The Homeschool Journey

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.

8th Grade World History

A couple of months ago I got a phone call from the 8th grade teacher at our local Waldorf school - she was exhausted (as most th grade Waldorf teachers are) and was there any way I could come and do a short two week mini main lesson with her class? We talked a bit about what they had been doing and what she thought they needed and what would take me the least amount of preparation (main lessons don't just come tumbling off one's sleeve at short notice!). We decided that what would be best was if I taught a main lesson in World Geography.

 

The block went brilliantly - the students were a great group - the quality of their listening and the level of their engagement spoke highly of their class teacher's wonderful work with them as a group over the years. And they were just ripe for what I had to offer - their heads were full of thoughts of high school and though I have recently resigned from the slightly Waldorf inspired high school in town, they saw me as a High School teacher. And that's pretty much what I brought them - high school content. I was very aware of their journey through the Waldorf curriculum - and through a large, sweeping look at world geography and history (with lots of politics and economics thrown in) I aimed to revisit places and events they had covered throughout the grades and help them see the connections on a world scale.

 

As a high school teacher, whether I am teaching history, social studies or literature, I tend to move very fast and to make grand sweeping narratives through my material. For the 8th grade, I took them on a journey which started with looking at the earth as a whole, as an integrated, living, cohesive unity. They had just had a main lesson on meteorology so they were familiar with the Earth's weather patterns. We started with this and then looked at the expression of the Earth in terms of biomes and in terms of the formation of land masses and the relationship between land and water on a global scale.

 

We began with a Goethean exercise, looking at a map of the Earth (one without political boundaries), just describing what we saw. They described the land and the prevalence of water.... then they noticed that there was more land and less water in the Northern Hemisphere. After a bit they also noticed that there is a pattern across the globe of a massing in the north and a thinning down into peninsulas and/or islands to the south of each land mass. There is also usually an island off to the East of most land masses. Have a look at a world map yourself and have a look! We discussed whether there was indeed aa "right way up" for the map and was East really East or a Western notion (why then do the Japanese call their country the Land of the Rising Sun if the concepts East and West have no substance?!).

 

We then found the equator and looked at how there was a mirroring of ice at either pole and a wide band of tropical rain forest across the middle of the globe. We looked at savannahs and deciduous forests, at deserts and grasslands. I described each in detail - the plants, the animals, the weather. How did/do people live in these various biomes?

 

Over the course of the first week we gradually moved inward toward detail - from looking at the Earth as a whole, we moved into looking at continents and areas. We brought in human beings. How did/does geography effect human beings? We looked at the differences between hunter-gatherers and city dwellers. Why were the first great cities on plains? Why did the Nile as well as the Tigress and Euphrates become the birthing places of great civilizations? Why was the Mediterranean so important - then we came upon trade. How does geography effect trade - and what is trade anyway? We discussed what resources are and what was important to people long ago. We looked at the horse as a living form of technology - we jumped over to North America and discussed the fact that there were no horses here until the Spaniards came. How did the horse change the lives of the people here?

 

Back to Eurasia and back several thousand years - what great technological invention completely changed the way people lived? The wheel. We talked about wells and pulleys and chariots. We talked about how people living on plains could use chariots or ride on horseback whilst people in mountains or thick jungles would use the horse less. Where did various invaders come from? Then we went back and marvelled at the fact that the builders of the pyramids had no wheel. Neither did the Aztecs. The Romans had wheels. And they built straight roads. What is the effect on the land and on people when roads are straight as opposed to curving with the landscape?

 

We returned to the concept of resources. We looked at a modern political map and discussed resources and inventions. What great inventions followed the wheel? We talked about the printing press. What did it mean for people's lives that they could easily communicate ideas through the written word? Is trade just about material resources? We looked at the spread of ideas - of the ideas of the Greeks that traveled with the Muslim world to Spain and was safe guarded and expanded there. And then was taken up again in Renaissance Europe. How did ideas get from one place to another? We looked at the spread of religion - at Christianity and Islam. We looked at Judaism - here was something different - what was different? What was the Diaspora - why did it happen? What was the effect on a people who could not own land (in Europe) or join certain  trades?

