The Homeschool Journey

A Wonderful Circle Time Resource

With so many of our young children displaying various sensory, balance, learning and behavioral challenges, many parents need to learn how to work purposefully to help heal and also prevent such problems. Nancy Blanning and Laurie Clark's new book, Movement Journeys and Adventures: Movement Enrichment with a Therapeutic Approach for Early Childhood is a life saver!

 

This wonderful book starts out with a very useful overview of the twelve senses and how one can address these via movement (the twelve senses include the usual five plus sense of life, sense of self movement and so on).The authors then go on to discuss various animal themed movements that one can use imaginatively with young children. They address equipment such as balance beams and ladders.

 

The heart of the book is a series of stories, exercises and songs  divided up by seasonal themes. The stories are lovely and the exercises are warm, colorful and engaging, perfectly marrying the young child's need for movement with his innate sense of imitation. So many parents I have worked with have experienced therapists approaching their little children in an overly intellectual and developmentally inappropriate way or in a coldly clinical fashion, treating the child as a disorder to be dealt with.  I know that this book will be a beacon of warmth and a wonderful reality check to parents who sense what a child really needs but who need a resource to help them work appropriately with their young children. This resource is equally valuable to parents of children who do not display any challenges but who want to nurture and encourage their child's healthy growth.

 

My only words of caution about this book is that it is clearly written for kindergarten teachers and thus parents will need to make some adjustments. The exercises all assume a group - though many can be adapted for one child. There is also an enormous amount of preparation needed if one is to fully utilize this resource - a kindergarten teacher would expect as part of her work to do this, but at home this could be difficult. My strong suggestion is that parents considering buying this book also buy my Joyful Movement (see Nancy Blanning's review here), working back and forth between them. A parent could then use Movement Journeys for themed inspiration and work with many of the ideas and then turn to Joyful Movement for everyday at home ways to also work in a healthy way with the child's developing senses.

 

Colorado Conference

I will be giving a conference in Grand Junction Colorado the weekend of 18 July. I will announce here when details are available - contact me if you want to be put on a list of interested people.  donna@christopherushomeschool.org

Candlemas

Just thinking ahead to Candlemas which is coming up soon. Some of you might be interested in this festival and those of you with second graders could incorporate a Candlemas festival into your Saints & Heroes block.

Candlemas falls on 2 February. It celebrates Brigid or Bride who is the saint of midwives and new birth. In Europe, where it originates, it marks the fact that the days are noticeably longer and in some areas of Britain, spring flowers will be starting to grow.

So this is a festival for all of you in temperate areas who may feel cheated by the lack of snow and a clear presence of King Winter! I celebrated Candlemas when we lived in England - now that I live in Wisconsin, it means less to me as there's no way that any signs of spring arrive on 2 February!

Here's what I used to do in temperate England: I would make earth candles. You can either dig little holes say around your house and then pour in wax and make earth candles, or, if your soil is sandy or it's still a bit frozen, you can put votive (night light) candles in little glass jars around your house.

If you make earth candles, you can take all the stubs and stumps of old candles you have lying around the house and melt them down in a large can over a fire - rig up a double boiler outside over a real fire for the nicest effect. Then take sticks the width of the holes that you've made and tie a wick to each (get wicks from the candle-making section of any craft shop). Carefully pour in the wax and let it harden. Light the candles once they're all set - early evening is the most effective time. If the candles disappear, it could be because your soil is too sandy - you could also line the hole with aluminum foil if that's the case.

And tell a story of Brigid who was an Irish princess who went through a well to find her destiny. She would travel about Ireland helping woman who were giving birth. Tell your child that by lighting these candles, you are helping Mother Earth birth the new spring - the candles are helping to bring her some warmth.

You could extend this festival by also making new candles - Candlemas is traditionally the time in the eastern Church of blessing new candles. And, of course, one needn't bring the Christian elements into this if this is not part of your family's spiritual/religious life.

