The Homeschool Journey

Grades Conference in Michigan

I am thrilled to announce a Christopherus conference which is taking place 10 - 12 September 2009 in Marquette MI. The conference will be focused on grades 1 through 6. and the assumption is that those attending have an aquaintance with Waldorf education.

 

The hosts of the group, Laughing Rivers School, is forming a Waldorf-inspired homeschool school - something that I am very excited about. So much of the conference will be focused on group activities. However, I am always mindful of the needs of homeschoolers and the very significant differences between how one educates children at home or in school and so will be highlighting these differences throughout the conference. I am grateful that our hosts are willing to open this conference up to the larger homeschooling community and hope to see many of you there!

 

We are handling registration details at the Christopherus office so contact me if you'd like to register: donna@christopherushomeschool.org

 

Here's link to the schedule for the conference.

UN Treaty threatens Homeschooling Freedoms

Here's a sobering article written by the folks at the HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association) which should make every single homeschooler (and person who values freedom) sit up and take notice. It is about how the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child are being interpreted and how this could be enforced in Britain. All member nations which have signed the treaty are potentially affected and this means that homeschooling could become illegal in many countries across the globe. This is not an issue to shrug one's shoulders at and pass over. Get involved in your local homeschooling organization and get mobilized!

 

Here is the full article.

Is Childcare as Good as Mama-care?

Every once in a while I have one of those "Emperor's New Clothes" moments - you know what I mean. In this story, the emperor is gullible and gets taken in by two con-men who claim to make him the most beautiful clothes in the world when indeed they are just pretending and taking his money. But he doesn't want anyone to think he's stupid so he plays along - and then when he leads a parade naked to the world, all his people also play along, also not wanting to seem stupid to their neighbors: for surely they can see the clothes if the emperor says there are indeed clothes. So there's this big conspiracy of silence with everyone playing along. Everyone except a little boy, too young to be taken in, who asks " Why is the emperor wearing no clothes?"

 

Well for me, the "no clothes" issue has to do with the enormous myth in our society that childcare - good childcare of course - and definitions of what constitute good childcare differ wildly - is just as good as care a child can receive from his mother. From 6 weeks on it is perfectly acceptable to hand a child over to strangers because "good childcare is as good as care from a mother".

 

No, it's not that I ever agreed with this patently absurd assertion, but that I never, until recently, had a colorful way to explain its obvious flaws. This is my "emperor" moment - or maybe, more accurately, my "little boy" moment. One can become numb to the arguments back and forth about an issue such as this. But sometimes, if one just steps back from a situation and looks at it with a different slant, then one might just awaken to insight into a dilemma.

 

So let's look at this assertion. People taking this position are basically saying that a mother is replaceable by a stranger and that childcare (good childcare) is just as good as the care a mother can give her child. Let's think about that. So....the woman who conceived the child,  who has a karmic and spiritual connection to him; who carried him in her body for 9 months and shared dreams and life with him during that time; who gave birth to him; who fed him from her body - even if not successfully; who lives with him; who shares a name with him and a family history;  and who  is creating a family and a future together with his father (or another committed loving adult) is totally replaceable by a stranger who has none of these characteristics.

 

Hmmmm.....

 

So what I'd like to know is this: do people who believe this also believe that, say, a woman can be told: "Sorry, your husband is not available to you right now. Here's Fred. He attractive, articulate, shares the same hobbies as you and is willing to spend a few hours with you (paid of course - but not very well) instead of your husband. Off you go."

 

Would you be willing to go off with Fred if you want to be with your husband, the person you have committed to, had a child with, are creating a home with and a future? Is a husband substitute (a good husband substitute) good enough?

 

Don't you want your sister, best girl friend, aunt, grandfather, brother or mother when you want that person? Are they completely replaceable by a person who meets certain criteria outlined by people outside of that relationship?

 

I don't think so.

 

What is missing? A mother's love is what is missing. That is the "glue" that made it possible for the woman to conceive, carry, bear and mother her child. That is the bond that works from the past into the future between her and her child. The spiritual, emotional, physical and intellectual connections between a mother and her child just are not imitatable or replaceable by anyone else. Not even a father - who has, of course, his own very special role. But he is not a mother.

 

An adopted mother also has this mother love - she "falls in love" with her adopted child and she has many of the above outlined connections with her child. She also is not replaceable by good childcare - because she, like her sisters who are the birth mothers of their children, are mothers. They are all mothers - not carers. And if people cannot see the difference between a mother and a carer, then I give up.

