The Homeschool Journey

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.

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.

From Norse Myths to Beowulf

Now that I am teaching high school students (as I have been doing for the past 5 years) I often have the opportunity to see how material covered and experienced in the students when they were young reemerges later on. Most of my students have been former Waldorf school students - and of course those who were homeschooled or who went to the public school also show me many things about the results of particular educational methods in their earlier years.

 

As many of you know, one of the hallmarks of Waldorf is the way that topics are experienced first and only gradually brought into full consciousness. At first glance this might seem like the so-called Classical method where the children meet various subjects in a simplified version when they are quite small and then study them again at a later date. But in this method the children are given intellectual content, first on a simple level and then again in a more complex level. In Waldorf, the children meet the material first through their bodies, as is developmentally appropriate at a young age. Then they work with the materials on an artistic level. They thus lay the foundation, so to speak, for later intellectal understanding of the material.

 

This year I have been teaching group of 9th and 10th graders English. When we worked on Electra by Sophocles, I did not have to spend much time setting the context - they knew, from their 5th grade Greek mythology and Greek history main lesson what Ancient Greece was like. They "got" most of the literary allusions. They had a feel for the rhythm and meter of the play because of Greek poetry they had worked with; they understood something of the culture. And so their understanding of Electra was very deep and not merely abstract.

 

These past few weeks we have been reading Beowulf. I have given them the Seamus Heaney version because I am especially interested in them experiencing the difference between Heaney's true-to-Old-English translation as compared to more Latinate translations. We were able to jump right in and when we got to the funeral pyre of Shield Sheafson, one of the students looked up and exclaimed, "Oh - just like the death of Baldur!" She had remembered her Norse mythology from 4th grade. And she and her classmates have had no trouble imagining into this poem - they know what Heorot must look like because they know what Valhalla was like. They know about Thor and Odin so they have a feel for the warrior's code which runs through the story. And because they also studied the stories of the Old Testament in third grade, they have a sense for the tension between the emergent Christianity of the Scandinavian people at the time the poem was composed, and their Viking and pagan heritage.

 

As a teacher, it is deeply satisfying to have students who have such a rich and full background and who can imaginatively and sympathetically enter into complex material. For the students, it is also deeply satisfying as they come to have a feeling of the unity of their education, and of the fact that the world is both knowable and makes sense. New things that they encounter have echoes in past things they have learned. Instead of merely skimming over the surface of material, they have the wonderful experience of penetrating what they learn and seeing connections. Now that is education!

Main Lesson Books: How and Why

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a friend who is  Waldorf teacher - she had read through my 4th grade book The Human Being and the Animal World and commented on my advice about main lesson books. She found it freeing to think that her class could do a main lesson book for one of the man & animal main lessons but perhaps not the other. Then she laughed and said that during her in-service training recently, the teacher said that one should write corrections in ink directly into the main lesson books, that this was helpful to the children. She said it was funny to think how people had such differing ideas on main lesson books.

 

I was shocked! I have always felt it is deeply intrusive for a teacher to write in a child's main lesson book - I have always appreciated it when I have seen Waldorf teachers put their comments on post-its into children's books. My friend laughed again and said that at another teacher training session she had attended, she was told firmly that post-its were a no-no!

 

I then shared with her my experience in teaching recently in the local Waldorf school where the teacher whose class I was taking was shocked that I wasn't requiring a main lesson book from the class - instead, I had them draw maps on large pieces of paper and work on an in-depth paper. She later told me that she had been a Waldorf teacher for 8 years and had gotten into a bit of a rut with main lesson books, expecting her class to faithfully churn one out for each main lesson. I told her that I could see this - that I had observed the amount of time and care and love that each student had put into his or her book - but that for the main lesson I was teaching, I wanted to shake them up and focus on a different way of experiencing the lesson content. I wanted fast reactions and thinking on their feet - as 8th graders, this was something they needed to be able to do - as well as put time and care into work.

 

So what is  main lesson book? Why are they so important?

 

Rudolf Steiner, as far as I know, did not go into great detail about exactly what constitutes a main lesson book. In several lectures he speaks of the children making their own books. In other places he goes into great depth about children artistically and creatively capturing their lesson content through drawing (as well as other artistic media). He also makes disparaging comments about the quality of textbooks available in his day for children. Lastly, he speaks in many, many places about the importance of care, perseverance and effort, qualities that every child - every human being - should have the opportunity to develop.

