Sandra's notes for today's chat:
"Although it's a "heritable trait" (something people inherit genetically), it can also be nurtured and fostered, to some extent.
I think school can create a "closed-to-experience" condition in some people. Some families do, too.
There's nothing on my site about it, except pages on wonder and connections, I guess.
Maybe think of a fictional character who seems to have that trait. Rippy suggests the character of Phil, on Modern Family. I say Tigger.
Here's a description:
Openness to experience: (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious). Appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, curiosity, and variety of experience.
Openness reflects the degree of intellectual curiosity, creativity and a preference for novelty and variety a person has. It is also described as the extent to which a person is imaginative or independent, and depicts a personal preference for a variety of activities over a strict routine. Some disagreement remains about how to interpret the openness factor, which is sometimes called "intellect" rather than openness to experience.
Read about openness to experience here if you want more:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openness_to_experiencehttp://cambridgepersonality.com/index.php/science-menu22/77-trait-description-openness"
Sandra Dodd: In looking for a definition of "closed to experience," I found an article with an interesting mid-part:
Sandra Dodd: Openness to experience is one of the "Big Five" personality factors, which means that it's one of five fundamental aspects of human personality. Most people are about average on this dimension, but some people, like Anthony, are quite high, while others are low and considered closed to experience. These are the conventional folks who prefer routine and tend to dislike modern art. They regard as aversive most things that are new or unfamiliar to them. Fairly consistent with stereotypes, the highest openness scores are found in New York, Oregon, Massachusetts, Washington, and California; the lowest in North Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, Alabama, and Wisconsin (Rentfrow, Gosling, & Potter, 2008).
Sandra Dodd: (still quoting)
Sandra Dodd: It has six facets which I'll now list (and along which we'll judge Anthony). 1. Fantasy - having a vivid imagination (check),
Sandra Dodd: 2. Aesthetics - appreciating art (check),
Sandra Dodd: 3. Feelings - having poignant emotional experiences (not sure),
Sandra Dodd: 4. Actions - pursuing new activities, places, and foods (double check),
Sandra Dodd: 5. Ideas - openness to new ideas (double check), and
Sandra Dodd: 6. Values - inclination to re-examine traditional values (double check). Based on this analysis, Anthony would probably score really high on openness. You can rate your friends in a slightly different manner. When you're at one of their houses, look around and take note of a few things. If the décor is unconventional, you see books on a variety of topics, an eclectic music collection, and artwork displayed, your friend is likely to be high in openness (Gosling, 2008).
Sandra Dodd: (end of the quote, from this article, about a Travel Channel show where a guy travels and eats.) http://blog.quantumunitsed.com/no-reservations-psychology/
Sandra Dodd: If you could, you early people, think through your own levels of "openness" or adventurousness, and think of whether it's consistent in all areas. Food? Music? New people? Places?
heatherbooth: Hello!
heatherbooth: I have a question before the chat starts.
Sandra Dodd: Go ahead, Heather.
heatherbooth: Does anyone know when and where did the idea that children need to learn to play an instrument and learn a second language come from? I don't remember any pressure for those things when I was young, but I've heard it often since becoming a mother.
Sandra Dodd: 19 more minutes or until ten people are here.
Sandra Dodd: I know about the musical instrument part more than the language part. It has to do with class (as in striation of groups of people within a culture).
heatherbooth: Even parents who don't speak another language or play an instrument feel strongly that their children need to know these things early or there is no hope of ever learning.
Sandra Dodd: In Europe from the Renaissance on, the wealthy were expected to know music. If they didn't, there would BE no music, because there weren't recordings. So those with talent to learn those things, and with money for teachers and instruments, learned harpsichord or viol, or later piano or violin or lute or singing.
Sandra Dodd: The good ones learned organ and played the big pipe organs in churches.
Sandra Dodd: The good ones learned organ and played the big pipe organs in churches.
heatherbooth: I had Austin take piano lessons when he was little. Monty's ex left a piano and I thought someone should learn to use it. I decided Austin was that someone. I dont' remember my reasoning beyond that.
heatherbooth: So, is it a magical thinking kind of thing? If you learn to play piano you'll be wealthy when you're older?
Sandra Dodd: No, heather, not that. 
Sandra Dodd: I'll get back to it.
heatherbooth: K
Sandra Dodd: If people wanted to study certain subjects they used to (still do, some) learn the language in which that thing was discovered or most studied. So people studying psychology used to take German.
Sandra Dodd: Stuff like that.
Virginia Warren: The kids were the "radio".
Sandra Dodd: Not the kids. The parents.
Capn Franko: I think there's a good bit of research sowing that music and/or a second language opens your brain, to touch on teh topic today.
Sandra Dodd: Children weren't learning music for children to do music, but for the mothers (mostly) to be able to provide music in the home, and to teach children (ideally).