 

Of course there are many childcare people who definitely love the children they look after and care for. No doubt about it. But is that love the same as a mother's love? Not for one minute. I know what it is like to love many children - I have worked with children in a variety of settings (including as a day care provider) for over 25 years and have loved many of them. Do I think that I ever loved any of them in the same way I love my own sons? Never. Of course not! Does that mean I was not dedicated to those children - of course not. But it is just not the same thing as a mother's love. I would never have the arrogance to think for one moment that my love for a child I looked after could in any way be like the love from his mother or father.

 

There will always be a need for good childcare (now I'm going to use that phrase!). There will always be reasons for children to be looked after by people who are not family members. And there are many ways we can improve childcare in our society - valuing the work of women who look after children would be a good place to start. But we must work unceasingly to shout out that the Emperor has no clothes on - that childcare is not the same as a mother's care. Or a father's or grandmother's or other long term committed person's care, someone who has an ongoing relationship with the family, is part of the family really.

 

Let's remember Fred the next time someone tells us that good childcare is as good as - or worse still - better than - the care a child can get from his mother. Let's work to help women who must use childcare to find good childcare which does not seek to replace her, but seeks to empower her as a mother, despite the fact that she must work or needs childcare for another reason, such as ill health. Let us work to create mother/child programs which support mothers in their lonely journeys and do not undermine them, telling them that "here is best - you should leave your child here." And when families break down or there are problems which impede a mother's ability to love her children in the way she should, then let's work to support her and her mothering and not remove her children or treat her as a criminal.

 

Some months ago I wrote  about the Madonna Cloak Project. Its launch takes place in a couple of weeks and my hope is for it to grow as a beacon to those who know in their mother's (and father's) hearts what is best for their children.

 

 

Revisiting Jean Liedloff and the Continuum Concept

The very first book that I read that set me off and running on the road to "natural parenting" was Jean Liedloff's The Continuum Concept. Having devoured Ina May Gaskin's Spiritual Midwifery and militantly given birth to my first son at home, I was off and running. Co- sleeping, using a sling, breast feeding on demand...off we went.

 

The Continuum Concept was a relavation. I had been a youth worker for many years and had studied child development at college - but here was a new way to conceptualize and bring together parenting practises in a coherent and, to my relief, humane form. The "in-arms" phase made so much sense to me. Having been a Waldorf teacher, the information about not making life centered around the child made so much sense. I loved this book!

 

But...I did have a few doubts. One doubt grew over the years and that was seeing women who followed the Continuum Concept  becoming, in my mind, punch-bags and door mats to their children. I also witnessed parenting that was very verbal and centered on a child's choices. People took Liedloff's writing about the innate wisdom of children to mean that little ones could verbalize this potential - and thus slid toward a child centered approach which often created very unpleasant children, just the opposite of what Liedloff advocated.  It was interesting to me to see, over the years, how those parents who favored the non child centered approach went toward Waldorf education and those who followed children's choices headed toward unschooling or free school options.

 

To make a long story short, I have spent 20 years trying to understand child development and a healthy way to bring new human beings into the world. My conclusions? That anthroposophy (ie Waldorf) has the strongest and most healthy way of parenting children but that people like Jean Liedloff have very important contributions to make.

 

So one of my problems with Liedloff is the core upon which she sets out her work - as a materialist, her methods are based on what I would see as a very limited understanding of human development (if human beings are spiritual beings, then a way of understanding development which takes no notice of the spiritual element is of course going to be restricted). And this is the basis of her work - that human consciousness is a continuum and that modern babies carry their needs which were formulated in the dawn of human awakening with them. Anthroposophy, on the other hand, tells us that human beings, most importantly, human consciousness, has developed over the millennia and that our present modern consciousness is worlds away from that of previous eras or epochs. Liedloff says that what we need to do is to get in touch with our innate wisdom that has been programmed (sic) into us and which is wise. Anthroposophy tells us that we no longer hear the voices of the ancestors and that our task as modern free human beings is to develop heart-warmed thinking which will help us form the correct conclusions.

 

So we can see that from the start we have two positions which are pretty much opposed. Nevertheless, I still maintain that there is enough in Liedloff's work which can be of use and that, moreover, I believe that some of her findings can be brought into the light of anthroposophical research and understood in new ways.