 

When I was a girl in my Waldorf school, these books were treated almost as sacred texts - indeed, they were not called "main lesson books" - they were Good Books (those of you who have our science book, From Nature Stories to Natural Science, know this as, being our first publication, I refer to Good Books out of habit! It took me a while to see that out in the larger Waldorf world, the books are called main lesson books!). Good Books - think about it! Each of us was trusted with a beautiful blank book into which we would do out very best work. For parents' meetings and various public events, our teachers would collect a selection of our books - we were proud to know that our work was representative of our school or class as well as of us as individuals. At the end of the year, the books were carefully carried home - more than one Waldorf graduate I know has referred back to their main lesson books for reference during college - and not just the high school ones, either! Remember, one of Steiner's concrns was the lack of suitable texts for children - thus a main purpose of the books is to be a text on the given subject. This itself necessitates that the book be legibly and neatly made. One can impress this upon one's child without getting into "But I want you to make this nicer"!

 

So with this background, one can see why I am horrified by the idea of a teacher writing in a child's book!  Sure - expect correctness and proper spelling in the book - but surely it is better to gently point out the mistakes to a child than to write in her book. And one must be careful with corrections, too - a child who takes great care and is breathlessly showing you his wonderful and beloved book could be crushed if all a parent focuses on are his mistakes! One might even choose to not say anything while looking at the book and instead make a mental note of problems and address them at a later time. Crooked  writing can be helped with form drawing (here are some other blog articles I have written on form drawing: form drawing; to correct or not to correct;  and form drawing with older children )spelling can be addressed; math mistakes.... and so on. Always help your child stretch himself - but also receive his work with reverence and love!

 

As a teacher as well as a homeschooler  I have discovered that one can  become formulaic about the form and content of main lesson books. And this can be a great problem. I have a friend whose children attend a Waldorf school in New England - she says her seventh grader regularly complains about churning out main lesson book after main lesson book - he has even made up a clever new name for his school, based on its (to him!) clear purpose of creating endless main lesson books!

 

One must always guard against going stale - whether one is teaching in a classroom or teaching at home. Whenever you feel that something in your teaching is on automatic pilot, I would say that there is a problem - or a potential problem. We must be conscious, we must choose why we do things and think through the reasons - and we must keep things fresh. Fresh, however, does not mean chaotic! I also strongly warn against constant chopping and changing. Rather, the idea, I'd say, is to create a form and then, when it is in in danger of "falling asleep", find a new way to express what is needed.

 

I strongly suggest that one start out in first grade (or wherever your child is at if you are new to Waldorf) with having your child make a beautiful main lesson book for each main lesson or subject (I give more details on this in our First Grade Syllabus). Your child is not just creating something - she is also learning to orientate herself in space; to slow down and work with care; to form her letters and figures beautifully; and to develop her sense for the aesthetic. Use the large main lesson books of about 14 x 11  (see Paper, Scissors, Stone).  The goal is to develop good habits and forms. Then, in second grade, you could use somewhat smaller books if your child is able to bring her writing into a smaller space - and many are not, so don't push this. Again, keep to the main lesson book scheme. An exception could be a notebook for weather data - here, something new is called for.

 

In third grade there is a change - there are many changes in third grade and thus breathing a bit of a change into the usual main lesson book approach is very much called for. I suggest having a Math Notebook for one - this will be used throughout the year for your child to note down the various work your child does with measurement (again, I am basing what I say here on our curriculum materials - you will, of course, find other suggestions elsewhere). I also suggest that your child makes his own cookbook this year. An "English" book could also be a good idea as your child now starts to have lessons specifically focused on grammar, spelling and other similar lessons. Although in earlier years (and always according to other Waldorf educators) your child puts such work into the given language arts book, I think that such exercises disturb the flow of the content of the main lesson book. And since one objective of making a main lesson book is to teach your child to have a sense for flow, content and what she is creating as a whole, I think that, for instance, a main lesson book about Norse mythology should be just that and not include grammar lessons, even if they are drawn from the story content.