Virginia Warren: Oh,I thought the children were playing music for the enjoyment of adults.
Sandra Dodd: Frank's right, but much of that research comes from music educators justifying their jobs. Not that it's not true, but that's who's going to go to the trouble to try to prove it.
Sandra Dodd: Frank's right, but much of that research comes from music educators justifying their jobs. Not that it's not true, but that's who's going to go to the trouble to try to prove it.
Sandra Dodd: So the U.S., picking up during the enlightenment when class was kind of starting to be rethought some in Europe, jumped all the way to equality (France, kind of, but France didn't have the advantage of a clean geographical slate—they still have all those castles and titles and stuff around)
Capn Franko: *I* had music lessons, dance lessons, etc. because that's what kids in my social set did. I think there was less *thought* involved than simply going with the flow.
Sandra Dodd: And in the U.S., EVERYONE born here was as good as EVERYONE, so EVERYONE "deserved" the advantages of [anyone / upper class tradition].
Sandra Dodd: I'm sorry I double posts so much. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing to cause that.
AlexPolikowsky4: You can learn a language as an adult if you want to , although some people have a harder time than others. I learned better than my sister when young and I still know more languages then her but she does pretty well with English now so it have taken a little longer for her. I have more interest in other languages too.
Virginia Warren: On one of my favorite epsiodes of "Angel", the scoobies are all regressed to teenhood (MAGIC). Angel hears a clock radio and says "Minstrels!"
Sandra Dodd: So if a family here opts out of one of those "privileges" then they're not being good parents. They're relegating their children to "a lower class," in a way.
Capn Franko: Yep. That's definitely how it was in old New Orleans culture.
Sandra Dodd: There was research in the early 20th century about language acquisition, and they said a child learns language easily, but adults don't, so children have some sort of instinctive "LAD—language acquisition device" and the window will close, so language instruction should be EARLY.
Sandra Dodd: But what they were ignoring was that language naturally acquired by a young child has nothing to do with being taught the language, but involves picking it up naturally from hearing it spoken—from SEEING it spoken, in natural settings for real reasons. All the visual clues go with it.
Sandra Dodd: Anyway...
Sandra Dodd: That's part of it.
heatherbooth: Fascinating.
AlexPolikowsky4
I know several homeschooling families that teach Latin.
This was on the Facebook of one of them:
QOD from my kids: "Mom can you just tell me what the word means like most moms would instead of giving me examples and the origins of its' root word?" **smiling*
Sorry I do not know what QOD is ! Anyone?
This was on the Facebook of one of them:
QOD from my kids: "Mom can you just tell me what the word means like most moms would instead of giving me examples and the origins of its' root word?" **smiling*
Sorry I do not know what QOD is ! Anyone?
Sandra Dodd: Alex put something up on Always Learning about the half-life of facts. (Facts? Truths?)
Sandra Dodd: quote of the day? (guessing)
AlexPolikowsky4: You gave me much to think last night while Aurora hunting in the middle of the night outside Sandra
Sandra Dodd: When I was in college in the 1970's, "learning acquisition device" was considered fact. Flat fact.
Capn Franko: I refrain from commenting about Latin. (grin)
Sandra Dodd: No you don't, Frank.
Marta Pires: So cool, Alex!
Sandra Dodd: You hardly refrain from commenting IN Latin!
Marta Pires: (the Aurora hunting)
Capn Franko: Guilty.
Capn Franko: I throw myself on the mercy of the court.
heatherbooth: I signed Austin up for a latin class, bought the books and everything. He had no interest, but I thought it was important. I can't remember why. I saw Sandra speak at HSC that year and he never went.
Sandra Dodd: It's alright.
Sandra Dodd: I think Latin's fun to fart around with, but not "to speak," because it's dead.
Sandra Dodd: I think Latin's fun to fart around with, but not "to speak," because it's dead.
AlexPolikowsky4: The issue is not the Latin Frank it is that the child does not want anymore. Sure I have talk a little bit about Latin to my kids. But every single time?
Capn Franko: Right, Alex. Sometimes all that's desired is the meaning of the word, not it's 2K or 5K year history.
Sandra Dodd: But even when I was a kid, doctors had studied Latin. Originally, doctors studied Latin because that's what the books were written in that people shared from university to university, rather than translating things to other languages.
Capn Franko: it's not it's oh never mind it's my typing
Sandra Dodd: But mostly they were studying it so they had a secret code. VERY ELABORATE, wasn't it?
AlexPolikowsky4: And sometimes you do want to know the root! It is interesting. Her boys are 8 and 11. I know when I was older I was much more interested in it.