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Mood and Main Lesson Material

Each year when the administrator at the Waldorf-ish high school where I teach part time asks me "when would work for you to teach your main lessons?" I like to sit a bit and think about what it is that I am teaching and how I can use the mood of the seasons to enhance the lessons.

 

My 10th grade zoology block works best in the spring - there are logistical issues here, too as we go hunting amongst the leaf litter for invertebrates to examine and draw. But the outward gesture of spring works really well, meeting the students enthusiasm to get outdoors and leave the long, cold Wisconsin winter behind. Zoology challenges them to meet the world in a new way and to think about the creatures they share our earth with.

 

Even more obvious is my choice of Advent to teach poetry. The classes I have taught in poetry during this season have been amazing - the spiritual reality of this time of year, of the gesture of going inward, the watchfulness, the waiting, are all palpable to the students even if they are not able to articulate this. Poetry, as a very personal and inward art, works beautifully at this time of year as each student is challenged to reach toward his or her own star and articulate her observations of her surroundings, of life - of whatever speaks to her and lends itself to poetic expression.

 

By considering the gesture and mood of the material we are presenting to our children, we can ally ourselves with powerful spiritual forces which can work through us and awaken in our children as we teach and learn. Which subjects are best during the outward moving time of the year? Which are best during the more inward and reflective time of the year? By being sensitive to such things we learn to bring our teaching in a more graceful and spirit-imbued way than if we merely scheduled things according to convenience - or give it no thought at all!

Old Testament Materials Now !

They're finished!! They're - well, they're not quite ready... they're at the printers (mid January) but will be back and orders will be sent out the last week of January or the first week of February.

 

So.... here is a link so you can read more and also place an order!

 

More Details of Our New Curriculum

Well, I've been faithfully writing up a storm these last months, pulling together the new Christopherus second and third grade curricula so that they'll be ready for you late spring/early summer. I have been enjoying myself immensely and have learned an enormous amount.

 

One of the things which is especially important to us as we create this curriculum is that it hangs together and makes up an integrated whole as befits anything which calls itself Waldorf. As I have been thinking through the various lessons I am always asking myself "what will they do with this subject next year? And in years to come? How does this subject develop over a number of years?"

 

To that end we now have details on our website not only of what will be in both the second and third grade curriculum but we also have a plan detailing both our Handwork and Crafts vertical curriculum from grades one through eight as well as our vertical Science curriculum for grades one through eight.

 

You'll see that the science curriculum especially is a little different from what one might expect to find in a Waldorf school - and that's because we encourage parents to not try to late schools but to capitalize on the uniqueness of the home situation! Thus gardening and cooking feature strongly in our work as these are subjects which lend themselves easily to home learning - and are also both excellent subjects to not only tie together a large part of the overall science curriculum, but to also underline the ecological consciousness which permeates our work.

 

I have also worked in a geography plan into this as geography in Waldorf education is much more to do with how the land expresses itself across the globe than with a "what is the major export of Peru" kind of approach. I have also shifted the geography curriculum slightly, moving local geography of one's country into fourth grade and Our Neighbors - in the case of the US this is Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean - into fifth grade. Children are more awake now to a global relationship to the world and I think this is a good thing to work with at this age. My plan also allows the geography of all five continents to be explored by eighth grade, something which often doesn't happen in Waldorf schools. There are also weather blocks in the early grades, a block on biomes in sixth and one on sustainable technology and agriculture in eighth which again bring the child into a healthy relationship to the earth.

 

I teach zoology at our local Waldorf-flavored high school and have been appalled at the students' lack of knowledge of the animal kingdom. I have therefore decided to add a zoology block to the eighth grade science plan.

 

We have also added a new Waldorf homeschooling FAQ on our website which should help people navigate the decisions they need to make as they embark on their Waldorf homeschooling journey.

 

We have also added a section for the Do It Yourself homeschooler who has no wish to use a full curriculum!

 

Find all of these things here!

