Adventures in Self-directed, Lifelong Learning
One Strategy for Practicing Unconditional Love
I’ve had a few hard conversations this week and witnessed some other folk’s difficult situations.
Parenting, eldercare, working with people, relationships of all kinds give us opportunities to learn.
Opportunities to be present.
To see and be seen.
To accept.
To love.
Sometimes in my exuberance and enthusiasm for the possibilities about what can be learned and changed, I don’t realize that what someone might be hearing or feeling is:
It’s almost Valentine’s Day. What does that bring to mind for you? Heart-shaped decorations? Roses? Chocolates? For me it’s broader than decorations and date night. It’s about hearts full of love and friendship. Celebration and connection. Loving your life and the people you have connected with. Taking a moment to celebrate love in all its … Read more
Fear of rejection and putting yourself into the world limits your ability to learn and grow. Celebrating rejection, instead of fearing it, transforms the person experiencing rejection from a victim of others choices, to the courageous chooser of opportunity. You can learn to change your mindset about fearing rejection to celebrating rejection.
As with most celebrations, celebrating rejection will make you happier. And if it still sounds impossible, there are at least five practical steps that you can take to get better at being rejected. You can choose to transform your relationship with rejection to allow yourself to bravely pursue your goals as you ask hard questions, try new things, and do what matters.
If you’re a parent who wasn’t homeschooled, you probably find yourself wondering, “How can I help my child be a self-directed learner when that’s not how I learned?” Maybe you’re a parent who doesn’t want to homeschool, but you want to support your child’s learning and encourage them to enjoy lifelong learning. Here’s what … Read more
When we started homeschooling, even though I’d been a teacher, I remember wondering how in the heck we would manage all the learning I thought we had to do?
When we started moving from homeschooling to unschooling, I still wondered if it would really work to let a learner’s interests and curiosity drive their education.
I was still in the schooling mindset; that learning was somehow separate from life. And that it only “counted” if someone else told you what to do and how to do it and then measured it.
It took awhile for to deschool myself.
And then a wonderful thing happened, I realized we’d always done tons of learning on our own –it just didn’t look like school. We’d already created an environment with time and space to ask questions and then try to find the answers.
I realized you can allow wondering and curiosity to evolve without having to preplan and control the outcome, and learning will happen. Amazingly motivation that had gone missing can return.
If it seems hard to imagine, here is a little snapshot of unplanned, natural learning that can happen when you make time for wondering, curiosity, listening, and space.
Try to see your child as a seed that came in a packet without a label. Your job is to provide the right environment and nutrients and to pull the weeds. You can’t decide what kind of flower you’ll get or in which season it will bloom. I love this quote shared by a mom … Read more