 

As children get older, further possibilities open up. In fifth grade, I suggest that for botany, a child make a book which includes sketches, leaf pressings, poems and the usual content - but could also have graphs, photos and paintings. Thus a "normal" main lesson book might not be suitable. Instead, a child could put together a portfolio - or even a display, beautifully done on  a series of poster boards.

 

Back to the discussion on teacher corrections - well, I still feel that the child's book should be the child's book and that's that. I think best work should be demanded - and that first drafts be copied into the book after correcting - yet one has to take care with this as such tasks can become onerous and encourage children to not write very long! Instead, as the child starts to create her own compositions from about 5th grade on, require that some go into her book and that others be kept separate, perhaps even as works-in-progress. As homeschoolers, we must also always be mindful of the parent-child dynamic which can make things more than a little tricky: whereas in school thee group is doing what the teacher says because that is what the class does - and the teacher 's authority and love enables this - at home there is no group to ensure that things get done. Instead it is always Parent and Chid. And this can get a bit intense. So....while recognizing the extreme importance of ensuring a child has ample opportunity to pull himself up by his bootstraps and do sterling work - even in the face of his own resistance - one also must sometimes learn the art of looking the other way. Have clear standards - but also be prepared to occasionally say "OK - that'll do." and find other times to help your child do better.

 

And while we're on the subject of main lesson books, do have a look at the Homeschooler's Work section on our website to see examples of work drawn from the main lesson books of a wide range of students! Enjoy!

An introduction to the 4th gr Man & Animal Block

Here is a rough version of the introduction to our latest publication. The book will be available in early January. [Edit: now available!]

 

Having thought about the usual title for this main lesson, we decided to modernize it and call it The Human Being and the Animal World in recognition of the fact that although Mensch in German is generally understood to be inclusive of both genders, Man in English is less straightforward. The words the Human Being also form a more graceful and expressive title, illustrating something of the “being” of humanness.

 

At any rate, this main lesson is one of the “classic Waldorf” main lessons, found in all Waldorf fourth grades around the world. In a nutshell, it is obviously about the relationship between the human being and the animal world. Sounds clear enough – but when one scratches a bit below the surface, one finds that the Man & Animal block in Waldorf Schools is probably the most esoteric of all the main lessons in all twelve grades!

 

The key idea is that the human being is not a composite of the animal world, not a pinnacle on a hierarchical evolutionary ladder. Instead, the animals are seen as parts of the human being, with the human being as their starting point, or the central principle. In Egyptian mythology we can find a picture of this in Osiris being cut up and distributed all over the Earth –

Isis

then must gather the pieces together again to make him whole.

 

In terms of evolution, we know that as species progress up the evolutionary ladder, that they become more specialized – yet here is the human being, the least specialized of all! This is an important point to get across to the fourth grader (leaving out everything about modern ideas on evolutionary science which comes much later in their school career): that the animals are specialized, one-sided even, whereas the human being is not. However, the human being has something that the animals do not possess – the spark of the Divine.

 

An additional element to take into account is the threefold nature of the human being and how one can see the different animals who have a clear relationship to this. The threefold human being is revealed in the realms of thinking, feeling and willing. Thinking lives mainly in our head via our nervous system; the mouse is a good picture of this. Feeling lives mainly in the rhythms of our circulatory andbreathing systems; the lion can represent this realm. Our willing or action impulse centers most obviously in the doing-power of our limbs but anthroposophical research tells us that there is an intimate link between the digestive and limb systems: the cow is a beautiful embodiment of the metabolic-limb system.

 

Some Waldorf teachers prefer to use the mouse to illustrate the senses and then use other “head-shaped” or “head-dominant” creatures such as octopus or jellyfish as an illustration of the head-principle in the human being. With these creatures, one also sees a polarity between hard and soft. The human head is hard, but within lies the soft and delicate brain.

 

However, the senses, important as they are, are not thoughts and do not correlate with thinking per se. Sense impressions are a way to know the material world – we need thinking, however, to comprehend what lives in ideas and ideals. Thus I suggest that one consider using birds to illustrate thinking itself. Birds are creatures of the air – they fly, flutter, soar, flit – as can thoughts.

 

One can gain further insight into these animal-human connections when one considers the image of the sphinx and of the Four Creatures of the Gospels. The sphinx, wisest of all creatures, had the forebody of a lion, the hind quarters of a bull, the wings of an eagle and the head of a human being. The symbols of the Gospels are th bull (Luke), the lion (Mark), the eagle (John) and the human being or angel (Matthew). Lastly, one can think on the Greek saying that “man is the measure of all things.”