Sandra Dodd: Pharmacists needed to learn Latin to, so that doctors could write to them in a secret code, hand the paper to the clueless patient, who would carry the encoded message to the pharmacist and get his pills. For a long time pharmacists manufactured the medicine per the secret note from the doctor.
Virginia Warren: My younger daughter has started asking why certain words are what they are. Like, why people use that word for that thing.
Sandra Dodd: Now it's hard to find a pharmacist who knows how to do anything but read the directions for factory-produced pharmaceuticals, and to know what bad interactions could be, and what conditions should keep someone from using or combining meds.
Sandra Dodd: Those who can still make pills are called "compounding pharmacists," I think it is.
AlexPolikowsky4
Yesterday I was walking into Target with Gigi and she asked me what something meant ( cannot remember what it was) So I started to explain and after a while she said;" OK mom got it. You can stop now."
She wanted a quick answer and not a deep and big answer.
She wanted a quick answer and not a deep and big answer.
Sandra Dodd: So it was "a fact" earlier in my lifetime that to be a doctor or a pharmacist, one needed to learn Latin.
Sandra Dodd: That is no longer a fact.
heatherbooth: I can say that it is really hard to find a compunding pharmasist. Austin has one medication that needs to be compunded and in all the places we've lived over the past three years, there is usually one per city. And they always seem to be on the other side of town from where we live.
Sandra Dodd: They learn the terminology for "twice a day by mouth" and such, and the root words for names of parts of the body or diseases and such, I think (I THINK, I don't even know anymore if they do that!).
Sandra Dodd: chinese medicine still does that, but they will move into manufactured compounds too, if they haven't already.
Sandra Dodd: So! this term I wanted to talk about. It's "truth." It's something new(ish) to psychology, but it's presented as a for-sure.
Sandra Dodd: I thought it would be interesting to look at it that way.
Sandra Dodd: One way to innoculate oneself from needing to take back things they've said or believed is to qualify statements LOTS (or all the time)
Sandra Dodd: with things like "Many people think" or "Jung wrote" or "It seems sometimes that" or "Maybe."
Capn Franko: Current research indicates...
Sandra Dodd: Distance yourself from things so when they're found to be all wrong, you're still safe on the shore.
Sandra Dodd: I do it with unschooling much of the time. "With my kids…" or "In lots of families, I've seen…"
Sandra Dodd: My question for you, for data collection, is do you feel there are some things you're super "open to experience" about, and maybe others where you're happy to stand pat?
Sandra Dodd: Frank has enough music.
Sandra Dodd: But he wants to have more ocean, I think.
Sandra Dodd: More water-stuff.
Sandra Dodd: I'm brave with staying with strangers. Some people aren't even brave staying with friends or relatives.
Capn Franko: I never have enough music, or ocean, or sky, or art, or...
Sandra Dodd: I'm pretty brave with food, but I don't seek out exotic food just to do it.
Sandra Dodd: In context I like it.
Sandra Dodd: (Not Japanese food, but if I went to Japan I would eat what others were eating; not interested in seeking it out out of context.)
Virginia Warren: I don't read any fiction that's not science fiction, I don't worry about it any more.
Capn Franko: I'm not very brave about food.
Sandra Dodd: I thought about you when I was in Austin, Frank. Kirby's girlfriend is from a little town in that part of Texas toward Arkansas and Louisiana. And she cooks differently. I watched her, and asked, and was cleaning the kitchen while I was there a lot.
JessG :
I'm pretty sure I dislike everything about camping, but if my kids showed an interest, I would try to keep an open mind and try to see the positive in it if only so they would have a good time.
Sandra Dodd: There is a powdered spice combo from Louisiana she kept using on vegetables and meat.
Sandra Dodd: And I thought 1) what the hell!? and 2) Frank would know.
Capn Franko: Tony Chacere's cajun spice?
Virginia Warren: Old Bay?
Sandra Dodd: I think that was it, Frank. It didn't taste like tobasco.
regan: I think I'm brave about many things (perhaps in opposition to my mom, who is an extreme non-tryer), but sometimes it gets exhausting when it doesn't become more comfortable. I really dislike using the telephone, so I declare now (in my 40s) that I will just avoid it. Whereas flying, which I also hate, I still bravely do.
Capn Franko: It's mostly salt, pepper, and cayenne,but with other stuff, too.
Capn Franko: Not Old Bay. That's Chesepeake, not Cajun.
Sandra Dodd: Telephones and airplaines don't have much variety to explore. Not liking one of them is probably based on sensible logic.
Virginia Warren: I had that thought .5 seconds after sending.
Capn Franko: No, it's not meant to be hot, just cajun-ish in one easy shaker instread of having to add various spices and herbs, etc. separately.
Virginia Warren: I also increasingly dislike the telephone. I feel weird about ringing an alarm in somebody's pants.