 

For example, in the  article entitled The Importance of the In-Arms Phase, Liedloff makes some tantalizing observations about the effect of being held (or carried) on babies' energy. She talks about how the adult who is carrying the baby absorbs this excess energy and how this then is the reason why the Yequana babies are so peaceful (the Yequana are the non Westernized Amazon tribe she studied). I am fascinated by this - I too have observed that by carrying a baby, by not making him the center of attention and, critically, by that adult being peacefully centered and busy working with her hands, that this creates happy, content babies. In my anthroposophically-enriched terminology, this is a living example of the Madonna Cloak at work. This is the etheric link between the mother and child which nurtures and supports the baby and then young child, especially in those critical first three years.

 

Another example: near the end of The Continuum Concept, Liedloff talks about the phenomena of extreme sports and of children and then young adults who do not seem to be able to settle down, to be content in their bodies, who crave (or reject) stimulation. Whilst of course acknowledging that there are many reasons for this, I am intrigued by Liedloff's assertions regarding the need every baby has to absorb movement passively from his mother and, should this need not be met, that later in life, children or adults will find other ways to meet these needs. With the overwhelming number of children having some sort of issues with sensory integration, restlessness and basic uncomfortableness in being in their bodies, I wonder about this need and about how something as simple as wearing one's baby might help dramatically with this.

 

However..... as a Waldorf educator, I need to stress that another fundamental need of little children and babies is to not be over stimulated by sense impressions. So here we have a problem - how can one wear one's baby all day long and be engaged in movement and yet live in the modern world? We are not Amazon tribes people. We use cars or public transportation; we could have new experiences every day instead of walking down the same forest tracks that our ancestors made; we are surrounded by the hustle and bustle of modern technological life. We flip a switch instead of working from dawn to dusk engaged on tasks for our survival. And as I certainly do not advocate a rejection of all that is modern and technological, we have a potentially monumental challenge in front of us!

 

So wearing a baby is not an end unto itself - it is wear the baby AND nurturing the senses. And that can be very difficult. We need to demechanize our lives so we can spend more time in healthy active occupations at home; we need to slow down and make our lives more human-friendly; we need to let go of our driven modern go get 'em consciousness and instead Zen-out, bringing peace and centeredness to our mindful daily existence. And somehow, we need to not totally isolate ourselves while we create our lives.

 

There's much more to be said on this. As I've mentioned a number of times recently, we are creating a new website and there will be sections devoted to conversations like these. I hope to stimulate research and study on how we can bring health to our babies and little children and find new ways to nurture our children, based on modern consciousness and freedom.

 

By the end of the month (June 2009) our new website should be done. Please visit us and have a look and contribute to the discussions in the Madonna Cloak section of the website, which will host these explorations.

OT stories again?!

Our fourth grade curriculum is now at the printer's.....we expect to be able to send it out to you (all being well) in mid June. In the next day or so, we will set up a description of it in our Bookstore and people will be able to pre-order their copies.

As those of you who used our third grade curriculum last year know, we have a block on Old Testament stories. All Waldorf schools have this block of course. But whereas many teachers will either just dip into the Old Testament stories and end somewhere after Genesis, or take their third graders through the main stories of the Old Testament from start to finish, we decided to stop at the story of the arrival at the Land of Milk and Honey. To us, this seemed to encapsulate exactly where, developmentally, the 9 year old child is at this crucial juncture of life. She has arrived....but she hasn't yet set foot forward.

Now, at 10, in fourth grade, she is very different. And we decided that the second half of the Old Testament contain some powerful stories which echo the next stage of the child's development: the struggle of moral ambiguity.

Below we have re-printed the introduction from our fourth grade syllabus to our three week long Old Testament stories main lesson, explaining more of why we made this decision to have an Old Testament block in fourth grade. Here you can read my blog from last year where I explained what is behind our third grade Old Testament main lesson.

Last year a key main lesson was Old Testament stories. As the nine year old child struggles to find his own individuality and separates from his parents, so the stories of the Fall; of God's covenant with Noah; of Abraham's faith; and the trials and tribulations of the Children of Israel and, especially, their relationship to the Law, speak deeply to him. A year later, we return to stories of the Old Testament, beginning with the death of Moses.

The Law Giver is gone — how will the Children of Israel find a right relationship to God? This is a question which lives in the second half of the Old Testament. Looking at the ten year old child we see an echo of this question within her soul: my parents are no longer “Gods”, no longer infallible. How do I find a relationship to God or to the Spirit within? As with the Norse myths, the child sees and experiences moral ambiguity. The story of David is clearly a story of a very human king with many moral failings.

