Sandra Dodd (Keynote of a conference that didn't end up happening)
Sandra Dodd lives in Albuquerque with her husband Keith, son Marty (22 at conference time) and daughter Holly (19 in November 2010). Her oldest, Kirby, lives in Austin. Those three were unschooled throughout, and are all past school age, but not past learning! Neither are their parents.
Sandra is a former English teacher whose other jobs have all involved words and ideas and learning too, and whose avocation and hobby has become helping other parents find ways to live more richly and peacefully with their children. Sandra's website is the starting place for a great deal of her collection of writings, notes, examples, and great quotes collected from 15 years of online discussions.
Caring for Marriage Conference, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 2011
Sandra Dodd lives with her husband, Keith, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Their children are Kirby (24, living in Austin, working for a video game company), Marty (22, living at home and attending community college) and Holly (19 and working as a nanny for an eight year old homeschooled girl whose mother died last summer).
Sandra is involved in many discussions online about parenting, homeschooling (“unschooling,” specifically), and relationships with children and spouses. Lori Odhner was one of Sandra’s first La Leche League leaders (when Kirby was a baby) and they have stayed in touch ever since. Lori says “Sandra is incredibly creative, funny, accepting and playful. She has helped me look at life in fresh ways, without worrying about how change will play out. She is traveling a long way to speak to us and I am sure you will laugh, think, and maybe even change."
HENA 2008 (lifted most of the same bio from 2007)
Sandra Dodd's thoughts can be seen on SandraDodd.com and she says:
I've been interested in teaching and how people learn since I was six, and (as is usual in big busy lives) all I've done before has led up to what I'm doing now. I grew up in northern New Mexico, I've been blessed with curiously bright and curious friends who shared their questions and answers with me, and there's nothing to do with that but pass it on to any curious others.
My main online activities have to do with that sort of radical homeschooling known as unschooling. I write about unschooling and I speak at conferences sometimes, and run workshops upon occasion. Some nice unschoolers who'd been collecting quotes and paying attention to me made a Wikipedia page.
HSC/Sacramento 2007:
| Sandra Dodd Sandra Dodd is an unschooling mother of three (ages 21, 18, and 15), a writer, a former classroom teacher, and a well-known voice in online discussions about unschooling. She has written for and/or been featured in Home Education Magazine, Life Learning, Live Free Learn Free, and other publications. She has also published Moving a Puddle, a collection of her essays. |
Minnesota, 2007:
Our keynote speaker, Sandra Dodd, will grace us with her humor and insight. Sandra is a well-known voice in the unschooling community, both online and in print. She has written for or been featured in Home Education Magazine, Life Learning, Live Free Learn Free, and numerous other homeschooling publications in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, France and the United States. Her delightful collection of essays, Moving a Puddle, has been very well received in the homeschooling community.
The overall theme of Sandra’s writings and her approach to education is that learning, parenting and everyday life can be wonderful in the absence of school. Sandra maintains a website with helpful resources and support for unschoolers, at sandradodd.com. She and her husband Keith live in Albuquerque, New Mexico with their three children, none of whom have ever been to school. Sandra’s unschooled 15-year-old daughter Holly plans to join us at this year’s MHA conference.