 

These ideas run through the two main lesson blocks you will find in this volume. Depending on your relationship to anthroposophy and how deeply this all speaks to you, you can determine how exactly to bring this content to your child. We have divided the main lessons into Block I, which is focused on the threefold nature of the human being and the direct correspondences with the animals; and Block II, which is more like a conventional zoology block. However, one doesn't want to lose the connection between the animals and the human being in this latter block . The relationship between human beings and animals continues to be a theme as one explores the various groupings of animals. Parents are further encouraged to keep the connection between animals and their environments to the fore as well, seeing animals as intimately tied up both with the other creatures in their locale as well as with the plants and terrain.

 

I then give a number of suggestions for further parent preparation, including a number of quotes. Here is one:

 

The animals are one-sided, but in their one-sidedness reach a higher perfection than the human being. This must be studied in every detail. Man is many sided. He must learn. The animal need not learn. They know already because they have this perfect organization. The human being has imperfect organs and must train them and later on her can rule over them, said Goethe. Man is universal and imprints onto his life-organism what he makes out of himself. In this Man is different from the animal world. When we look at the various animals, we must always ask: which part of the human organism has this animal developed? Studying this, we find the key for an understanding of the particular animal species. Man and animals explain each other. 

                                            Eugen Kolisko, biodynamic scientist and researcher

 

Further, I also strongly encourage parents to prepare by reading a number of articles on the Nature Institute website. When I taught 10^th grade zoology, I had my students read these articles, helping them to be open to an undogmatic and non mechanistic view of science and of life. Our conversations were enormously rewarding as Craig Holdrege’s work is so clear and so gently obvious in what it sets out to accomplish. Although, of course, these article go into way more detail that you would present to a fourth grader, they will help you understand the Goethean and phenomenological approach to the animal world that “should” run through your main lessons. Here you can see how to present an animal as a whole, not as a series of parts, a living being which is an expression both of its own relationship to the natural world, and as part of a larger ecological picture. The articles are:

 

What Forms an Animal?

How Does a Mole View the World

The Giraffe in its World

 

Painting in Peace

I have a love-hate relationship with wet-on-wet painting. As a child in my Waldorf school, I can clearly remember the quiet excitement of Painting Day - getting the jars of water ready, passing out the board, putting on aprons, squeezing the "worm" into the bottom of the little jars for the paint.... But when it actually came to the painting itself, I can remember being more than a little ambivalent.

 

As a melancholic child (deeply, deeply melancholic) who has grown into a rather choleric adult (who continues to have a streak of the melancholic) I can remember the anxiety of getting that paint onto the paper - will it run everywhere? Will my lion look like a lion - or will it look like a tree or a cave - anything BUT a lion?! Will I make mud? Will it all look very nice when I'm finished and then somehow have transformed itself into an unrecognizable painting when it dries?

 

As far as I can recall, wet on wet ended somewhere in the middle school grades. I could be wrong - I remember an awful lot about my education but there definitely are some foggy patches. And there was very little wet-on-wet in high school although we did do some layering or veil painting. That I remember because we had a rather unpredictable art teacher in high school who was great in some ways - but had a sadistic streak. I clearly remember her taking one of my paintings, trouncing over to the sink and washing all the paint off - then announcing that I needed to start again!

 

Anyway...although I did do some wet-on-wet while I was a Waldorf teacher, as we had a very small school where we often combined the children, other teachers were more forthcoming in taking the children for painting. And so I did very little until my sons were born. Even then, both had interludes in Waldorf kindergartens so painting was taken care of as far as I was concerned. But.... then both were home at various times during the kindergarten years and I felt that as painting was extremely valuable, that we needed to do some (I should say that I did not paint with my sons before they were 4 or so. I know others paint with younger children but I saw no reason to. And as especially my older son was not one to sit still - except for stories - it seemed silly to try to get him to paint - he needed large muscle activity, not being still and painting - not yet!). By the time Daniel was about 5 1/2 we started to paint at home.

 

Lovely! Lovely colors, no form, paint gliding across the page, meeting and playing with the other colors! Glorious! Kindergarten painting was  marvelous!