A Bit of Benign Neglect

Sometimes parenting can get so intense that one comes to a realization that something has gone wrong, that all is not quite right. One can become aware of feeling suffocated, that one's sense of autonomy and one's center has been misplaced.

 

One thing which can quickly distort parent/child relationships is when a child (or children) becomes the center of the adult's life and world. All waking thoughts, all adult conversation seem to center around What She Did Today. The child has become All, has become the reason for everything that is done in the family, from how the house is decorated to what we eat to what friends we have.

 

I'm sure I have thoroughly confused a lot of you. Many of you are surely thinking "Hang on - she's pro staying at home with children! How does this work?!" Yes, indeed - I am strongly in favor of mothers staying at home with their young children and mothers or fathers with their not so young children. I'm in favor of homeschooling - got to involve parent and child at home together - and a decision having been made that this is what's best for the child - right?!

 

Yes. But - a clarion call here at Christopherus has to do with family - not a collection of individuals - but the synergy of the family and how its needs are best met. If homeschooling is right for the family, then it will be right for each individual, children and adults alike. And if homeschooling is best for one child and the others go to school, then that could be fine too - as long as this works for the family overall. And if not.... well then some sacrifice might be in order. Who is sacrificing what for whom - well, that can only be revealed by the dynamics and destiny questions in each family.

 

Back to sacrifice - yes, staying at home with a small child can indeed be a sacrifice in many ways for a mother. And choosing how to run a family, how to decorate the home and what foods are eaten are all vitally important. But if she has done this willingly and in full conscious understanding that this is what she feels is best for her child, then she has an opportunity to embrace that sacrifice not as the act of a martyr but as a step toward personal growth. These decisions are made because this is what is best for us all at this point in time - not merely because this is what the 2 year old needs and the rest of us just go along with it. This isn't the same thing at all.

 

If that mother feels positive about her choice and has accepted the painful journey of a stay-at-home-parent, then she will be more able to navigate the difficult path of living day in and day out at home with small children. And this is where we get back to my starting point.

 

If one is feeling martyred about staying at home with a child, then it could well be that one is more inclined to seek an outer reason for one's martyrhood. The obvious prize in such an example could be the child herself. Here I am all day long at home, bored - there had better be a good reason for this...yes - my child! So I shall make sure she Gets The Most from my being at home...

 

And thus is laid the way toward a child becoming the center of attention and the child/parent relationship becoming skewed.

 

I am being rather cut and dry about all this - there are many nuances and situations which will lend a million different shades to each decision to stay at home with one's children....But in general I feel that if the staying at home itself - the desire to make a home and carry the hard work of a homemaker, is the central factor behind such a decision, then the mother will be able to carry her homemaker work in such a way that the children will not be central - but will just be a part of it. They will bask in the warmth and health of an ensouled home and a mother who values her work and her choices and (it hardly needs saying) in the other parent appreciating and also valuing this choice and this work!!! Key idea here: choice. Not tradition or "better had" or "he says I must" - free, considered and conscious choice on the part of the adults involved.

 

Children raised where the mother is completely engaged with her task of creating a home are blessed because, while they are an integral part of the home and family and the mother's all-embracing consciousness, they are not burdened by being the center of the universe, the reason for why and what a parent does. Such children can even be forgotten about a bit every day as the mother goes about her tasks - and this is where the value of a bit of benign neglect comes in!

 

Instead of being under the microscope, the children are simply "part of." Instead of being why or what is done, they are just part of the consideration. Instead of feeling the the parent's need for the child to fulfill whatever criteria - and however well intentioned - the children just live and grow and are part of the family.

 

There's a huge difference here! To be the center of an adult's world is so unhealthy, both for the adult and for the child and certainly for their relationship! What a heavy load for a child to carry to know on some level that every choice and decision in the household centers around him! What a challenge to live in a situation where it can seem that the sole reason the two adults involved came together was to raise him! How damaging to a child's emergent sense of Self to be unable to find his Self in relation to a healthy centered adult because that adult is busy finding her Self in relation to him!

