book . But just recently I've gone through a tired week and haven't had much energy for anything and somehow I just found the survival show Alone , you know that one where they drop off 10 people in various locations and they have to live off the land and survive and the one who lives in the wilderness for the longest wins the prize . And it's the sort of show that didn't really attract me when I heard about it and I just thought , no , it's not my type of thing . But I started watching the other day .
Sue ElvisI have no idea how come , but I got together with one of my daughters on Monday and she was saying what have you been watching , mom ? And I said , well , I've been watching Alone , australia . And then we started this conversation about it and her eyes lit up and she hasn't watched any of it , but there were so many themes within it , ideas within
Exploring Morality Through Dialogue
Sue Elvisit , that we both could get our teeth into , and I thought sometimes you don't need something high and lofty like Shakespeare . You can just watch a TV show and you can connect together and the ideas that come out of it are amazing .
Cecilie ConradAnd so maybe we love Shakespeare too , cecilia we're big fans but maybe that sometimes stops me from thinking about other , more popular things that we could enjoy and still learn a lot from , and I think it's an important and valid point that you're putting out here , because we , for some reason , we talk about Shakespeare in every episode here , I feel like maybe because it's epic , but but it's important that , as this is a this is a conversation about unschooling , that we're not trying to be high and lofty and that we don't sound high and lofty and that you know you can live a good life and never read Shakespeare . And I know we are a reading family and we we love reading literature . We all do it and we it's a big part of our lifestyle and our conversations . But I don't really understand why people would choose to not read literature .
Sandra DoddBut that's just me I have quoted today on just that light and stir . So it won't be today when people hear this , but I have paid . I have two pages on my on my website about shakes . I have more than that on monsters , on Godzilla , which is the topic today . Deb Lewis's son loved Godzilla and she just listed all the things he learned from that interest and how much she learned about him and Scooby-Doo Scooby-Doo , the cartoon which I personally never was into . But I have so many other unschooling parents who have told glowing , exciting stories about what they and their children shared and learned about scooby-doo . So I'm I'm not a shakespeare snob , but I , but that was because we were on morality and unexpected , uh , differences in our opinions with our kids . That's why I brought up othello . I'm trying not to be a shakespeare snob , um I like authority .
Sue ElvisI enjoyed that story , sandra , so I'm glad you told it so you appreciate iago , even though he's evil .
Sandra DoddSo I think that , um , I know that cecilia needs to leave soon , so we probably should , but I think that we should include in the idea of conversations .
Sandra DoddSo there's writing , like I write long articles and Cecilia writes blog posts because she's a writer , because she has the interest in the ability to have some thoughts , take notes , write something cohesive . Other people go to Google . It's not a conversation . They go to Google , they find it and then they read it . But I love something that Sue's site has that mine doesn't , which is people can leave her a message and she answers everything . So there's a conversation . So she wrote and then there's an exchange about it which other people can read . Which is I like clearly because I've saved so many on my site the idea that someone can not only go back to a conversation they were in and say , oh remember when you said this , I've been thinking about it , but to go to a conversation that other people had and read that exchange . There's a flow to reading an exchange like that , and one of the times that I knew that my kids knew something without a conversation I was in when we used to share a computer . My oldest had his own computer for a long time because friends helped put one together . But the rest of us , marty and Holly and I shared an old iMac , the big , bubbly looking iMac . And I came in one morning and there was a little AOL messenger where people had little animal figures to represent them . Marty had written this is less than 10 words , this whole conversation . Marty had written to his friend Brett , who was also an unschooler . Canada , did you know ? Canada has prime ministers . Brett wrote yeah . Dude wrote Marty , that was it . So what I knew was that when Marty was up late at night he wasn't making trouble listening to rap music or looking for porn . You know , he wasn't doing the things that mothers used to fear in those days . He was writing to his friend about Canada having prime ministers . So now I knew Checklist . Does Marty know anything about the differences in the government of Canada and the United States ? Yes , he knows something .
