I chatted with Cecilie Conrad and Sandra Dodd this morning via Zoom. We were recording episode 6 of the second season of Da Ladies Fixing the World podcast.
I’ve known Sandra for many years, much longer than she’s known me. A long time ago, I googled unschooling and discovered Sandra on her website. When I first started blogging about unschooling, after writing a post about some new idea I was pondering, I’d check in with Sandra before publishing it. Was I on the right track? Or was I leading my readers astray by sharing some crazy new ideas that didn’t make sense? Sandra was my trustworthy friend. I bounced thoughts around with her. Although she didn’t know it, I ran all my ideas past her.
A few months ago, I received an email from Buy Me a Coffee with the heading Sandra Dodd bought you five coffees. Sandra Dodd? At first, I didn’t understand. It couldn’t be the Sandra Dodd, could it? No, it had to be a different Sandra Dodd because the legendary one wouldn’t know I existed. Well, that’s what I thought. It turned out I was wrong.
For a while, after receiving those coffees and exchanging a few emails with Sandra, I said at every opportunity, “Did I tell you Sandra Dodd bought me five coffees? She’s read my blog. She likes it! We’re friends!” Yes, I did lots of fangirling.
I retold that story to Cecilie and Sandra this morning, and we all giggled. Sandra and I are real friends now. We meet up every couple of weeks with Cecilie to talk about unschooling.
It’s good to ponder ideas with people, isn’t it? We can share our thoughts, listen carefully to each other, expand and maybe modify our ideas, and just enjoy deep conversations and friendships with fellow unschoolers.
Sometimes, we might come away from our unschooling discussions feeling inspired and recommitted. That’s what happened after this morning’s Zoom call.
Despite being tired – I had a very short night and a very early morning – my mind is buzzing. The many ideas Cecilie, Sandra, and I explored during our two-hour conversation are still flying around inside my head. I might share some of them in future posts. Of course, you can listen to them when our podcast episode goes live.
The second season of Da Ladies Fixing the World podcast will be available sometime during the first week of February. Cecilie hopes we’ll record enough episodes to publish one every two weeks for the next year. Think of all those wonderful conversations I’ll get to have with Sandra and Cecilie!
While waiting for our podcast episodes to go live, why not check out Sandra Dodd’s website and daily blog, Add Light and Stir? You could also take a look at her book, Sandra Dodd’s Big Book of Unschooling.
“I’ve got your book, Sandra!” I cried towards the end of our podcast recording. More fangirling. More grinning. More fun.
Also, check out Cecilie’s website, Cecilie Conrad. Cecilie’s writing a book, too!
Do you remember how I was talking about the value of following an older unschooler not so long ago? Why not start with Sandra? Cecilie is younger than me, so I probably can’t call her ‘older’, but she still has loads of valuable knowledge and experience, so follow her as well.
If you haven’t already done so, subscribe to my blog, too. Now that Cecilie and Sandra have inspired me, I realise, despite being older, I still have lots to say. I might write a few blog posts. And, hopefully, you will check them out!
Photos
A couple of random photos that I took during a recent mother-daughter weekend in Sydney with Gemma-Rose. We were in the hotel lift on our way up to our room.