 

Many educators in Waldorf Early Years circles are very suspicious of attachment parenting precisely because they have experienced so many mothers who lose themselves completely in their baby whom they have placed at the center of their world. I too have seen this unhappy and unhealthy situation many, many times. But I feel that this is not the fault of attachment parenting per se (by which I mean the work of Jean Liedloff) but of how that work has been revised and has developed. Liedloff's ideal was definitely benign neglect - that baby in a sling should be worn as Mom goes about her everyday important life. In the people Liedloff studied, the sling was both convenient so Mom didn't have to fuss and stop her work to feed or comfort her baby and also was the best way to bring the child into the consciousness of the tribe.

 

While I believe that modern Western people do not have tribal consciousness, I do believe that such an example of benign neglect - Baby As Outerwear - does much to help modern mothers from relating to their babies (and then to their small children) in an overly "I" centered way. To be constantly referencing the young child in family decision - even if one does not consciously involve the child - is to bring her inappropriately and immaturely to a sense of Selfhood. Baby As Outerwear means the baby is there, is with Mom at all times, within her loving and caring aura. But Baby As Outerwear is not being directly addressed - she is simply "part of". She is a part of the healthy nurturing life that her parents create. Her "I" is allowed to mature slowly whilst her mother does not lose her "I", part of the root cause of feeling alienated and without center that so many mothers at home can feel.

 

And yes - there are pitfalls here - one can quickly leap from Baby As Outerwear to Baby As Discowear and think that babies can be worn to all and sundry adult events. But to think that is to forget those conscious decisions one made when choosing to bring a child into the world ion the first place and why one feels that creating a nurturing home is important. Not overstimulating young children is absolutely paramount to their health and growth - and thus we return to the ensouled home. And that is where we find Mom - wearing her baby, peacefully working in the home and where, via her calm peaceful centeredness, she is able to maintain her bond with her children without making them the center of life. Her "I" is strong in its knowledge that she has freely made a right choice and the children's "I" are not prematurely called upon.

 

 

Christopherus Family Camps

Christopherus is growing! Our work is expanding and deepening on a number of different fronts - I would lie to share one of these possibilities with you.

 

We are currently exploring the possibility of hosting a Early Years Family Camp in Wisconsin this June. This would be a pilot to see how well the site suits the work, how the camp works and what the needs of families are. This pilot project will be limited to 10 families - in future we will look toward larger camps. We are also limiting this pilot to Early Years only - so it is open only to families who have children under 7. Assuming we go ahead with this project, we will let you all know the details when they have been settled upon! Do e-mail me at donna@christopherushopmeschool.org for details and feedback on this.

 

As of summer 2009 we would like to explore the possibility of further camps. Ideally we would have a number of farms in various parts of the country (and perhaps Canada) where Christopherus Family Camps and possibly even Homeschool Intensives would take place. Do you have a farm or know of one which might be suitable? Here are the ideal specifications:

 

* A mixed  (animals as well as market garden, fruit, arable crops) biodynamic or organic farm within 1 hour from a major city

* At least 1 large indoor all weather space which could hold all participants (could be a clean well lit barn or pole shed)

* Swimming, hiking and possibility of other seasonal activities

* Farmers to be familiar with Waldorf education

* A willingness to include families in farm activities which I would coordinate and at least initially direct

* Interest in holding camps several times a year so families could experience seasonal changes.

* Space to camp for up to 25 families. Possibility of winter camps.

 

As someone with over 25 years of mainly working on the land with children - on city farms, in Camphill, on our own farm, on an anthroposophical intentional community - I have abundant experience of planning, coordinating, supervising and undertaking such a project! Here's a link to a few photos showing some of the work we used to do on our farm a number of years ago: http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/farm_visits.htm  (that's me in the red jacket squatting by the pig and in the grey jacket watching the child cover potatoes she'd planted - oh and I'm holding the chick but there's not much there to see of me!!)

