Daily Archives: March 12, 2009

Hopeless With Waldorf?

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(Addendum as of March 28, 2009:  This post has had 416 hits as of today which kind of cracks me up because I wrote it completely off the cuff in about 10 minutes!  If you are new to my blog, please do have a look around.  There are lots of posts about the developmental characteristics of the ages of children 7 and under, lots of posts on gentle discipline, co-sleeping, breastfeeding and more (and of course there are A LOT of posts on Waldorf homeschooling and life with Waldorf).  I am glad to have you as a reader today!  Thank you!)

I have recently talked to three separate mothers who are feeling hopeless and overwhelmed with Waldorf.  I would like to take this opportunity to shatter the Waldorf myths – excuse me while I go put on my silk, hand-dyed cape!

Okay, now I am back, so here goes:

1.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean that you will always walk around singing and as happy as a Mary Poppins on Valium.  It does mean you will do your best to take some time for YOURSELF and breathe.  It does mean you will try to set the tone for your home, because if you don’t do it, no one else will.

2.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean you can never have another plastic toy in your house ever again.  It does mean you WILL seriously pare down your clutter of toys and get rid of a lot of them.  It does mean you may take the time to set up inviting areas in your home for your kids to want to play in – maybe a kitchen area, a dress-up area.

3.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean you have to go and stand outside in sub-freezing weather everyday because “we are outside in all kinds of weather, no matter what.”  It does mean you will make a very concerted effort to get your kids outside on most days when this is reasonable and that you will try to make it around the same time most days.

4.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean you have to get rid of your TV, but it does mean you will not turn it on during the day and that your kids will not watch it if they are little.  It does mean you are going to work hard to NOT surf on your PC all day, except to read this blog 🙂

5.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean your house has to be perfectly clean and spotless with you standing there in an apron with your broom (although I personally love my apron).  It does mean you will make a reasonable effort to keep your house picked up by having several times during the day where you pick up, that you  will allot time at the end of an activity to clean-up with your children, and that you will try to clean your house and cook some homemade meals.  Baby steps – start small.

6.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean you will never go out during the week anymore, but it does mean you will work to be firmly entrenched in your home, especially if you have small children.  It does mean you will think about the number of playdates and classes and such a four-year-old really needs (my vote is for none!)

7.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean that you are sunk if you cannot make your own bread, knit, sew, paint, model and play pennywhistle, but it does mean you will try to learn little by little.  Maybe you will find other Waldorf homeschooling parents to learn from.  Maybe, gasp, you will attend a workshop or class without your children and learn so you can show them and be a better teacher.  The joy of being human is that we can learn, do better and we are not stagnate!

8.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean you cannot use an open and go curriculum. Melisa Nielsen creates one, and so does Donna Simmons.  It may mean that after you do this Waldorf homeschooling for awhile you may be inspired to create your own, and it is okay to take a few minutes each day to work on it before the next school year.

9.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean you have to honor every traditional Waldorf festival they would celebrate in a school.  Pick the ones that speak to you and your family, start small and add things to it every year.  This is a learning practice.

10.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean you cannot include your child’s interests in your homeschooling experience, but it DOES mean you understand the reasons of WHY Waldorf teaches WHAT when and you  can work with that.

11.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean that your children have to go to bed at 6:30 forever, but it does mean that you shoot for the same bedtime every night and the same awake time every day.  After awhile, you and your children will love this and it will not be a battle, but you have to persevere for at least 21 days!  21 days to make a new habit!  And, as a homeschooling mother, you will appreciate the time to yourself.

12.  Being Waldorf does NOT mean you will never get there, it just may take time!

Be easy with yourselves out there, start small and dream big!  Seek guidance from other Waldorf mothers and don’t just settle on something less than Waldorf if you feel Waldorf is really right for your family!  Make it work for you!

You can do this!!

Love to all,

Carrie

Differences Between “The Well-Trained Mind” and Waldorf: The Early Years

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Someone pointed out to me that The Well-Trained Mind encourages art and stories within their curriculum as well, so what is so different about the two curriculums?  This was a person with very little experience in Waldorf who had never seen a Main Lesson Book or seen how the children create throughout a three-day rhythm in a Waldorf environment as they learn, but I still thought it was an interesting question.