 

First grade - Son Number One goes to school - Son Number One returns home from school. Let's paint! Now we were in a Camphill community and sometimes we painted with the Villagers (Camphill Communities are anthroposophical communities where differently abled people live and work together). "My people" were not really up to making forms and as my son was only 7 and the other only 5, I saw no reason to do more than capture the spirit of stories in the gestures and moods of the colors themselves. And what wonderful times we had - just picture two little boys and three or four developmentally handicapped adults sitting or standing around a table, in utter silence, totally absorbed in the creation of their watercolor paintings. I cannot express what a moving and utterly healing experience this was. My mentors, senior Houseparents in our Community and in the two other Camphills close to us (one of which was a children's community) stressed that form is not the key in wet on wet - that this kind of painting is a therapeutic exercise for the soul. And I could see this so clearly - not only were my sons always more at peace after our painting sessions, but "my people" were far more relaxed, centered and content after the healing balm of the formless work with the beautiful pure Stockmar (or Stone) paints.

 

Year pass...... fast forward to my family now in Wisconsin on our little hobby farm. My sons were between the ages of 8 and 12 while we were there. Drawing was their preferred artistic expression, but we did do some painting. Building on what we had done in Camphill, we focused mainly on color moods - the changing colors of leaves, the greens of a sunny meadow, the cold blues of a snowy scene. Occasionally my sons would try to create forms when they did their free painting (I always let them paint one or two paintings of whatever they wanted after they had painted what I wanted them to paint). Rarely was this satisfactory - but always they got joy from their free form color paintings.

 

Now that I am creating our full grades curriculum, I have been doing a lot of painting! From grades two onward, there are a number of paintings included in each year's syllabus. And asI have the house to myself this afternoon, I just created three paintings for our soon-to-be-released 4th grade book, The Human Being and the  Animal World (aka Man & Animal).

 

How lovely and relaxed I felt as I sat down to paint. How I do enjoy the whole process of asking myself what I should paint,  getting everything ready, sitting down (being very tall, I do not stand when I paint - except when painting with young children) and doing it.

 

A couple of things struck me as I painted today which I thought I would pass on -

 

1) Paint fast. Wet-on-wet is not a method of painting which should be agonized over. Visualize your composition and just do it.

 

2) Do let things dry here and there so you can come back and neaten them up with a brush dampened with clean water - this is, of course, for when one is doing forms. When just working with the colors themselves, don't come back and correct or neaten up.

 

3) Be spontaneous! Do plan your picture - but then whilst painting, do something as you are moved to do so. Follow what the colors, the mood or the composition demands - not just what your thinking demands.

 

In an effort to keep prices down on the aforementioned book, we will be printing it with black and white pictures - BUT - we will have the full color paintings and drawings on this website (and people purchasing the full Fourth Grade Curriculum - due out early Summer 2009 - will have the color plates in their syllabus). When I announce the release of the book, I will give the link to the paintings. Then you can have a look at the paintings I created while my son and husband were out!

 

Which leads me on to another thought.... do always be mindful of wet-on-wet painting as part of your own inner work. To take the time to just relax into the beautiful colors - to follow them and let them flow - is a wonderfully relaxing and centering practice. Even if your children are very very young, do take the time to do some painting after they've gone to bed or perhaps when Dad is out with them. Try to not think about what you're doing - just paint. And, above all, enjoy!

 

At other times, it is also worthwhile painting before you present a specific painting lesson to your children. The painting book which we now sell is a brilliant guide to painting with ones children through the grades. And, most helpful of all, the book is full of painting exercises for the teacher - so you can practice various techniques and ways of working with color and form before presenting your work to your child or trying to help him.

 

I have written a couple of other blog entries on painting which people might find helpful - including a rather long one where people were asked questions and I answered them. have a look through our Blog Index to find them! And Happy Painting!

Geography through the Grades

Here is an overview of the Christopherus geography curriculum, from first through eighth grades. You can see we have tweaked the usual Waldorf geography curriculum somewhat - having said that, it is also true that geography, perhaps more than any other subject, is taught very differently from one school  to another and from one country to another.

