Gettin' in the 5th Grade Groove!

One of the things that I love the most about the work I do is having the privilege of going back through the entire Waldorf grades curriculum one year at a time and "living" each grade, one year at a time. Having had a Waldorf education myself (from kindergarten through twelfth grade) and having homeschooled my sons (now 18 and 16) for most of their school years, and having taught in several Waldorf schools, I now have an entirely different perspective on the curriculum. I am neither the student receiving it nor am I the harassed mother trying to pull it together or the teacher trying to piece together disparate bits of information - I now feel like an artist, slowly and carefully doing my research and creating what I hope are wonderful resources for others to use. I get to live each year - for first grade it was all about gently coming into the world; third grade everything wa sNative American stories, woodworking projects, the weather and measurement! Each year has its own mood, its own purpose and its own carefully crafted content.

 

I love doing the research. As an anthroposophist it is extremely important for me to go to source, to Steiner's work and to the work of many of the original teachers of the original Waldorf school and try to understand why Steiner indicated what he did, how what he said might have been specific to the circumstances of the time and how I can bring this to modern parents of varying ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. Each year I go back and study anew anthroposophical child development, and live with this in the light of my teaching experience, mothering experience and work as an educational consultant. Each year I re-read texts and lectures - and each year I am thrilled to have just that little bit more of an understanding of the entirety of the development of the child. It is an exciting journey for me.

 

 At heart, I belive that Waldorf education is every bit as relevant to today's children -  if not more - than in Steiner's day. Again and again I see this confirmed in my work with parents, in my teaching (I mainly teach high school students nowadays) and in my observations of children, both those educated with Waldorf and those educated by other means. The Waldorf curriculum truly mirrors each child's journey through childhood - and this is true no matter who that child is. The more I study and work with the anthroposophical foundations of Waldorf education, the more clearly I can see not only why one does as one does, but how. And because I have been a homeschooler, I can translate this into the home situation and not merely copy from the teacher's world.

 

In going to source and trying to bring an anthroposophical understanding to the material, my hope is to be able to present something of the depths of Waldorf education. If Waldorf education is to be alive and relevant to the needs of each individual child, it must be firmly rooted in the spiritual-scientific background that is its source of richness.  There are, unfortunately, a number of people now selling what they call Waldorf-inspired materials who have a very shallow if not downright misleading relationship to Waldorf education.  They have, often with wonderful enthusiasm, created something which they would love to share with the world, which is of course admirable. But having reviewed numerous examples of such work, I am disappointed to say that if the work is not truly rooted in the depths of Waldorf education, then it cannot speak fully to the deepest questions of child development and education. Of course, each of us must carve his or her own way in the world - and that means having our own individual relationship to something like Waldorf education. But...when a product is marketed as being Waldorf, it really must arise out of a clear and well understood anthroposophical relationship to the curriculum. I see this in some places - Live Ed is a good example of a body of work that truly has an anthroposophical basis. But I also see much that is rather trivial and unsatisfactory as well.

 

Right now I am on fifth grade. So now everything is about Ancient India and geometry and botany and Greek history in my life! I am presently creating a book for the children themselves to read on Ancient Mythology - from fifth through eighth grade we will no longer have our curriculum in a binder with a few separate books. Each year will now be entirely made up of separate books. And some of these materials will be for the children themselves. I hope in this way to help parents be more flexible in their homeschooling - the children will now be able to read some of the material  instead of getting everything via presentation from the parent. As I explain in our Curriculum Overview, in our Christopherus method, conversation begins to take the place of presentation. Giving the child responsibility for some of the lesson content is also a good way to acknowledge his or her growing independence. While Waldorf homeschooling could never be about a child doing all or most of his work alone (like one gets in the kind of curriculum where everything is laid out for the child and where there is little or no interplay of creative exchange and experimentation) it is important for those homeschooling older children to have a variety of ways of approaching the work - and giving the child a book to read and then discussing it afterwards is one possibility. Each of our "readers" will be accompanied by a Teacher's Guide where one will find discussion of the goals of the main lesson, why it is part of the Waldorf curriculum and ideas for teaching, main lesson books, art work and so on - just like we provide now in our various publications.