I would like to take moment to address this question here in this post for you all.  This first table is for the pre-school years of The Well-Trained Mind, which encompasses the Waldorf Kindergarten Years of ages 3-6.

  The Well-Trained Mind Waldorf
How to Teach Reading “Talk, talk, talk – adult talk, not baby talk.  Talk to her while you’re walking in the park, while you’re riding in the care, while you’re fixing dinner.” (page  27)
”Read, read, read.  Start reading chunky baby books to your baby in her crib.  Give her sturdy books that she can look at alone. (A torn book or two is a small price to pay for literacy).  Read picture books, pointing at the words with your finger.  Read the same books over and over’; repetition builds literacy…..Read books onto tapes, along with the child’s comments, so that she can listen to you read over and over again.” (page 27, TWTM, page 27)
”After you read to your toddler, ask her questions about the story.  Why did the gingerbread man run away from the little old woman?  Why did all the dogs want to go to the top of the tree in Go, Dog, Go?  Why did Bananas Gorilla take all the bananas?” (Page 27)		 Steiner did not advocate teaching reading to children still within the first seven-year cycle.  The child is seen as needing their energy for growth and development of the physical body until the forces are  freed for memorization.  It is not that the child cannot learn reading at this age, but that the child ‘s growth and development should be protected at this point by the adult.  Steiner felt early memorization, instruction and such came at a price to the child’s future health as an adult.
”Accomplishments that come with forces that are available later on should never be forced into  an earlier stage, unless we are prepared to ruin the physical organism.” Steiner, page 116, Soul Economy.Talking for the sake of talking is not seen as promoting the vital concept of warmth and is also seen as pulling the child into their head with lots of verbal play; but singing, verses, pictorial imagery, oral storytelling  is strongly encouraged.  Talking to your child is encouraged, just perhaps not the running commentary of what you are doing every minute the way TWTM suggests.
Picture books are limited so the child can make pictures in their own mind, and the same picture books and fairy tales and nature stories are told over and over for weeks or a month at a time to work deeply on the child’s soul.  The child memorizes the stories, songs and verses from the repetition, and the stories come out in the child’s play
Use of Television and Videos Limit television and videos. Same, no television or videos preferable
Writing “Very young children (under two) will pick up a pencil and imitate scribbling.  Teach a child from the beginning to  hold the pencil correctly.  Draw lots of circles and loops in a counterclockwise direction……Teach your three year old basic dot-to-dot skills by drawing your own dot-to-dot picture…” (pages 28-29) Some Waldorf Kindergartens do  artistic drawing, but none teach letters or do dot-to-dot diagrams within the Kindergarten ages of 3-6.  Letter and handwriting are taught in First Grade through such artistic activities as form drawing, modeling the letters, drawing objects that begin with a letter and seeing how that turns into the abstract letter.  Pictures that the child draws, such as a house, is seen on an archtypical level.
Math “Start to make your child “mathematically literate” in the toddler years…..Bring numbers into everyday life as often as possible….Once the child is comfortable counting, you can start working on simple math sums – usually during the K-4 and K-5 years.” (page 29) Pre-mathematics literacy is laid early through oral stories, fingerplays, rhymes.  Qualities of numbers, all four math processes, Roman numerals, all are introduced in Grade One.
“kindergarten” for four and five year olds “….it’s a rare five year old who’s ready to do very much paper-and-pencil work at a desk, and a six year old who hasn’t done a formal kindergarten program can easily begin first-grade work.”
”Kindergarten for four year olds accomplishes even less.  Most four year olds have microscopic attention spans, immature hand-eye coordination, and a bad case of the wiggles.”
”In about thirty minutes per day, you can teach your child beginning reading, writing, and math concepts, all without workbooks or teacher’s manuals.” (page 30).		 Waldorf Kindergarten does not focus on reading or writing or math per say at this early age, but strives to lay healthy foundations for these subjects through a variety of sensory and practical life experiences for when the student is ready for academic work in Grade One.  Each year of Kindergarten the student has more complex stories, projects and responsibilities.