Sandra Dodd: What I thought was interesting about the quote I brought (some of you might've missed) was that there are regions where studies showed more or less openness to experience.
Capn Franko: Oh, I could argue about airplane variations! (grin) There are so many kinds of flying! Big Fun!
Sandra Dodd: Fairly consistent with stereotypes, the highest openness scores are found in New York, Oregon, Massachusetts, Washington, and California; the lowest in North Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, Alabama, and Wisconsin (Rentfrow, Gosling, & Potter, 2008).
Capn Franko: I find that believable. Louisiana is very insular.
Sandra Dodd: Partly this could have to do with immigrant populations.
Capn Franko: Washington is very open.
Sandra Dodd: Partly, genetics of the settling groups.
Sandra Dodd: I think there's a time in a person's life when culture is imprinted.
Sandra Dodd: I've never heard anyone else say so, or read anything about it.
Sandra Dodd: But people seem to tend to desire or romanticize the music and clothing of their late teen years.
Capn Franko: I definitley have a lot of the old New Orleans stuff still stuck in my behavioral patterns.
Sandra Dodd: I think that along with mating comes a sort of cultural solidifying.
Sandra Dodd: So it might be interesting to separate the test scores by who grew up in those places from those who moved in after they were 30 or so.
Sandra Dodd: BUT sometimes the very ability to even move far from home might be a kind of openness to experience.
Sandra Dodd: I have no desire to live outside New Mexico. I don't like the feeling of not being an insider—of being a foreigner.
Sandra Dodd: So maybe that's more a control issue or safety/security thing.
Capn Franko: I *needed* to move from New Orleans. Sanity.
Sandra Dodd: I don't want to lost status/knowledge/"place."
Capn Franko: Yeah, I could have established a significant amount of status/position/connectedness (old boy network)
Sandra Dodd: I've wondered how I got here, because a whole LOT of people had to be brave enough to leave Europe and then a subset of them brave enough to leave the east coast or SE and travel across to Texas and New Mexico. One grandfather was from Michigan.
Sandra Dodd: If I were in England, I would've stayed there, I think.
Sandra Dodd: What I read said most people are not extreme about openness to experiences—lots are in the middle.
Jill Parmer: My mom was born in Minnesota, pretty much on the North Dakota border. I was born in MN, because my mom went across the river to the Moorhead hospital. We lived in Fargo. When I was 9, she looked at a map of Colorado and picked a city with the yellow outline about as big as Fargo. Then we moved to Colorado, a mom and 2 kids. That's pretty adventurous for a North Dakota person.
Sandra Dodd: That's fine.
Sandra Dodd: I think some people are super brave about one field of exploration or inquiry—climbing, hiking, sports, music—but still might be conservative in their range of foods.
Sandra Dodd: (Fine to what I wrote, not to Jill's)
Capn Franko: You pretty much just called my name, Sandra.
Sandra Dodd: That's a brave way to choose, Jill. A similar-sized town.
A similar-sized town.
AlexPolikowsky4: I did not know about that Jill! I have moved around a bit. Moved to a different country. I would do it without kids but now I am settled for this time.
AlexPolikowsky4: I hear some people calling themselves gypsies and they want to move around or travel . I did a lot of travelling before kids so I am good. Sure I would love to do some more but with my kids now.
Jill Parmer: I had a favorite snow drift by the corner of our house every winter in Fargo. It was the same every year, and I liked it, and sometimes I would jump in it.
Capn Franko: I loved travel berore kids. I loved travel with the kids. Travel is good!
Sandra Dodd: Alex, it might be interesting to see if one of your kids will inherit your ability to happily change continents, or whether they will get the Minnesota "I'm staying HERE" gene from Brian.
AlexPolikowsky4: Jill Daniel loves jumping and rolling on snow drifts!
AlexPolikowsky4: I wonder that too Sandra!
Sandra Dodd: For unschooling parents, it's good to be aware that people are different.
Sandra Dodd: I can't help thinking that some people's "closed to experience" might be caused by school or by parenting, if they heard too many negative messages or warnings.
Sandra Dodd: Curiosity can be squashed, pretty effectively, it seems.
AlexPolikowsky4:
Brian is more of the close Gene. Definitely. He has talked about moving to Brazil if things here are bad, like a back up plan.
His older brother and sister are more of the Open and him and the youngest brother the close.
His older brother and sister are more of the Open and him and the youngest brother the close.
Sandra Dodd: And creativity can be dulled down.
Jill Parmer: When I've traveled, I love doing and eating the things the locals did. When I traveled with a group, the Europeans would comment that I wasn't very American, because I didn't want to go a McDonald's, but would ask for local favorite food shops, and such.
Sandra Dodd: But IF there is a genetic "closed" position, then parents should be aware of that.
Marta Pires: Luckily, both Bruno and I have the "open" gene, I think.