 

Anyway...so at the moment everything is about Ancient India - Arjuna and Krishna are in my dreams and I just finished reading a fascinating lecture cycle by Steiner on the esoteric significance of the Bhagavad Gita. I am living and breathing Ancient India - to the extent that yesterday when I did some googling around to find out more about the eclipse that was covering a good part of the globe, I came across articles talking about the significance of the eclipse in the heart of the battle which is the climax of the Mahabharata!! The Universe conspires to immerse me in my work! My sincere hope is that by immersing myself in this way and also being able to reflect back on my experience as a student, a teacher and a homeschooling parent, I can share this immersion with you and that the fruit will be a rich resource to inspire and empoweryou as a homeschooling parent so you can share with your child and meet their needs as they grow.

 

So....this Ancient Myths reader and Teacher's Guide will be available at some point in September - I should know more in a few weeks. It will  come with Geraldine McCaughrean's Gilgamesh the Hero (which we will also sell separately along with our other very carefully chosen select titles of books by other publishers) and a new play I just finished writing about Rama and Sita, based on the story from the Ramayana.

 

I am already chomping at the bit to get to Greek myths and then - finally!!! -  my subject: history! My love, my passion. I plan a wonderfully rich book on Greek myths (another reader) which then will segway into Ancient Greek History. There will also be a similar volume on Ancient China. Lastly there will  be a short volume for a two week book on Alexander the Great - or Iskander as he was called by those who were conquered. It is time, at the end of fifth grade, as the child develops her sense for history, to meet this new stage of development with biographies of famous people.

 

Oh - and I haven't forgotten the rest of the fifth grade curriculum! There will be a volume on math and another on geometry; a book on botany (already available); a language arts program for fifth grade; geography based on Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean (see our Geography sequence for more details - and Handwork, Science and Math are all ready to read on our website as well); and a general book on fifth grade which will be like the Practical Considerations part of the earlier years' curriculum. And a real treat for you all - Lisa Marshall, creator of our brilliant fourth grade handwork, is - right this minute!! - working on another great year of handwork.

 

So - lots to look forward to. Botany, Ancient Myths and math are all available in the Fall (though math will probably be late Fall - keep using the fourth grade book in the mean time - there will be overlap anyway as fourth grade goes way further than most fourth grader will cover in the course of that grade).

 

More details in future blog entries as things develop! By the way, you might like to read through some of the Testimonials we have received over the years, where people give their feedback and their impressions of our materials.

Comments

[sfauthor]

Nice posting. Do you know about this edition of the Gita?

http://www.YogaVidya.com/gita.html

[Donna]

No - haven't seen that one. I have a rather old Penguin Classics edition.

Some people might be interested in a new book which puts together a translation of the Bhagavad Gita and lectures by Steiner ot this subject. He had some very interesting things to say especially about the role of Krishna in the development of human consciousness. Here's the link to information about this book - it's not available yet but should be soon!
http://steinerbooks.org/detail.html?id=9780880106047

[Nicole Jobson]

We are living in Jamaica, my husband's country of birth. I can help with resources or otherwise for the Caribbean aspect of geography.

Nicole

[John]

I notice that you don't seem to cover Atlantis in your 5th grade curriculum. Is there any reason for this? As Steiner authored a number of wonderful books/lectures on the topic drawing on his clairvoyant experiences as well as the works of Plato and others, I would assume that you as an experienced and firm follower of his works would want to include this important aspect of his teachings. I trust that you have not given in to the pressure that is exerted worldwide by parents and religious institutions who are threatened by his truths about the origin of mankind. I would be interested in your thoughts on this...

[donna]

There are many aspects of Steiner's work that do not appear in the Waldorf curriculum - Steiner was emphatic that one is not "teaching anthroposophy" to the children.

I interpret the Waldorf curriculum as it speaks to me. I then make a determination as to what to include, what to emphasize, what to skip. I have, for instance, added a science block in 4th grade on "earth, water, air and fire" - ie basic physical science. This is something that one would expect to be covered in the normal healthy explorations and outdoor adventures in a Waldorf classroom but which I felt needed to be formalized for our curriculum to ensure parents did not miss it.

As for when to start with the 5th grade ancient myths block, there is plenty of scope and a wide variety of opinions on this amongst Waldorf teachers. Glas, for instance, is of the opinion that teaching about India is optional and that the main gist of the block is the contrast between Egyptian consciousness and Greek consciousness.

So you can see there are many possibilities and I always, in all my publications, encourage parents to find their own relationship to the material and add or delete as seems best to them. There isn't only way.