Sandra Dodd (born July 24, 1953, Augusta, Georgia) is an unschooling advocate. Her articles have been published in homeschooling journals (particularly, Home Education Magazine), in her self-published book "Moving a Puddle", and are available on her personal website. Articles she has written have been translated into several languages, and her "Public School On Your Own Terms" was featured in "The Homeschooling Book of Answers". She is frequently invited to speak at homeschooling and unschooling conferences.
Dodd grew up in Española, New Mexico[1] and attended the University of New Mexico beginning in the fall of 1970 at age 17. She graduated at 20 with a major in English and ended up with minors in psychology and anthropology.
Dodd was always interested in education and learning. She learned about the open classroom philosophy, free schools such as Summerhill School, and read the writings of John Caldwell Holt. As a junior high school English teacher, Dodd became very aware of the perceived negatives of conventional educational systems. None of her own three children have ever been to school[2] and all three have been radically unschooled.
Dodd has been an active member of the Society for Creative Anachronism for most of the time since joining in the 1970s.
On her website, Dodd says:
{{cquote| 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.[3]