In this section of the Syllabus you will find the stories of Joshua, Samson, Saul, Samuel and David. We have included the rich and beautifully written stories retold by Walter de la Mare. The stories of Ruth, Naomi and Solomon, retold by me, are also included and we finish the story of David where de la Mare left off. Please don’t worry about de la Mare’s use of somewhat archaic language — as I explain in the Language Arts section, it is good for your child to be exposed to many different styles of writing and of language use.

Many of these stories are very violent. It might help you, during your inner preparation for sharing these stories with your child, to contemplate the violence both as a hallmark of a past era of human development and also as a symbolic or archetypal gesture. Much of the Old Testament can be understood as a preparation for a new impulse in the human being. Past streams of spirituality and of consciousness are being routed out, destroyed and overcome. Thus the tremendous numbers of battle and the specifics of enemies killed can be understood as a deed of cleansing. This is not always about real human beings being annihilated. Nevertheless, whether real or symbolic, present day humanity can no longer be involved in such bloodshed and hope to progress. We have come a long way from Old Testament consciousness (though some of us have moved on a bit quicker than others…) and such methods are no longer appropriate. Next year your child will encounter further tales of struggle and passion, including violence, as he hears the myths of India, Persia, Babylon and Egypt. Our shared human development has never been free of destruction and violence.

Some of you might not be entirely happy about yet another Old Testament main lesson. I feel strongly that the stories without the patriarchs are more relevant to children who have gone through the nine year change than those who are coming up to it. Thus this block’s appearance in fourth grade. For many of you, an additional reason for devoting an entire main lesson to these stories is because they are an important part of your religious life or of your cultural background. And if this is not true for your family, another consideration is that these stories are part of our shared Western Heritage. Anyone unfamiliar with the stories of the Old Testament will entirely miss out on crucial parts of our history, and of references, direct and indirect, in literature, art, social sciences and other fields of human endeavor.

I suggest you have your child create a beautiful main lesson book for this block and that you focus on filling it with a fair bit of writing. Last main lesson was math — not much writing. Next main lesson is geography — could also be very little writing. So it could be worth pushing a bit (gently!) and challenging your child to create a very full main lesson book which faithfully retells these stories from the Old Testament. If you look at the schedule for the year, you’ll see I recommend you expand into language arts subject lesson times during and after this main lesson to give your child plenty of time to make a really wonder main lesson book. Thus you won't feel you have to cram the creation of a writing — rich main lesson book into these three short weeks.

Don't hesitate to condense selections directly from the text for your child to copy into her main lesson book. At this age it is still best for your child to copy your writing, not typed text, so you can either write on the blackboard or on a large piece of paper you taped onto the wall.

You might have your child write the stories over several pages. Don’t overdo the amount of writing which you require from your child but do see if you can get more out of him than usual. For some children this will be several paragraphs — for others it will be several sentences.

Your child can also copy in and illustrate one or more psalms which he should also learn by heart during this main lesson.

All work should be beautifully and carefully illustrated.

Don’t forget to learn Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho at some point during this block (see Music section).

Some of you might wish to carry on with the rest of the Old Testament, sharing the stories of Elijah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Jonah and the rest with your child. Reading directly from the Bible is one possibility. Or you can select a tastefully done children's Bible — which is often hard to find. My favorite is The Golden Children's Bible, published by Golden Books Publishing Company, New York. This book is the culmination of work by a number of Jewish and Christian theologians and is very well done. It was originally published in 1965 and reprinted in 1993.

Here is an example of a possible pair of main lesson book pages.

Destructive Children Come to Play

We had a great thread on the Waldorf at Home on line discussion group recently, started by a member who needed help managing when neighborhood children would come to play - and would trash her house! The following is an amalgamation of the responses I wrote - I put it here because I know that this is a problem that many people have, although not necessarily as extreme as our forum member experienced it! And these neighborhood children are only 4 or 5 years old. The reference to Boundaries is to a previous blog post I wrote on this subject and which you might also like to read.

 

Well - you are just going to have to regard these times that children come over as structured play times - not free play or play dates. You will need to welcome the children in, sit them down at a table, give them a snack and make sure they stay there - you are right there with them. No Montessori "facilitating" or "setting up play stations" ( ) - you have to be right in there stage managing every second of the visit. You need to be a Waldorf kindergarten teacher Super Plus (and many Waldorf kindergarten teachers are not taught how to deal with tough situations like this).