 

 What about China? We talked about the Silk Route, about the spread of Buddhism, about the contact between China and Europe. We jumped ahead and looked at Japan. Here is an island. Western contact came in the form of Jesuits and traders - then the Japanese rejected influence from the West and closed their doors for two hundred years! The students were amazed by this - what could that mean? What importance did that have for the Japanese people and their culture? And what wasthe significance of the fact that Japan is an island?

 

Then we whizzed over to another island, to Britain. First we discussed what exactly "Great Britain" is and when that title came about - we got a bit side tracked discussing Ireland (here's another island) and then got back to England/Great Britain. We talked about how a heavily wooded island ("oh, you mean Sherwood Forest!") came to be a much less wooded island in part because of the need for wood to build..... ships! What was the after-effect of the Armada? One piece was that Britain became the dominant naval power of the world. Before launching into a discussion of colonialism and imperialism, we side stepped to consider the fact that the Chinese had at one time had the greatest naval fleet at one point with enormously sophisticated ships which dwarfed the European ships both in size and technological sophistication. But.... the Emperor commanded that the Celestial Empire had no need of exploring the rest of the world - and the ships were destroyed.

 

Back to Britain. We picked up on threads from the Spanish and Portuguese explores - what were they looking for? Gold and souls. We talked about their impact on the "New World"  (and what did this term mean - New to whom?). We considered how ideas were not the only thing that people spread as they traveled across the globe. We spent time discussing disease - went back and looked at the Plague in Europe and how it contributed to the end of feudalism and thus the end of the concept that people were chattel which could be acquired along with land. That of course led into a discussion about slavery and about the differences between slavery in the New World and in the Old. Back to our land theme, I shared with them the story of the cotton gin and how slavery might just have died out if Eli Whitney hadn't made this invention. This bowled them over! And that dovetailed neatly into a discussion of the beginnings of modern globalisation and capitalism - the cotton was grown by the slaves here in the "New World", taken to Britain to be spun into cloth by the workers in the mills (and I gave them a picture of what the mills were like - and again, with this theme of the relationship to land, talked about the enclosures and how agricultural practices changed and how one effect was to drive people off the land - and into the mills and coal mines) and then often shipped back to be sold to Americans! And picking up again on the land and resources - what was now needed? What great invention came about? The steam engine - and that needed coal and it needed iron and steel. And Britain had all these things plus easy access to trade routes via water. Enter the birth of the Industrial Revolution.

 

And thus we came full circle, back to our original picture of the Earth as a whole. We knew that the environment is a whole - if factories in the US Midwest pollute the air then the forests in Canada will suffer. We saw that trade was international - we spent some time talking about China and why everything in Walmart is made there. We dipped into economic theories - mobile workforces and capital, free markets, state intervention, labor theory of value.  Many of the students' parents are organic farmers - why all the fuss about eating local food? And then we had to look at Fair Trade issues, too.... and what are the shortcomings in a global capitalist economy? We looked at industries like fishing in the North sea - how do Canada, Iceland, the UK and Denmark come to agreements about fishing rights? How are the fish effected? What are the economic, social and ecological consequences? What happens when a people's way of life is dependent on something like fishing?

 

Well.... that's only a glimpse at what we covered. And the students loved it - poised on the threshold of a new stage of life, they were so eager to step into the world and try to understand some of these concepts. I took great care to try to emphasize that while there was a lot of destruction and horror in this picture that we had looked at together, that the point now is that people have the capacity to not be agents of destruction on the earth but to be co creators in positive growth and change. One worried student shared that she knew that some people thought the earth would be better off without human beings. We talked about this - most of the students thought that somehow this wasn't right, that human beings were a part of the order of life, though their capacities were obviously different from that of the natural world. I was relieved to hear them affirm this.

 

Because it was such a short block, I required very little homework. They had one 2 -3 page paper to write. I wanted them to examine the positive and negative effects people had had in specific geographical places and what the relevance of the geography was to what took place as well as the political and social implications. They chose from the Panama Canal; the Suez Canal; the Boll Weevil and Cotton in the US South; Lake Baikal in Russia; and the Dust Bowl in the US. Most of them wrote very good papers which showed that they understood that geography, the environment, politics and social life are all connected.

 

I hope you enjoy reading this - I certainly enjoyed sharing it with the students! In class, of course, I  paused often to make sure they were with me as we galloped across the stage of world history and across the globe itself! I tend to see my teaching as weaving - I move strongly forward with a theme - then double back and pick up any loose ends. Then I return again and again in subsequent days to look once again at what we talked about - but with students of this age, not to just recapitulate, but to deepen and to explore from another angle.