Students in Waldorf kindergarten certainly do learn colors, shapes, things such as above, below, on, weights and measurements, pre-mathematical literacy.  Some Waldorf Kindergarteners can read if they have taught themselves, but the focus really is on the BODY at this young age.
Reading for four and five year olds “You should continue to immerse four and five year olds in language, just as you’ve been doing since birth.  Read with them in the “real world”….Get them books on tape…….Susan’s three year old and five year old listened to all of Kipling’s Just So Stories, the original Jungle Book, all of Edith Nesbit’s books, The Chronicles of Narnia, Barrie’s densely written Peter Pan…….” (page 32) Steiner believed children of this age should be in their bodies and reading should come later.The stories mentioned in the WTM quote to the left are wonderful works of literature, but included much later in the Waldorf curriculum at a time when those types of stories would be seen as speaking to a child….A child under the age of seven is living in a world of connection and oneness with things, and stories with strong protagonists the child can identify with (as opposed to the archetypal figures of fairy tales), do not come in until later.
Method of teaching reading for four and five year olds Recommends “The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, by Jessie Wise, contains clear step-by-step instructions on how to teach reading from the very beginning stages, starting with letter sounds and moving systematically through blending sounds into reading real words and sentences.” (page 33)
”Remember, you want the child to read quickly, easily, and early.  Many children are ready to read long before they have the muscular coordination to write.  Why delay reading until the muscles of the hand and eye catch up?” (page 38)		 Live singing, live music, storytelling, drama, all lay a strong foundation for language literacyAnd for the record, Waldorf does not teach reading through a strictly phonetic approach where the child must read three letter words with only short “A” in them to start – the Waldorf approach to reading is whole word, whole language with the letter sounds included.  See below.  The letter sounds are introduced in First Grade, with letter emphasis on word families and reading from the written word of things the child knows very well – songs and verses
Math for four and five year olds Real world math, and “your public library should have a colorful selection of kindergarten-level math books- easy problems worked out with photographed objects.  Get a book every week, and read through it.” See above.

Steiner recommended rapid introduction to the numbers in the First Grade with rapid transition into introducing all four math processes.
Science for the four and five year old “You can supplement beginning reading, writing, and math by doing a science experiment once or twice a week; more formal science study isn’t necessary at this age.” The child is considered from a developmental standpoint  one with nature; the connection between nature and the child is fostered through outside time, building with natural materials, preparing for festivals, reverence for living things
Art and Music Not mentioned The child has a variety of musical and  artistic experiences through wet-on-wet watercolor painting, modeling, play outside with natural materials, music with lyre, singing, Circle Time throughout the day
Gross Motor Skills not mentioned Continually fostered through almost every activity in the kindergarten, including very active Circle times and outside time where building with natural materials is encouraged, nature walks of longer duration
Practical Life Skills not mentioned Fostered through preparation of snack, bread making, gardening, wood working, housekeeping and other experiences
Spirituality Not mentioned in preschool section; mentioned on page 204 as part of Grades section.  “Education cannot be neutral when it comes to faith; it is either supportive or destructive.  The topic of education is humanity, its accomplishments, its discoveries, its savage treatment of its own kind, its willingness to endure self-sacrifice.  And you cannot learn- or teach- about humanity without considering God.” The child is assumed to be a spiritual being from a spiritual place; reverence is instilled through verses and songs, preparation for festivals, gardening and being outside daily in all kinds of weather
The festivals celebrated often have a Christian-Judeo background, but all the world religions are taught within the curriculum throughout the years.   For more information please see post entitled “Refreshed and Renewed.”
Emphasis on Rhythm, Protection of the 12 Senses Not mentioned Very unique to Waldorf and seen as vital to a child’s health – there are many posts on this blog about rhythm!

Protection is a big factor within the early years, with repetition and reverence being hallmarks toward that, along with warmth of the teacher, warm foods, warmth in  the  environment
The role of the teacher  I couldn’t find any direct quotes really, perhaps someone else more familiar with this work can? “Children are entrusted to us for their education.  They are a sacred trust we receive.” (From Soul Economy). 
The view of the child’s academic ability To be filled by the teacher through exposure to print books, to audio books, to concepts and counting The teacher is a guide, an observer and a leader in setting rhythm and health as the child’s development and maturation unfolds.