Sandra Dodd: There have been a couple of people (two, literally) who have said, in unschooling discussions, that they weren't curious, like I was, about the world.
AlexPolikowsky4
I think for Brian it is a combination Gene and how he was raised and school. Definitely his farmer gene. He repeats what he heard growing up and those are "truths" for him.
He has come around a lot. It may be because of living with me but I think that the kids are the ones responsible for it.
He has come around a lot. It may be because of living with me but I think that the kids are the ones responsible for it.
Sandra Dodd: When we make lists of traits that are good for unschooling parents, curiosity is usually on there (maybe always).
Capn Franko: Pretty sure all four of us have the travel gene. Most of the other "open" ones, too.
Sandra Dodd: So maybe a parent can be so complacent that unschooling isn't a good option.
Jill Parmer: Did you ask them more what they meant? Like were they so happy and content? Or they just didn't wonder so much?
regan: My four year old just went skiing for the first time, as I watched from the balcony with my mother in law. The first day, she couldn't stop exclaiming how amazing he was, as he did all the right things. The second day, he fell twice, was timid, and left crying. "I guess he won't be a skiier, then," she said. In that family, and in mine, you were either a prodigy or nothing.
Sandra Dodd: But if a complacent parent has complacent kids, maybe it would work.
Sandra Dodd: They were just informing me that what I was recommending wasn't going to work for them, becuause they did NOT make connections between things, or wonder about things.
Sandra Dodd: Regan, that's sad!
Jill Parmer: I would imagine that folks who are unschooling would be more open. Else how would they even think to not do school?
Sandra Dodd: Some end up out of school because a child's problems are severe.
regan: I am glad everyday that I am raising him differently, and that I can see these insidious things that our families do and say. When I was a child, I was blind to it.
Sandra Dodd: The phrase "be a skier" seems so narrow, too, like knife's edge. Some are, some aren't. Period.
AlexPolikowsky4: Yeah Jill while in France with Brian the other group of Duathletes wanted to eat something they were used to. I wanted French and local food. UGH! We only ate one time in an italian restaurant and they still complained it was not the same DUH!
Sandra Dodd: When skiing served a practical purpose, some NEEDED to be skiers, and it was just for shits and expensive grins.
Sandra Dodd: Now some people are snowmobilers and some aren't (or they just get their 4WD on the well-maintained road). Skiing, like learning to play the harpsichord, has changed over the centuries.
AlexPolikowsky4: Yeah I am glad my husband was open enough to homeschool! I thought he was not going to be. High School Basketball player, dad was in the school board and more. BUt he was!! I was very very surprised! Like I said his love for the kids is what opened him bit by bit a little
Sandra Dodd: While those five traits (one of which is "openness to experience") are interesting, and people are working on measureing them scientifically, I want to remind people that it's only a model.
Sandra Dodd: EVERY description of human behavior is like a sketch to hold up over the world, like a graph or a chart.
Sandra Dodd: I like Howard Gardner's multiple intellgences, but it's the very same way. It's for describing differences, and the range of differences that people see in other people.
Sandra Dodd: Not ALL people—just those with interpersonal intelligence.
AlexPolikowsky4: I think some people can change too. They can become more open and close according to situations and life experiences.
Sandra Dodd: I think so too, Alex. Trauma can close them down. Joy can open them up.
Sandra Dodd: Some people stay for 50 years in the same town, same house, doing their duty or their job or whatever, raising their kids, taking care of the elderly parents, and then they leave and travel for twenty years without ever coming home!!
AlexPolikowsky4: I am loving this chat but I got to go get my fire wood out in the field. Brian spent the morning cutting with a chain saw and there is a Blizzard coming tomorrow sometimes ! I will read later. Have fun!
Sandra Dodd: I'm happy not to be expecting a blizzard here.
Capn Franko: Me, too. Brrrrrr!
Sandra Dodd: So what would be practical for us to leave in this chat for unschooling parents?
Sandra Dodd: Give kids chances to explore but don't try go press them to explore past their comfort level?
Capn Franko: That makes sense.
Sandra Dodd: Even kids in the same family might be different, genetically/naturally.
Sandra Dodd: I don't like to hear a parent say to a child "You don't need that."
Sandra Dodd: Maybe because I heard it myself, from my mom and granny, too much.
Capn Franko: Our two are certainly different in many ways.
Marta Pires: Keeping a positive outlook on life helps one to be more open, I think.
Marta Pires: And seeing the abundance, the many possibilities for learning to happen, for connections to be made.
Sylvia Woodman: I try to keep an attitude of "Life Is A Wonderful Adventure!" "And Wouldn't it be Fun to do......"
Capn Franko: Some of my friends laughingly say that I' m the guy who always says, "You know what would be fun...?" But Ronnie, MJ, and Chloe are pretty much like that, too; so it sure works for us.