Help with Painting

Something which appeals to many people new to Waldorf education but which also fills them with dread is wet on wet watercolor painting. The colors are so vibrant and it is clearly a healthy and nurturing activity - but it is also really hard. Yes, you read that right - wet on wet watercolor painting is really hard! I can't tell you how many people have sidled up to me at workshops, furtively looking over their shoulder or whispered hushed confessions to me in the course of telephone consultations that they find watercolor painting to be very difficult - but shhhhhh - "people" (whomever they are!) say that it is not.

 

Well, it is. After 14 years of a Waldorf education and many years painting as a Waldorf teacher, Camphill housemother, and Waldorf homeschooler, I can freely absolve all of you out there from your guilt at not being good enough or having what it takes to successfully paint in the Waldorf way. Colors float off the paper, figures blob out until they are unrecognizable, hairs from the brush show up in inappropriate places.... and paintings that look very nice when wet morph into something completely different when dry! Been there - done that!! I know all the pit falls. Too bad I don't have all the solutions!!

 

But I can offer some advice. In my kindergarten book, Curriculum Overview, first grade syllabus and second grade syllabus I give a long list of painting advice - and in the new third grade syllabus I have added to this. I also give step by step instruction on how I painted various paintings reproduced in full color in the second and third grade curriculum - as well as an apology for the slight weirdness of the colors. Our printers, wonderful as they are, cannot seem to reproduce my paintings accurately! It is so frustrating! I have written out how I "brushed a sweep of golden yellow across the sky" and just know that people will be looking at their own painints and saying to themselves - "but my golden yellow doesn't look anything like that!" Yes - that's right - neither did mine. But even modern printers have their limitations.

 

Anyway, I thought I'd trouble shoot some of the most common problems that people seem to have when attempting to work with wet on wet and see if this helps. And I hope that it does - wet on wet is a wonderfully healing art that brings a great sense of peace and is an essential part of a healing approach to education, which is, after all, the highest mission of a Waldorf education. It's a pity when people give it up out of frustration of not being able to succeed.

 

First of all.... do, by all means, paint with your young children of about 4 and up - but keep everything out of reach until it is being used. Create a strong form around how you take out the paint. soak the paper, lay it on a board (you must get painting boards - they are essential) and how you present the paints. No silliness or messing around - it is an awesome gift to a young child to expect that she can meet the requirements of an art like wet on wet. Create the right mood of reverence and awe and let her experience how that resonates within her soul and is met by the glorious soul-singing colors of Stockmar or Stone watercolor paints. Light a candle and say a verse before painting and help impress upon your child not by what you say but by how you act that wet on wet is something very special.

 

Do only use one color at first when painting with your little one. Let her really get to experience blue, in all its subtleties. She will not be "bored" with this unless you (or another adult or older child) bring such a possibility to her awareness. If you have ever seen a little child carefully and solemnly painting with just one color - carefully dipping in his brush, considering where to start and how to move along the paper, when to stop, how much more to paint - you will never ever again think that painting with "just one color" could somehow be missing something.

 

After perhaps a few months of once or twice a week painting with just one color at a time ( use one color for a few weeks before changing to another) (and do use only primary colors - rose red, ultramarine blue and either golden or lemon yellow will suffice through first grade) then use two colors. Tell a little story: "One day red went out to play and he met with a cheerful friend called yellow. Red asked yellow to dance with him - and off they went, round and round the playground." Then you do this painting as you speak. Your child watches - keep her prepared paper up on a shelf away from her while she watches you paint your picture. Children of 4 - 6 are highly imitative - this is as it should be. So don't work against this by expecting her to be able to contain herself from painting when you want her to watch! Preparation and being several steps ahead - as in all teaching and parenting -  is 90% of  what's necessary!!

 

DO NOT USE TOO MUCH WATER! This is THE number one reason why wet on wet fails and people give up. It is only relatively wet - perhaps it should be called Damp Watercolor Painting to give a more accurate name. Your paper should be soaked  in a tray for about 5 minutes - and then mostly dried. It needs to be damp. No puddles!! When you tilt your head so you can see alongside the paper, there should be no wet patches. Mop them up with a paper towel - no rubbing!

 

Along this theme, do teach yourself and your child to squeeze out all excess paint or water every single time the brush is dipped into either. Dip, squeeze. Swoosh in clean water, squeeze, dip in paint, squeeze again. Use your fingers to squeeze the brush and then wipe them off on paper towel.