Sandra DoddOkay , I think the conversations that kids are having when they're just staring at their phone but they're actually talking to their friends , that's conversation too , and it's nice that it can be had between houses , between countries , that people can put out an idea , someone else can comment . That's what conversations are , and I have said to my kids sometimes when they don't like the way a conversation is going , or there was a complaint in part of my family that one person said well , he just wants to make a long speech and if I say anything he gets mad and says I interrupted . I said OK , look , I talked to this person , a relative of mine , who needed to be talked to . I said it should be like a chess game you make a move , you're done . The other person makes a move , you have to wait for them to make a move . You can't just quantificate . I said if you want to make a speech , you need to hire Hall for an hour and advertise it and people come or they don't come . But that's not how conversations are . And so he should have been at Sue's table instead of my house , I guess , to learn that .
Sandra DoddBut no , it was minor , it passed . But I hope it was minor and I hope it passed . But yes , some people . So I've told that to my kids . You need to take turns . That's how conversations go and you see it really well with instant message or whatever People are doing phone messages and that's something they can also go back to , for better or worse sometimes .
Sandra DoddSometimes they're sorry that they did . I used to see people come to the discussions , to the unschooling discussions , and sometimes the worst comments came late on a Friday night and I used to sometimes write to the person and say maybe you shouldn't post when you're drunk . But a couple of times people posted things so horrible that in a humorous way I would say in the conversation I think some neighbor or relative of yours came in and pretended to be you and posted something awful to get them out Like you want to delete that because it didn't sound like something you should have said . So that's the bad thing about written conversations , but I think any exchange that's in and of the moment between people where they're listening to each other and responding is awesome .
Cecilie ConradIt's beautiful and it makes unschooling rich and wonderful point to just highlight here at the end is basically any conversation that we are having , if we are playing a role in unschooling family , is an important conversation . There is this work , work , moral idea about doing things and conversing is not doing a thing . You're not building a lego castle or playing a board game or making a meal or folding the laundry , you're just chatting . It's a waste of . That's a mindset that can be put towards the conversations that just having coffee around the kitchen table or or the just sitting down talking uh , like this morning when my son and I were both wearing our workout outfits because we were on our way out to go for a run but then we had to talk for an hour these conversations are very important .
Cecilie ConradThese play a centerpiece in the quote unquote education of our children . If we are the parents in an unschooling family , so we we should really cherish them and really um prioritize them and and it doesn't matter if the laundry is folded , maybe it matters to go for that run , but this is the important part , this is where the juice is flowing . And no , it's not a teachable moment , it's not about passing on information and you know , teaching kids things because now we finally have their attention , but it's about exploring together and and and see how can we understand this and and just give it space . Have enough time . Stop what you're doing , listen to the child , ask questions , be curious and have time for that conversation . That's the job , basically . Yeah , I just wanted to lift her fore index finger here , maybe .
Sue ElvisIf we just think about how much we learn from conversations , I think sometimes , when I'm writing , I would love , instead of people reading what I've written , to sit around the table and talk about unschooling like we are , because then we could have the back and the table and talk about unschooling like we are , because then we could have the back and the forth and really get to the nitty-gritty of of unschooling . Because when you , you don't really know what somebody needs or what somebody's feeling or whatever through unless you , you're having a conversation with them . I think we could get so much , we could help people so much more if we got a cup of coffee and sat around the table and shared our experiences and listened to theirs and just let the conversation flow naturally . And quite often I hear , oh , I wish we could meet up and have a conversation .
Sue ElvisI hear , oh , I wish we could meet up and have a conversation . And , yeah , blogs and books and videos and everything is good , but wouldn't it be lovely to meet in person and have a conversation ? And this is , I guess , why people listen into long-form conversations , because it's like being a fly on the wall , isn't it that ? Uh , we can all have these long conversations , but we can listen to other people's I'm exploding with the idea of meeting up and having a long conversation .
Cecilie ConradMaybe we should make that an invitation for the readers and the listeners to ask their questions in the show notes and on our blogs . When they read something , please give us some feedback because it can be very , very interesting , the conversation that happens in the comment section . There's not enough of that . I think these days People are quiet out there . We know that we have listeners , but we don't hear from them . And on that note , you're right , sandra , that I have to go today because I have a ritual here in rural France where they turn off the light and the stars shine bright and my family is waiting for me to go on that evening walk . So I'll go .
Sandra DoddThank you , this was fun . This was a lot of fun .
Sue ElvisThank you , I would have a good conversation with them , as you're , uh , looking at the stars exactly that's .
Cecilie ConradThat's the plan , thank you it was fun , thank you .
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