Sylvia Woodman: But it's catchy Frank!
Sylvia Woodman: I've been doing this for a while now and now the kids are starting to do it too--- to suggest things and places they want to try and go...
Jill Parmer: Enjoy the "What if..." game with your kids. Don't answer too fast, try to think up all kinds of different scenarios.
Capn Franko: Yeah! Those people are obviously "closed." *grin* Or maybe some of my ideas are a little outrageous.
Sandra Dodd: Maybe both, Frank.
Sylvia Woodman: They have started making up reasons to celebrate -- our newest thing is the "Noonabration" A celebration when the clocks say that it is Noon!
Sandra Dodd: Even an "Open to experience" person has limits.
Sylvia Woodman: They dance around and cheer and then we have a group hug!
Capn Franko: True.
Sandra Dodd: Sylvia, there is a cult around 11:11.
Sandra Dodd: That couldn't have existed before digital clocks.
Sylvia Woodman: Noon works on all kinds of clocks
Bernadette: Or sundials.
Virginia Warren: Reading an analog clock is starting to seem like a quaint hobby.
regan: In NYC, the Corduroy Appreciation Club has its special day on Nov 11.
Sylvia Woodman: Oh I was just thinking we should get a sundial!!!! I wonder if we could make one?
Sandra Dodd: Sure you could make one!
Sandra Dodd: There are lots in the Netherlands—on buildings, in parks.
Sylvia Woodman: ==-==Reading an analog clock is starting to seem like a quaint hobby.==-== it's like knowing calligraphy or how to spin wool into yarn.
Sandra Dodd: There's one in the cloister of…. (Norwich?) Cathedral—a hole in the stone work of the arches, and marks on the floor.
Sylvia Woodman: Kind of cool!
Sandra Dodd: None of them seem to work particularly well, but when a sundial is created FOR THAT PLACE, then people will meet at noon or two, and it doesn't matter what time it "really is" or might be somewhere else.
Sandra Dodd: Before mechanical portable clocks, and in a place without a big bing bong clock tower, having a public indicator was good enough.
Sylvia Woodman: (My kids totally impressed a grumpy old man recently who was going on about "kids today" when he noticed that they could read an analog clock on the wall correctly)
Sandra Dodd: Once when "court" (the assembly/announcements/ceremonies) of a big SCA tournament was starting, Keith (in the back of the crowd) stuck an axe in the ground so the handle made a shadow
Sandra Dodd: And he was taking bets about how long court would last.
Sandra Dodd: People were putting sticks in the ground, and adding to a pool, and if it was on someone's stick when it ended he was going to get the pool. I was amused, but didn't stick around for the end of it.
Sandra Dodd: I have thought many times (but not DONE it) of marking where the sun comes in on the wall on the shortest and longest days. But I haven't done it. yet.
Sylvia Woodman: Oh that is a great idea, Sandra!
Bernadette: We're currently watching the Brits because Dan and Phil are supposed to be presenting and Isobel likes them. We've never watched the Brits before, it's surprisingly fun.
Bernadette: Ten years ago I'd have refused to try watching.
Sandra Dodd: So that kind of curiosity would seem goofy to some people. (my mark-the-wall idea; sorry—Holly just came in and brought me candy and is telling me stories
Sandra Dodd: Watching what, Bernadette?
Bernadette: The Brit Awards - it's a music award ceremony.
Robin B.: Who are Dan and Phil?
Bernadette: Dan and Phil are YouTubers who've been given a radio show.
Robin B.: Ah!
Sandra Dodd: Thanks for the translation.
Sandra Dodd: I like awards shows.
Sandra Dodd: People are at their best.
Sandra Dodd: (or if they're not it's glaring and exciting)
Sandra Dodd: We could just talk about whatever anyone wants to if the topic has played out already.
AnnieLou: I really love that now I'm more open to watching/reading/listening to things that in the past I would have scorned
Bernadette: Even the music, which I mostly don't like, is excitingly presented, it's nice to be able to find the enjoyable side of something instead of focussing on the things you don't like.
Sylvia Woodman: Yes! What Bernadette said! It's so much nicer that way!
Virginia Warren: I've been noticing lately how much information is packed into Pokemon names.
Sylvia Woodman: What kind of candy Sandra?
Sandra Dodd: dark chocolate on orange sticks (on sale from Walgreen's where she's working)
Sylvia Woodman: I just bought Gabriella the new Butterfinger Peanutbutter Cup thing. She loves that kind of thing.
Capn Franko: Orange sticks! (I prefer milk choc. ones but I can manage to choke down the dark ones. (grin)
Sandra Dodd: She got milk for her.