 

 

Save Steiner Schools Camaign (UK)

We recently received an e-mail forwarded from the newly-created Save Steiner Schools Campaign in the UK. A new law coming into effect in the UK will effectively make it illegal for kindergartens and pre-schools not to teach children aged 4 and 5 to read and write! What is more, this threatened ending of the right of Steiner schools (generally known as Waldorf schools in the US) to practice a key aspect of their educational methodology (delayed literacy and numeracy) is being put into place within a context of what the British government calls "choice for parents" - talk about Orwellian use of the English language (choice = taking away choice)!

I am afraid to say that some people will be left with a very bitter feeling of "told you so". The Steiner/Waldorf movement in the UK has, for a number of years, pursued a policy of accommodation to the government - for example, translating Waldorf practices into the language of the government's educational "standards". This has, in part, been pursued in the hope of gaining government funding, allowing students to attend Waldorf schools regardless of their families' means. This is, indeed, one of the ideals of Waldorf education (that it is for all children). However, the danger of such a strategy is to the even more essential ideal: educational freedom.

In both the UK and the US we have seen a relentless encroaching by the national and federal governments on educational freedom - exemplified by the "national curriculum" in the UK and "No Child Left Behind" in the US. I haven't been following it but I believe the UK government has also been taking steps to limit the educational freedom of homeschoolers.  [* See Comments for a clarification of this - thanks, Fatima!]

Donna and I feel very strongly in doing all we can to protect educational freedom from the predations of the centralized political state. That is why we signed the 'We Stand For Homeschooling' resolution a few years ago and fully support the Association of Waldorf Schools of N. America in their decision not to allow public schools and charter schools (which are, in reality, public schools) to be members of AWSNA. And, incidentally, it is also one reason among many that both of us favor this man in his bid to become President of the United States!

So, the UK schools are hoping for a legal exemption from the state when it comes to meeting the requirements of the latest educational dictat. And we for sure hope they are able to obtain it. It will be very interesting to see what happens if they don't. I cannot believe that the Steiner/Waldorf schools will start teaching kindergarten children to read and write...

The e-mail we received follows.

-- Paul

Save Steiner Schools Campaign
Campaigning for an opt-out of Early Years Foundation Stage

http://www.savesteinerschools.org

The Issue
November 7th, 2007

This website has been created by parents to provide a focus for campaigning to stop the UK government forcing all Steiner Waldorf and other kindergartens and nurseries to implement the Early Years Foundation Stage requirements.

Most of the framework is both positive and uncontentious. The problem is that some of the development goals and assessment run contrary to existing forms of education that thousands of people in the UK and many more in Europe have been championing for decades.

Mandatory reading, writing and numeracy at age 4-5

The new legal requirements introduced by the Childcare Act 2006 will come into force from September 2008 and threaten to disrupt established educational methods such as the Steiner Waldorf curriculum that are based on childrens’ natural development processes in an environment that is not formally assessing them.

Steiner Waldorf kindergartens do not teach literacy at all at age 4-5 as this is covered very well in the initial years in the main school at a time (beyond age 6) at which it is believed to be more appropriate for children to learn it. Therefore this change will completely alter the landscape of Steiner Waldorf education principles in the UK. Many European countries have excellent literacy rates and yet do not have mandatory education until ages 6 or even 7 years.

The EYFS is part of a ten year strategy called "Choice for parents, the best start for children", even though as it stands EYFS is set to remove choice for parents and represents a different start for children, one which some experts do not believe is the best.

Mandatory assessment at 5 years old

The EYFS includes contains 117 different points against which kindergarten and nursery teachers will have to assess every single child in their care. This report will be given to local authorities and parents when each child is 5 years old. This assessment is a legal requirement, and the implementation of it is subject to OFSTED inspections and/or Local Education Authority inspection.

If you are unhappy with the increasing pressure on young children to learn reading, writing and arithmetic at such young ages and the encroaching mandatory assessment that may affect the quality of their education, please join our campaign and take action.

