Monthly Archives: June 2024

Read Along With Me: “How The Future Can Save Us” – Method

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Section Three of “Growth” is about “Back To Basics” or teaching according to Steiner’s methods. It begins with a view at a main lesson. The author suggests that the beginning of a two hour main lesson is devoted to “Memory”. We remember things from yesterday’s presentation or demonstration. We talk about it in conversation. We don’t ask them to recall or retell in a classroom setting per se but lead and facilitate a discussion. We present new concepts next and involve the child’s whole being. This can take five to ten minutes for small children and no more than thirty minutes for older children. Next, is a piece called imagination. This is where we think of a main lesson illustration, but it could be working with something concrete such as for math.We work with more questions about the subject and involve their imaginations, which extends the time we are discussing a new topic by another thirty to forty five minutes. This should be active; it could be movement. In the author’s view “Don’t begin with a movement lesson; end with it, if you must.” We then close the lesson with a question to think about or a statement about what is to come tomorrow. Then the main lesson ends with a story – a story we have memorized for younger students or a story we read to the older students. Then we sleep on all of this.

Section Four is talking about “telling tales in Waldorf Schools.” Two passages from Steiner (one from the lectures in “Kingdom of Childhood” and one from the lectures in “Practical Advice to Teachers”) are compared both for and against the “recall” or “review” practice that is done in many Waldorf schools and homeschools. The author concludes from the passages the following really interesting observations:

  1. That the primary point of retelling and review is not the development of memory, but the development of speech. There is more to this idea in the book – it has to do with cultural differences and the time in which Waldorf education was founded.
  2. The author questions if Steiner really meant we should tell the same story over and over – look at your student.
  3. The first portion of a lesson, “the review” has many points of interest elucidated in “Education for Adolescents” and other places). There is no mention of circle time, a three day rhythm, or a three part lesson of “thinking, feeling, willing” mentioned.
  4. The progression Steiner outlines is on page 17 of this book.

Section Five of this talks about teaching to the top – that in a classroom setting, it is easy to “teach to the top” – the smart, motivated students who practically teach themselves. However, teachers are really needed for the students for whom the subject does not come together well. The author writes: “So please plan your classes and lessons for the “best” or “Smartest” students in your class. Keep the pace high, and introduce topics- and write quizzes and tests – in a way that makes it possible for the weaker or slower students to pass, but really challenges the smartest or fastest students. ” He also talks about giving a range of assignments from direct and easy to complex and challenging. This is really the art of teaching, isn’t it? This is what homeschool teachers develop as we go through the grades and through teaching multiple children or in a homeschooling co-op.

He also talks in Section Five about beginning the school year (again, for the grades) with a “bang”! Introduce a topic in a way that will fire your student’s interest and imagination. For this, he uses an example in precalculus at the high school level, but I think this can be true for grades 3 and up. Start with something that makes the student really feel as if they are learning something (I say grades 3 and up because students in grade 1 and 2 generally are not that self aware yet).

Section Six talks about how good teachers ask questions and WAIT for the students to answer. This is definitely trickier in the home environment as we work one on one with our student, and it can feel very aggressive. However, it is important to let students think and to make those connections. I think for older students a good way to do this is to have a new way to review information – I like giant butcher paper sized maps on the back of the school room door and math in practical life situations to think about as quick examples.

Love this section, and there is still more to go! Grab your copy of this book and follow along!

Blessings,
Carrie

Read Along With Me: “How The Future Can Save Us” – Growth

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The section of this book entitled “Growth” has three different sections to look at. The first section is entitled “Protection and Leadership” and begins with a poem from “Leaves of Grass” about how a child went forth and became the first object he looked upon….leaving author Stephen Sagarin to write that our children are being pressured to grow up too quickly. They become consumers from an early age and are being asked by advertisers to grow up faster, to buy products, and that without these products they should not be confident.

He writes, “….teens are in that in-between place, that nowhere land in which they have enough freedom, power, maturity, mobility, and intelligence to make choices, but not the developed judgment to always make wise or rational decisions.”

Side Note : I was talking to a high school sophomore and just newly graduated high schooler today and I was telling them that France passed a ban that bans smartphones and tablets for kids between 3 and 15 years of age (I believe just at school). They said they wished that was the case here. “It would have to be a law though,” they both said, “Because if some people have it (phones) and some don’t, that’s when there are problems. But it’s not good for your brain.” Even teenagers know that it isn’t great for them to consume, but they feel pressure to keep up with what other teens are watching. This conversation was interesting timing, considering reading this essay!

The author goes on to point out that America’s image around the world is essentially adolescence and youth, and perhaps this points the way toward our jobs (as teachers, as parents) should be to protect children from growing up too quickly. He points out that Rudolf Steiner spoke about this in “Balance in Teaching,” mentioning protection, enthusiasm, reverence as ways to provide good teaching for children.

But protection doesn’t last forever. At some point it our job to help children go through adolescence and go on to become thoughtful, ethical, creative adults (my paraphrase). Rudolf Steiner wanted education to help develop a “free human being.” Sagarin quotes a passage from “The Spiritual Ground of Education” and talks about how adolescents need freedom of their own intelligence and how without the assistance of adults, they may not only flounder or flail, but not survive. The ages between 12 and 16 are a “vulnerability gap” – named this by famed Master Waldorf teacher and author Betty Staley. This is the time to encourage freedom but ALSO responsibility.

Section 2 of “Growth” is “Growth and Learning in Three Easy Graphs!” “When you are very young, and most of your energy or life force is going into your physical growth, you don’t have as much energy available for intellectual growth. But, as your physical growth slows, you are increasingly capable of turning your mind to whatever you choose.” The last graph neatly shows how these areas intersect. While sometimes Waldorf students are seen as “behind” in the early years or early grades due to beginning academics around age 7, they typically catch up and surpass their peers around fourth grade and accelerate their learning in adolescence, where it should be accelerated. This puts the emphasis, in my opinion, upon the health of the whole child.

What did you think about this section?

Blessings,

Carrie