 

Do not pre-mix paints. Once you've got to the stage when your child is using all three colors (first grade)  or all six (second or third grade on), let him have the experience of "letting the colors meet." Let them blend on the paper - the wetness - er, dampness - will ensure that they blend beautifully and in different ways depending on how your child creates his painting.

 

And no child ever creates a wet on wet painting like any other child's. So many parents new to Waldorf visit the schools and say "why do all the paintings all look the same?" Aside from the fact that they clearly only visited the first and/or second grade classrooms, they have not paused to look carefully enough. Look again at those supposedly identical 20 pictures hung on the wall - this one is very light, tentative even. This child used broad bold sweeps of yellow. This one used just a tiny bit of blue and a great expanse of yellow. This child's paper was obviously so wet that most of the color floated right off the page. And so on.

 

Through this wonderful art, children can express and experience the secrets that live within their soul and which are called forth by the resounding glory of pure color and without there being any interference of the thinking processes. This is a heart centered activity that every child - and adult - can learn to simply breath into and relax into, supported by the fluidity and grace of the medium.

 

One last note.... please do not attempt to create forms before second grade. Yes, I know - we have examples of paintings on our Homeschooler's Work section which have forms done by younger children - but that's what people gave us! There is a real tendency - especially, it seems, on the West Coast, to bring form too quickly to what is essentially a formless art. Wet on wet is primarily about mood and about gesture. The colors need to speak unfettered by form - and the younger a child is, the more this is so.

 

However, by second grade, children will certainly want to be able to create some forms - but if one continues to prioritize color and mood, this can help enormously - and help a child get over the fact that her Michael isn't exactly as she wanted. What should the Archangel Michael look like? Well, he needs to be upright and he needs to be a strong powerful golden figure - with this in mind, a rather general figure which encompasses the mood and gesture but not the formed impression of Michael can easily be created.

 

When, though, forms just do need to be made, here's a tip: paint the background and then let it dry. Return and using a dry brush, carefully paint your figures without using any further water. This helps enormously.

 

And good luck!

Understanding the Temperaments

 I am full of the temperaments at the moment because in writing our Christopherus second and third grade curriculum, I decided to include several sections on the temperaments. So in the second grade curriculum people will find an essay by Steiner on the temperaments and a guide written by me on understanding one's child's temperament. And in the third grade curriculum we have included information on artistic work and the temperaments. In both volumes I frequently refer to the temperaments in connection with various pedagogical and parenting issues.

 

So what's a temperament? Rudolf Steiner went back to ancient teachings on the four humors, the temperaments - for insight into an understanding of the development of the human being. The temperaments come into play as the child leaves the first stage of development and enters the second - a sign of this change is when she changes her teeth. No longer subject as fully to her inheritance - to what she received from her parents - she is now "creating her own self" - and the formation of teeth, of the hardest substance of the body, is a sign of this. The temperaments come into play during this middle phase of childhood (age 7 to 14) and can be seen as an intermediary between inheritance and full selfhood.

 

Over the years I have changed my opinions about the temperaments - my mentor when I was teaching in  a Waldorf school in England made much of the temperaments and showed me how to work with them in the classroom - for a number of years I was reluctant to work with the temperaments in the home, convinced that they had more of a group application. However, over the past few years I have relaxed this quite a bit! I still grumble and rumble when people refer to them carelessly, treating them like ill conceived astrological signs - "oh, what can I do? He's a choleric" and thus pigeon-holing a child.... But I decided I was throwing the baby out with the bathwater and have recently, in the past year or so, re acquainted myself with the temperaments and now, indeed, am a firm believer in the use of the temperaments as an ally a parent has in parenting and educating her child.

 

Those who would like to find out more on the temperaments can join my discussion forum and thus gain access to extensive conversations on studies I led on this topic - not only can one follow along with the text, but can also read my explanations and answers to people's questions as well as follow along with how other homeschooling parents have worked with this fascinating subject.

 

Following is a brief excerpt from a thread  from my discussion forum where I give a picture of the 4 temperaments:

 

What are the characteristics of the choleric child? She is the one with the temper, who is always 10 steps ahead, really focused on what she wants to do, strong-willed in a fiery way and possibly rather domineering. The choleric can become a bully - or can be a great leader. Material which can be important for the choleric is challenging - but if it's not within the scope of her interests, it can be difficult to engage her. Heroic tales are good - stories of quests and challenges where the person had to overcome obstacles and in the end his or her goodness or other quality saved the day. Stories of Rama saving Sita; Hannibal crossing the Alps; Thor's adventures - these kinds of stories.