 

Paul and I are in the process of working out the core values which would inform such work. For now, we leave you with this vision:

 

* Dedication to working out of the healing impulse of Rudolf Steiner's indications on the development of the human being, taking from established Waldorf Early Years Education, Waldorf Schools and Curative Education where necessary whilst also imbuing our work with a healthy dose of knowledge arising from our own unique experience.

 

* Belief that the new generation of children have challenges and tasks completely different from previous generations and that a new impulse, grounded in anthroposophy, needs to arise to meet today's children. Work on the land, delayed academics, an utterly integrated approach which speaks to the whole child and an acknowledgement that the limitations of the classroom cannot meet the needs of all children, inform our work.

 

 

New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year to all of you! Let us hope and pray that 2008 will be a decisive year of steps toward healing the often overwhelming pain and darkness in our world.

 

Here at Christopherus, we like to think that one tiny and humble step in that direction is helping parents on their journeys to more conscious and healthy parenting - and homeschooling if that is the path they have chosen. A major part of this is offering suggestions and sharing experiences which can help a parent on her path of self development.

 

To this end, I have decided to share a few simple New Year's Resolutions with you all. These four resolutions - or intentions - are, for me, affirmations of steps that I know I need to constantly recommit to on my own journey of self development as a parent. Perhaps they will be helpful to you as well.

 

Number One - listening. I need to listen. To listen into, to listen directly, to listen behind. To listen within and to others. I need to listen more and speak less. I need to listen with the warmth and compassion which helps people - children and adults - speak what they need to say. I need to listen more to my teenage sons - without censure or judgment or fear. I need to listen to those I disagree with without letting my disagreement predetermine my thoughts. I need to listen without my emotions getting in the way and thus preventing me from truly hearing what is offered - instead of getting caught up with my reaction to those words. I need to listen to others and never let past experiences color what they say right now. I need to listen to my own inner wisdom - to learn which is my Voice of Wisdom and which is my Voice of Fear. I need to take words at face value - and to also be able to hear what lies behind, unspoken.

 

Number Two - separating my "stuff" from what others bring. I need to always be able to discern what is my stuff - my reactions, fears, childhood yuk, past experiences - which come barging in when a situation arises, through conflict perhaps, and which gets in the way of discerning what is another person's stuff. When I feel anxiety or anger at something one of my sons do, am I reacting to my own patterns, my own expectations and fears or am I truly embracing his experience and who he is? One major role of a parent is to hold and transform experiences for young children when they are too young to do this themselves - gradually one needs to let go of this and let the young person transform pain - successfully or not - by himself. The parental hand is still there in a gesture of love and support - but needs to know when to restrain itself and not infringe wrongly on the teen's growing sense of independence. When I confuse my "stuff" - when I cannot be clear on what my son really needs and what he needs to learn, then I am not able to give the appropriate gesture and I will probably turn away from him in anger or nag at him in fear.

 

Number Three - forgiving myself and others. Forgive, forgive, forgive. The spiritual implications of forgiveness are unsurpassed in their grace and ability to truly free us as individuals and as humanity together. I must remember this - I must not hold on to grudges or nurse scenarios of hurt, carefully prodding the anger to feel again and again the pain like the satisfying pain of an injured tooth which the tongue cannot resist touching. I can free myself of this need and forgive others and myself. I need to recognize that being the Martyr is selfish and helps no one, not myself, not other people.

 

Number Four - laughter and humor. When it all gets too earnest and too heavy - when my need to be steadfast in my resolutions threatens to turn me into a sour old bag - or, horrors, a self righteous old curmudgeon - I need to remember to laugh! When my son throws his coat on the table despite being told one thousand times not to, I can get angry - or I can attack him with his coat in a moment of play. I can laugh when meetings get painful. When anger threatens. When I get sad. When I forget. For when I remember who I am, when I remember my center and my task, then life is filled with laughter and everything is so much easier. I can listen, I can gently identify my "stuff" and I can forgive. I can laugh.

 

Wishing you all the blessings of the year,

 

Donna