Old Testament Stories

As many of you know, we are putting out a full curriculum starting with second and third grades, this summer. And because we are as committed to serving those who want to create their own curricula and use either general resources from us (like the Curriculum Overview) or specific unit studies like Roman History or Botany, we will have a number of volumes available each year which can be purchased either as part of their corresponding curriculum or on their own. Our next addition to the growing list is Old Testament Stories, available January 2008.

 

Writing this book has been an enormous challenge for me! I have worked hard to be mindful of the needs of people from differing cultural and religious backgrounds whilst simultaneously working from the conviction that these stories really are magnificent pictures of the change in consciousness that the 9 year old child of whatever cultural or religious background is going through. And, as I have sat like a talmudic scholar, surrounded by my books, carefully considering the language I used as I wrote out the stories, often consulting with my husband who has some knowledge of Hebrew, checking the Hebrew text against King James and the New English Bible, I was humbled by the task I had set myself. And equally amazed as Paul and I debated the relevant merits of this word over that word how people can actually think "this is what it says in the Bible - end of story." Even just a cursory knowledge of Hebrew reveals so many nuanced shades of meaning.

 

And then of course there is the anthroposophical understanding, based on Steiner's lectures on Biblical themes, that one can bring to all of this. I had for quite a while debated on whether to simply recommend that third grade parents use Jakob Streit's books but have felt that the anthroposophy as well as the use of stories from the midrash is rather startling for some people (but would encourage those who relate to either the deep anthroposophy or to the midrash to use it in their families). I wanted something simple and open, something which can be read on whatever level a parent feels is right, whether as a good story that is an important part of Western culture or as a meaningful part of their religious life. I wanted God to be there and the full spiritual glory of the Old Testament stories to be apparent - but also non threatening to those who are challenged by these stories.

 

And they can be very challenging! Whether it's Lot's wife being turned into a block of salt or Cain's murder of Able or Abraham raising the knife to sacrifice Isaac, many people have a tough time with these stories. And that, for me, is where anthroposophy can be helpful. I have gained an enormous amount in my own grasping to understand the Old Testament by reading passages such as this one from Roy Wilkinson's Commentary on Old Testament Stories, an important book used by many Waldorf teachers as part of their own inner preparation for teaching this main lesson:

 

With his pre-Fall consciousness, Cain has no understanding of good or evil. The Lord tells him that he must learn self-control but for the moment he does not realize what is meant. Anger clouds his mind and in that state he kills Abel. He does it without compunction and when challenged by the Lord, he rejects responsibility....Now Cain is made aware that what he has done is a crime. He must expiate it. The time of self-responsibility has come. He must develop earthly consciousness - "the ground shall henceforth not yield thee her strength." Being a fugitive and a vagabond means to seek experience of the world and of the inner self.

I have not brought such material into the stories themselves but have included it for adults to ponder if they choose. For me as an adult, I find inspiration from such writing, but the children need only receive the simplicity of the power of the stories as they are. We adults can contemplate the meaning and power - and share the stories with our children as a means to help them as they struggle through their own Fall from Innocence, their separation from Paradise, their first true experiences of their own sense of Self and their relationship to the Law. Gone is the atavistic clairvoyance of Joseph - and in its place is the Law which Moses brings. Gone is the child's unconscious connection to the spiritual worlds from where he came - and in its place are the laws of human society. As adults we have gone beyond legalisitc thinking as we seek true freedom - the child,as he grows toward adulthood will also experience this development. But for now, to meet him where his soul is, these challenging Old Testament stories are rich and nourishing food.

 

And again, they are for all of us. I have real concerns about the fairly recent trend in Waldorf schools (and Waldorf homeschooling circles) to identify these stories so closely with Judaism that third grade becomes the "Jewish year." This seems very odd to me. These stories are certainly central to Judaism - but they are a vital part of two other major religions, too - Islam and Christianity! Though the stories in the Muslim tradition are often quite different, nevertheless, they trace their roots to the same major figures from these stories. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses - all are revered as prophets in Islam. And the link to Christianity is of course obvious!

 

And because there is meant to be a clear lack of religious teaching in Waldorf schools, I worry a little about this "Jewish year". Of course at home, one is free to do as one pleases - and a Jewish year might be a really important way to bring an understanding of a major religion to ones children (and of course if one is Jewish - well - it's just part of life!!). But... I don't like it when such things become the norm when they're not founded on solid pedagogical ground. For me, I see a study of Judaism and Christianity in 6th grade, during the Roman history block. And then, during the Middle Ages, one must have a good look at Islam in order to understand anything of the cultural development of a rather vast part of the globe during this time!