Sanguines are the social butterflies - they can become very trivial and socially shallow - but they can also use this social gift to great ends. Sanguine is the natural temperament of childhood - the happy, skipping little boy or girl merrily singing to himself is the picture of the sanguine stage of childhood (soon to slide into the more melancholically influenced stage of youth from 14 to 21). Sanguines can be real scatterbrains and one has to (gently!) help them stay focused (just as one has to help the cholerics - gently - lighten up a bit!!). In a classroom, the sanguines are the ones who are usually asked to run errands - "Tom, can you go get me some more chalk from the office" "Elizabeth can you please go see if our visitor has arrived " and so on. They finish their work very quickly and are ready for something new. There is a great art involved in balancing out this tendency to lightly travel through life so that it doesn't become facile or create an overstimulated personality. Moving through material fairly quickly but then ensuring one keeps coming back again and again to revisit and pick up on left themes is helpful. And giving them teaks to do is also helpful.

Melancholics are the classic "the glass is always half empty" kinds of people. They are heavy and often preoccupied with physical complaints - the child who always has a hurt, who is always talking about this or that complaint - usually in a sighing "woe is me" kind of way. Thy can become self absorbed but they can also bring their depth of perception to their work and be incredibly meticulous and methodical. Whereas the choleric can often turn out fabulous work by sheer strength of will (and no study) the melancholic will work and work and produce something marvelous. The phlegmatic can also set himself huge tasks and come up with the goods - but will go just so far - the melancholic, once he is engaged will be limitless in his studies.

Melancholics can be tricky - if you tend toward the choleric or sanguine, melancholics can be exasperating. Worse still, if you (like me) have a strong melancholic streak yourself, then they can really pull you down and you find yourself on the couch with them commiserating over the latest tragedy in life.... and never get on to what you were meant to do! Melancholics can be hard to inspire - in Waldorf classrooms, they are often put together so as to eventually disgust themselves into action. They are also often left to sit in the shadows, where they prefer to watch from the sidelines and from where, when they are ready, they will emerge. In many ways cholerics, even the ones who seem to have arrived at birth with their own agendas, can be easier than melancholics because the trick is to challenge them - and they will almost always rise to a challenge. But melancholics need to come at things from their own desires and can't be tricked, coaxed, challenged or harangued. Once they relate to the material, though, they will usually start to work - and once they are engaged, they are never shallow.

Phlegmatics are the solid ones - sometimes literally in their builds. They hang on. They can seem to be slow and are often very good natured - they are not fickle like sanguines or restless like cholerics or self obsessed like melancholics. They placidly regard the world and slowly decide what they are interested in. They will listen to any story - but getting something out of them can be a challenge. I have a strongly phlegmatic boy in the present sophomore class where I teach - he will literally count the words of the papers he writes and write not one more than required. So usually when he says "how long should the paper be" I say to him "As long as it needs to be to say what you need to say." He doesn't like that - but unlike a choleric who will be outraged by the seeming ambiguity of this requirement or the sanguine who will forget halfway what she was writing about anyway or the melancholic who will write exactly what she thinks is the right length no matter what the teacher says anyway, this typical phlegmatic just shrugs, smiles - and produces a very short paper!

So phlegmatics can seem to be hard to inspire and get going - and you can't really just leave them like melancholics as they won't usually come up with some brilliant work which originates in their ruminations. They will just sit there. Just keep plugging away and do not be afraid to experiment with phlegmatics - they rarely balk at sameness because they are happy for the predictability to lull them to sleep - they need to be gently jiggled awake by radical changes every once in a while!

You can look at the characters in Winnie the Pooh to find the four temperaments - Eeyore is the melancholic; Rabbit choleric; Pooh phlegmatic; and Christopher Robin himself is the sanguine (Piglet could be sanguine but worries too much. Roo is a pretty good sanguine).

Advice on Music Instuction

We have a new section devoted to music on our website. Here you'll find information about choosing musical instruments and instructors for your child as well as what we at Christopherus recommend.