 

 

As you can see, Waldorf and The Well-Trained Mind have very different premises about what the young child needs in the early years for future health and academic success, although there is brief  overlap on such things as limiting media exposure.  However, the things Waldorf views as most important for the small child – less words, more singing, music, oral stories, outside time, getting children in their bodies, rhythm, protection of the senses, REPETITION of the same stories and things is wanted and promoted – is not even mentioned by The Well-Trained Mind.

They are just very different approaches, in my opinion.  As Melisa Nielsen says, TWTM is a wonderful product if that is the way you want to go.  My addition to this thought though is to make sure this is the way you want to go, the way you see your homeschooling experience reflecting your values and priorities for your child.

Food for thought,

Carrie

More Inspiration for Teaching from Steiner’s “Human Values in Education.”

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Yes, more from what I am reading.  On page 55, this passage made me stop and think:

We see the higher processes abstracted in all the lower stages of the process.  An imponderable relationship arises between you and the students; and the children make real progress in their education as long as you do not get the idea that they are ignorant and you are clever; you must stand before the children, aware that this is a fact in the world, and that you are leading them to believe in something that you yourself believe with all your heart.”

There is the heart of the matter.  Do you believe a child under the age of 7 can benefit by NOT doing academics at this point?  Do you believe a child of the age of 7 needs to approach things through art, music and imagination?  Do you believe in the value of the fairy tales for a 7 year old – that this is what they need for their development of their soul, to see that good always overcomes?  Do you believe that an 8 year old needs to see the  duality of man through the Saints – people who did other worldly things- and the trickster tales?  Do you believe a child in the throes of the 9 year old change needs to hear about the relationship of man to authority in Old Testament stories?

If you don’t believe, what is attracting you to Waldorf?  Why are you considering this for your child’s education?  What healing needs to be done in you so you can teach this and truly believe?

If these questions are difficult, perhaps a one-on-one consultation with one of the nationally known Waldorf consultants could be of assistance to you.  See a list to pick from here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/01/03/waldorf-consultants/

Your children deserve your authenticity and exploration into this matter!

Peaceful journeying to you,

Carrie

Inspiring Words from Steiner’s “Human Values in Education”

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I have recently been reading Steiner’s “Human Values in Education.”  This book is a sequence of the last lectures on education that Steiner ever gave before he died.  The back cover states, “…he was graced with a remarkable clarify and penetration that allowed him to address old topics (as well as new) with uncanny spiritual luminosity, precision, and sheer humanity.  If anyone is looking for the “last word” on Waldorf education, this is perhaps it- in  more ways than one.”

On page 87, this passage really struck me and I hope it will make you stop and think:

“During the years between the change of teeth and puberty, we are concerned not just with the obvious, because when we consider the whole of human life something else also becomes obvious.  At the age of eight, I absorb some concept; I do not yet understand it fully – in fact, I don’t understand it fully- in fact, I don’t understand its abstract meaning at all.  I am not yet constituted in a way that makes this possible.  So why do I take in such a concept at all?  It is because my teacher is speaking; my teacher’s authority is a given, and it works on me.  These days, however, we are not supposed to do this; children are supposed to be shown only what is visible and obvious.

Consider children who are taught everything in this way.  Their experiences do not grow with them, because this method treats them as beings who do not grow.  But we should not awaken ideas in children if those ideas are unable to grow with them; this is like making a pair of shoes for a three-year old and expecting that child to wear them at the age of twelve.  Everything in human beings grows,  including the power of comprehension; consequently, concepts must be able to grow as well.  We must therefore make sure we bring living concepts to children, but we cannot do this unless children have a living relationship to the teacher’s authority.  And this cannot be accomplished by abstract, pedantic teachers who stand in front of children and give them concepts that are still completely alien to them.”

So, food for thought:

How are you teaching these days?  Are you teaching your four year old like a four year old and your eight year old like an eight year old?

Where is the active part of your lesson?

Are you teaching through art and music for the 7 to 14 year old crowd?

Do you understand the big picture that Waldorf education is fostering in each different seven year cycle?

Have you read any Steiner lately?

Are you prepared for class each day?

Is your rhythm on or off?

Happy teaching,

Carrie