 

Back to my point.... the Old Testament stories in any case are not a study of religion! This is not a religion main lesson! It is a "Stories of Humanity" kind of block - just like the animal legends in second grade, just like the Norse myths in fourth grade. And again, when one studies the Myths of India in 5th grade, this is not a religion block about Hinduism per se!

 

Our book will, as I said, be available in January. The stories span the Creation through the arrival at the Promised Land. To my mind, this is the period that most clearly mirrors the changes in the 9 year old's soul. The stories change quite dramatically after that and are better, I feel, suited to 4th grade. I was most gratified to learn from my priest, Richard Dancy, of the Christian Community (founded on indications and inspiration by Rudolf Steiner) that he also feels that this is the case. So look toward the fourth grade story collection to find some of the great stories from the second part of the Old Testament.

 

The book is based on 1 six week OT main lesson. There are lots of paintings in it for you to use as inspiration for painting with your child (including full instructions) as well as a puppet play including script and how-to suggestions. There are also other suggestion for a main lesson book and other craft activities.

 

In the next couple of months we will have a section on our website devoted to our new curriculum where you can read about various aspects of the work. Keep an eye open for it! And more detials on this book to come!

 

High School World History

Today I finished a three week main lesson at the Waldorf-flavored high school where I teach part time. It was a class with the juniors and we spent three weeks galloping through the centuries from the Fall of Rome to the year 1900. That's a lot of history by any stretch and a ridiculous amount to cram into one little three week main lesson! But  one of the peculiarities of this school is its three week main lessons, so one learns to adjust!

 

And because Waldorf is concerned with the "economy of teaching", of the "symptomatic approach" to history, one does not need to fret that one has not covered every country, every battle, every historical event of note. Instead, one works with a wider sweep, searching for themes that move through historical periods and then broadly outlining the lives of people or events which took place which are symptomatic of that change.

 

And so, after a quick re-cap on the Fall of Rome and the next 800 or so years ( they had had a block last year which went to the early Medieval Age), we slowed down to get a sense for the essence of the Medieval Age in Europe - what was it about? How did people live? How did the people view themselves and the world? We then moved on to the Renaissance and took as a theme, what are the differences between the Medieval Age and the Renaissance? We didn't have to cover every fascinating person - we touched on Joan of Arc, on Henry the Navigator and Marco Polo, Ghenghis Khan, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci and others - as typical of that time period.

 

Then we looked at Muslim Spain - at the great cultures there. We doubled back and remembered what we'd learned about Haroun al-Rashid and Charlemagne and also about the Crusades. Now we turned to Spain and to Ferdinand and Isabella and their religious fervor and the destruction of the Muslims and Jews - and how this paved the way, monetarily, for Columbus' journey to the "New World". And we did not forget to mention Cortes, who gained his experience in killing in Spain before he perfected it in the world of the Aztecs. (an extraordinary novel set during this time is Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree by Tariq Ali - for adults or mature older teens).

 

Here we then also get a sense of connections - of world and cultural karma if you will. The students marveled at the fact that Haroun al-Rashid (ruler of a great Muslim empire from 763 - 809) and Charlemagne (Frankish ruler, Holy Roman Emperor at roughly the same time) actually discussed an arranged marriage between Charlemagne and as-Rashid's sister! What consequences might that have had for history and for the relations between the Muslim and Christian worlds had that happened! And again, we marveled at the chivalry of the exchanges between Saladin and Richard the Lionheart during the Crusades - Saladin actually sent his personal physician to treat Richard who had fallen ill. Well, once he was better the battle could commence... And so it did.

 

Moments from history give us all pause to think. And greater sweeps of history, of examining the differences in people's consciousness and how they change from one historic period to the next also give us a lot to think about. What about the fact that as the British Empire began to grow after the defeat of the Armada, that Japan, half a world away, entered its isolationist period, effectively closing itself off from the rest of the world? What ramifications might that have had for us all?

 

And so on. Our block was very exciting and wide ranging.  We touched on many topics, including the rise in rationalism, the Protestant Reformation, the Industrial Revolution and the true beginnings of globalisation with the development of capitalism....And we spent time looking at the ideas of the Enlightenment and how they influenced not only the French and American Revolutions but also the formation of Haiti and men like Toussant L'Overture. I was keen to ensure that the students realized that such ideals spread far beyond European culture.