Sylvia Woodman: And I'm hoping to take the kids to the Lego movie later today so I bought those boxes of candy like they sell at the movie theater. They are a dollar at the grocery store.
Robin B.: I just picked up the new crunchy salted almond Toblerone. Yum!
Capn Franko: I knew I liked Holly. (wink)
Robin B.: I like milk chocolate, too, but my women friends keep wanting to give me dark chocolate - the darker the better.
Sylvia Woodman: Harry mentioned that maybe he would want popcorn AND candy so I want to be able to give him that without making Jim feel uncomfortable about the expense.
Capn Franko: We need to go to the grocery store and get some foodstuffs for later but I do have shrimp etouffee in the fride fro now. Yum!
Robin B.: Yum, Frank.
Sylvia Woodman: I'm sure it is because when he and I were kids we were NEVER allowed to buy snacks at the movie theater -- too expensive!
Capn Franko: Way too expensive now! Ouch!
Marta Pires: You guys are making me hungry
Sylvia Woodman: So I'm trying to quietly help him feel better about letting our kids do it.
Virginia Warren: I've recently discovered another really good reason to help my kids enjoy all the sweets they want, right here and now.
Robin B.: They are expensive. I always figure in that amount in the movie budget. But then we don't go out to many movies, these days.
Sylvia Woodman: Yes -- going to the movies is a new thing for us.
Virginia Warren: Sweets have started hurting my teeth. Not, like, giving me cavities, searing pain in all my teeth when I eat candy.
Sandra Dodd: I am a senior now, at the movies.
AnnieLou: Liam likes to buy snacks at the movies with his own money. A couple of times i tried to convince him to save his money and we'd buy cheaper stuff beforehand, then I realised that he really loves the experience of buying it himself at the candy bar
Sandra Dodd: in ALL your teeth? How does that make sense? Yikes!
Virginia Warren: I don't understand it at all.
Capn Franko: I'll spend the money for something which needs to be BIG but it ain't that long before they are availble on Netflix or whatever, so mostly I wait.
Sandra Dodd: One day when I was angry at Holly and Keith, I went to the movies. BY MYSELF. An act of hostility.
Virginia Warren: Some people also grow up and just don't like sweets like they used to.
Sandra Dodd: So I just WENT to the movies. (I left a note; I'm not THAT hostile.)
Sandra Dodd: Here's my really aggressive action: brace yourselves.
Capn Franko: I get senior rate but Ronnie doesn't. The girls get student rate,
Sandra Dodd: I bought a large popcorn and a big soda. THERE, at the movie.
Sandra Dodd: That will show them, those rude Keith-and-Holly.
Capn Franko: Selfish, greedy woman! Censure!
Sandra Dodd: So I ended up seeing Philomena, which is heart-wrenching, and being very grateful that I had a husband and had never given a child up for adoption, and went home feeling grateful (and like a dope, because the food cost more than the movie ticket).
Capn Franko: *grin*
Sandra Dodd: Usually before I go to a movie I make microwave popcorn, and eat it, and drink a soda—at home or on the way.
Sandra Dodd: Then when I get there, I am innoculated to the smell and desire for any more of THAT stuff.
Capn Franko: We just dropped $15.5K on sewer repairs. I'm feeling very poor. A movie seems desperately extravagant.
Virginia Warren: There's just something about movie theater popcorn, though!
Sandra Dodd: And flushing a toilet is like a $20 deal!
Capn Franko: It's delicious.
Virginia Warren: I'll eat it until me lips hurt and then eat some more.
Sandra Dodd: I called a plumber because an exposed sewer pipe near the cleanout, from our back section—not the main house—has a crack. Leaked out a bit.
Sandra Dodd: I figured. $300, $500.
Robin B.: $15,500?
Capn Franko: Yep. Ouch.
Robin B.: Holy cow.
Sandra Dodd: The guy came, looked, said they *could* fix it for $200, but we should just get some JB Weld, wire-brush it, smear that on, and it will last for years. He said that's what he would do it it were his house.
Robin B.: I agree, Virginia. I pretty much only eat popcorn at the movies.
Capn Franko: Wish ours had been like that.
Sandra Dodd: But a few years ago they took out our front yard, part of the driveway, some of the sidewalk...new pipe from the house to the main
Robin B.: I'll also eat it until my lips hurt.
Sandra Dodd: DEEP trench the kids jumped down in.
Sandra Dodd: We have photos somewhere.
Robin B.: Frank, that's gotta put a bit of a cramp in your travel plans.
Sandra Dodd: That cost the equivalent of many months of mortgage payments and made me wish we were renting.
Sandra Dodd: What topic would anyoe here like for next week? Jill? Robin? Marta?
AnnieLou: Millie is awake and wants to use the ipad so I'll get going, bye
Capn Franko: it's a painful $$ bite in the bank account.