After snack: "Here sweetie, take this to the table. Nope - come back - we're not finished....here's a cloth - you may wipe the table" and so on. Then "Now we are going to play a game". Lead them through a few circle games. Then have a story. Take the little boy into your lap - he is probably dying to have an adult's warm and centered aura surrounding him so he can relax into his body. Then :"Ok - what a lovely visit. Time to go home now. W will walk you home" Keep the initial visits to no more than 1 hour. CLEAR BOUNDARIES EVERY STEP OF THE WAY!

And at every step of the way you are right in there to the fore. Your presence, your guidance, your calm structuring of the situation will allow play to happen and allow the children to be in your home. This is a therapeutic situation - and I am afraid it is absolutely normal these days. Many parents, of course, don't witness these problems because when children come over, they are immediately plugged in to a machine of some sort. The children are left to deal with the energy built up in them by the images they view all by themselves.  And it does come put - maybe at school the next day, maybe it builds up to a crescendo and a huge out burst. And maybe the children get labeled as having ADHD or some other problem when really, they are just being mishandled and not understood and their developmental needs are not being met.

I strongly suggest that you sit down and have a good think anticipating the future. You need to have absolute boundaries (key word these days, eh?!). If they do not cooperate, they go home. Not a threat - a friendly fact - that's how it is. No wheedling or cajoling. Do say things like "ok - you can go run around back at your house. But here - let's play this game first" (Oh - and I do suggest you select your games with care and that you do not have too high expectations - it could well be that these children have never had a chance to play ring games and simply do not know how to play. Again - a very common scenario in the lives of America's materially rich and spiritually impoverished children). You need to work via imitation and being right in there physically taking charge.

The pictorial language will not work on children like this because they are so out of themselves that they are unable to be receptive to the images. They cannot even imitate. You have to build up the foundations for them from scratch. Hard work - but very rewarding.

Think ahead a few weeks or months - ok, you've cracked it, the children can play together. You need to have rules about what happens when someone brings his gameboy over. Or invites your child to their house to "play" ie watch videos.

You need to be busy  so that the "dumping by parents" problem you mentioned is nipped in the bud" "Yes - that will be lovely to have X here - but we are going out at 11 so you can pick him up then - great. .... No - he can't come with us - that doesn't work. Great to have him here now - see you later!" And really do go out so they can't call your bluff. If they pull a no-show, take the child to their house and leave him there.  You're going to have to be tough to make this work. Tough and VERY clear.

These are therapeutic situations for the parents, too. Imagine being the parent of a child who is off the wall - you'd be desperate to pawn him off on someone else for a few hours! And if those parents don't have the skills and experience to cope....well, it's not that it's your job to teach them - but if this is going to work, you are the one who is going to have to put most of the work in. That's just how it is. Your goal which you articulated was to enable your own daughter to be able to play with the neighborhood children - and this is the hand you've been dealt. There really aren't any short-cuts.

The parents have boundary issues. That's why they dump their children on you. You can't change them. But you can work on your own boundary issues. And if "politeness" and nervousness are getting in your way, then that's your area to focus on! You have to do it! Isn't parenting great?! What fantastic opportunities it provides for our own self development! This is going to be tough, I am sure - but if you manage to get on top of this one, you'll be able to handle anything life throws at you!

 

 

Free Audio Download

Hi Everyone,

 

I just want to remind you all - or tell you all - about my free audio download on Therapeutic Waldorf. On my on-line discussion forum, in the course of consultations, in workshops - everywhere! -  questions constantly come up about how to help children with various "issues", ranging from sensory integration issues to ADHD to children who are....who are somehow just that little bit more sensitive or high strung than others. Does one immediately need a therapist of some sort? Are medications the best thing? What is normal? How do I live with this child?

 

I made this recording some time ago, in the hopes that lots of people would listen to it and realize that the essence of Waldorf is about health. By simply bringing elements of Waldorf education and parenting into one's family life, one can take enormous steps in helping center, calm and nurture any child - and perhaps especially those with one or more of the various challenges that plague so many modern children.

 

Although simple changes in parenting, homelife and education can indeed make many of these challenges "disappear" it is also obviously so that many children need much more. I am certainly not saying that the simple things I speak about on this recording are the sum of what one needs to do for all children - not at all. There are certainly many people who have simple "Waldorf lifestyles" whose children still have all sorts of issues. But....I have  seen too many cases of problems "disappearing"  when parents make certain changes to not also say that the healing benefits of a family life that is ordered on "Waldorf" lines cannot do great things.

 

So...have a listen and see what you think! Here is the link to the recording .

 

All feedback is most welcome!