 

I love history - I love the stories of humanity and all the twists and turns and interconnections of the individual and society. My students were also excited. I will undoubtedly teach this main lesson again next year to next year's juniors - and then perhaps one or more high school history books will eventually be available for you all!

Reading and Telling Stories

One of the hallmarks of Waldorf education is the practice that teachers have of telling stories to their class. Lessons are not a series of points from the teacher's notes, or passages from a text book. There are no power point presentations, no slide shows, no worksheets. Everything comes from the teacher and is presented to the children.

 

Or almost everything - and this differs from the earliest grades to the highest. In first and second grade what I say holds - everything comes from the teacher - though there might be a time during the day when he reads aloud to the children froma book. But all the main lesson material, foreign language, art - all the lessons flow from him.

 

The idea here is that the teacher is seen as the source of knowledge. Steiner tells us that the teacher in the grade school years must love his students (and do all the inner work necessary to make sure this is so) and that they love him. This relationship based on love strengthens and nurtures the feeling life of the child. And in the grade school years, in the second stage of the child's life, from 7 through 14, she is most in need of strengthening her heart center. In the first stage, birth through 7, the will is worked on - via imitation, via strong rhythms, via activity. In this second stage, as the child comes into her sense of "I", her need is to feel safe, secure and to enter fully into life. Artistic activity encourages the heart forces as do interesting story material of the great men and woman who have shaped history, flowing from the warmth of a beloved teacher. As she heads toward adolescence and into the third stage of childhood (14 to 21) she is now ready to really stretch and deepen her intellectual powers. She is fully in her body, grounded and balanced and her heart forces are open to receiving the knowledge of the world. She is ready to become the fully integrated adult that Steiner talks about - one who thinks clear thoughts, warmed by compassion and which she can bring to fruition in the world. She can think, feel and act.

 

This is a major reason why the bulk of the material the children receive in Waldorf schools flow from that teacher. Other reasons include the fact that the teacher can also adapt the material to suit the needs of that particular class, weaving in  references from previous lessons, giving hints of things to come. And, he can also take into account the temperaments of the children, skillfully adjusting his narrative to speak to all the children - to the excitable sanguines, the suspicious melancholics, the explosive cholerics and to the solid phlegmatics.

 

A further reason for the emphasis on the teacher telling the stories is that the children experience the teacher as a creative person, as a source of knowledge. Instead of books - instead of Other People as being the Ones Who Know, the children can see that anyone can know, can tell, can share, can be a story teller. And as much of the classroom time is a group activity whereby the children are revisiting and retelling the stories from the previous day before experiencing them artistically, they learn the art of being story tellers, of being verbally adroit, of being able, eventually, to teach others.

 

Now.... what about reading aloud? Do the teachers do any of that? Of course. As I already said, the teachers in all grade read good books to their class and the children are, of course, encouraged to read for pleasure when they are able to. Great authors are revered, and there would certainly never be an attempt to re-tell a classic that needs to be experienced as a book! But.... even in high school, the bulk of the lessons take a narrative form. So this morning, when I was teaching Comedy and Tragedy to my class of 9th graders at the Waldorf high school where I teach, I wove a narrative about the history of Greek theatre. The students sat, rapt, l;listening. Then we moved on to the play which we are currently working on - Electra by Sophocles. I shared out parts, clumped the extra students into the chorus and off we went. We;'d stop every once in while ("Can anyone tell me what that passage actually meant?") for conversation, then back to our play.

 

In the classroom next door, a colleague is teaching the junior about meteorology. He spends half the morning talking about cloud formations, the relative positions of the hemispheres..... all sorts of thing. They butt in when they have a question or comment, and so they also discuss the material. Then they spend the other half of the class working on presentations, doing reading, drawing diagrams into their main lesson books, etc etc.