Sandra Dodd: We need topics for next week (me in ABQ) and the week after (me at Schuyler's in Australia, at 5:00 Thursday morning)
Robin B.: Let me think.
Capn Franko: Jealous. I wanna be at Schuyler's in Oz!
Robin B.: Me, too.
Marta Pires: You talked about discussing a more practical one, when we talked about this a while ago (I suggested mindfulness but you were afraid there would be too many psychology related topics for the chat).
Robin B.: What about deschooling? It's come up a lot on the FB group.
Robin B.: Recently.
Robin B.: Even here, Heather and Sylvia have both mentioned things from our or our spouses' childhoods, flowing over into the kids' lives.
Virginia Warren: The importance of deschooling seems to be routinely underestimated.
Robin B.: Frank, Ronnie, MJ and I met a couple of unschoolers from Connecticut for dinner.
Robin B.: I agree, Virginia. And every age and every stage brings something else up for people, I think.
Robin B.: brings up something else. Sheesh. Grammar.
Virginia Warren: I thought deschooling wasn't important for me because my kids never went to school. HA!
Robin B.: Ha, is right.
Bernadette: I thought I wouldn't need much deschooling because I didn't go to school.
Jill Parmer: Gaining confidence? Fun. And why that is a good goal.? Sandra's games and things from unschooling conferences.?
Jill Parmer: Following your kids' interests, and where it's taken you?
Robin B.: Jill, I'm not sure what you mean by "Sandra's games and things from unschooling conferences." You mean talking about them or playing them?
Marta Pires: Ooh Jill, I love that one! Gaining confidence!
Sandra Dodd: Sorry… I was off with holly.
Marta Pires: Courage
Marta Pires: Being corageous
Robin B.: Oh, the following your kids' interests one could help me a bit more with my talk.
Jill Parmer: I was thinking of Sandra telling them to us, and doing them if we could. 
Might work, might not.
Might work, might not.
Robin B.: The last one on supporting interests has been quite helpful already.
Robin B.: Sandra, were you going to answer Heather's question about the piano playing (or did I miss the answer when I sped-read the chat)?
Sandra Dodd: I don't know. I talked about music in general.
Sandra Dodd: Was it up near the top?
Robin B.: Yes, before the official chat.
Robin B.: I'll find it.
Sandra Dodd: Games the we learned from kids played at confefences? Please clarify that about games.
Sandra Dodd: Okay, so one eill be deschooling (and how things come back around as kids get to ages when parents had issues or traumas or changes)
Robin B.: heatherbooth: So, is it a magical thinking kind of thing? If you learn to play piano you'll be wealthy when you're older?
Sandra Dodd: No, heather, not that. [smile] Sandra Dodd: I'll get back to it.
Sandra Dodd: No, heather, not that. [smile] Sandra Dodd: I'll get back to it.
Sandra Dodd: and one on what parents have learned from following their kids' interests.
Jill Parmer: The things you've had people do at conferences. The one in MN last year, people remembering...
Sandra Dodd: Jill's whole WOW chat was like that! [link added later: WoW]
Robin B.: How did I miss the WoW chat?
Jill Parmer: There was on you did with paper, geez, I have these vaguely in my memory. I was hoping you'd know exactly what I was thinking.
Jill Parmer: Yes, workshop exercises.
Sandra Dodd: I think i did get back to it—that the upper classes created music in their homes, and Americans should give their children upper-class advantages.
Sandra Dodd: IGNORING the whole face of recorded music, radio...
Robin B.: Right.
Sandra Dodd: The tradition of musical training stayed after it was necessary, because nobody knows how to put the brakes on cultural expectations very well.
Sandra Dodd: Marching band is cool, though. That's fairly American. John Phillip Sousa and all, football halftime shows.
That's fairly American. John Phillip Sousa and all, football halftime shows.
Sandra Dodd: Keith and I both did marching band and wished our kids had. But they're millenial kids, not post-war kids.
Robin B.: It's an interesting thing, that "I think you should learn x, even if I didn't and have no interest in it myself." That happened with swimming. I'm a good swimmer and learned first without lessons. Ross can't swim and insisted Senna take lessons to learn to swim.
Sandra Dodd: I'm going shopping with Holly for shoes and pants she needs for work.
Sandra Dodd: trousers, in case any brits are here
Robin B.: She can swim, btw, without lessons.
Marta Pires: Have a nice day, Sandra!
Sandra Dodd: (in the UK if a job needs special pants, the girls mom doesn't go shopping with her for that. )
Robin B.: How do you know, Sandra?
Sandra Dodd: Okay… maybe some moms.
Robin B.: :::snort:::
Sandra Dodd: Thanks for being here, and I'll see you in a week.
Marta Pires: Bye everyone!
Bernadette: Goodbye