 

And at home? Ah well..... what do we do at home? When my sons were home (they are both at high school now) we wove a combination of reading aloud, them reading alone and me presenting material. Sometimes I'd tell them about things - the French revolution, the story of Isis and Osiris, the life of Madam Curie, the story of Saint Francis. Other times I would read to them - from D'Aulaire's Norse Gods and Goddesses, from a Joe Bruchac Native American story, from a book of poetry.... Or, after about 4th grade, I would hand them a book and ask them to read a section. And then we'd talk about it. Or, as they got older, I wouldn't know as much and they'd teach me - my younger son's 8th grade project on Napoleon was a case in point - I brushed up briefly on the life of Napoleon so I could ask him intelligent questions, but he filled me in on the details of Napoleon's life.

 

So it's a mixture, whether one is in a Waldorf classroom or at home. And of course, if one has a number of children or the baby's ill or husband is working late, then it just might be that for a time there is less you telling the material and more let's look this up together. That's fine, that's real life. But.... there is certainly something to be said for the adult to be able to present material - if not all the time, if not most of the time, even just some of the time! - out of herself. She can warm it with her love, she can weave it into her own words, she can adjust it to refer to things her child is interested in. And she can model to her child the wonderful picture of the adult, the known and loved person, as being an authority in something.

 

Which isn't to say that cuddling on the couch together looking something up, sharing a story or similar aren't also wonderful experiences. But.... sharing out of yourself, sharing your interest in the story, the person, the science project, the math problems that you're presenting to your child is a wonderful experience for every homeschooling family. And Waldorf presents many opportunities for it!

Review: the Kingdom of Childhood

Continuing my series of reviews of basic Waldorf books for parents, I'd like to turn to one of my favorite books, The Kingdom of Childhood by Rudolf Steiner. It actually wasn't written as a book. Rather it is a series of lectures which Steiner gave to the teachers who were going to form the first Waldorf school in Britain. So what we have is translated and put together from hand-written notes taken while he spoke - in German!

 

Thus this isn't the smoothest of books to read - and apparently Steiner was quite lively when he spoke so we of course miss the nuances of his gestures. He also used a blackboard to explain some of the things he was talking about. In this book are included a few sketches but.... well, I am telling you all this so your expectations are suitable adjusted!!

 

But I love this book. I think it is a terrifically warm and friendly introduction to Waldorf education that, though thoroughly steeped in anthroposophy, is both approachable and understandable. AC Harwood in the preface to the 1982 Rudolf Steiner Press edition says of these lectures:

 

He shows ... how essential it is for a teacher to work upon himself, not merely to use his natural gifts but to transform them, to seek for the unsuspected powers in himself, never to become a pedant, but to make ample use of humour and to keep his teaching and himself lively and imaginative. But above all he insists on the grave importance of doing everything in the light of a knowledge of the child as a citizen of the spiritual as well as of the earthly world.

Topics addressed by Steiner in these lectures include: understanding the three stages of childhood; the little child as a sense organ; teaching about nature; Man as synthesis of the whole animal kingdom; the "Main Lesson"; telling stories;the importance of singing; science teaching; handwork; and a lively question and answer session.

In 2006 before I closed my old yahoo group, Waldorf At Home, I led a study of this book. Though the list itself is closed to posts, anyone can visit its archives and access and enormous amount of information. If you go there, you can do a search on "Kingdom of Childhood" and find a wonderful discussion which I am sure will help add to the joy of reading this very fine and important book on Waldorf education. Click here for this yahoo group.

Planning For Next Year

So.... I thought I'd give you all a few tips on planning for the next year (and all you Southern Hemisphere readers you'll just have to come back to this blog entry later in the year!). One of my main areas of work as a consultant has to do with planning, helping people think through what their upcoming year or semester might look like and visioning into what needs to be done to get there. Those of you who have my First Grade Syllabus can use the section in there as the basis for much of your planning.

 

I usually start people off by asking them to write out their vision of the upcoming year. I ask them to think about each child separately and to write down the main lessons and other lessons/activities for that year. I ask the parent to then think about goals for each child. Examples might be: A to learn all her multiplication tables; make sure there is more room in the schedule for singing; learn 3 pieces on the recorder; make sure at least one handwork project actually gets finished.

 

Then the parent needs to write down a list of qualities that each child might be challenged (indirectly) to work on in the upcoming year. This doesn't mean that the child will be asked to, for instance, make sure he is kinder to his little brother next year. (though it might). Rather, it might be that the parent decides that Billy needs to learn perseverance. The parent then needs to think through how she can provide opportunities not to grind the child into the dust in the effort to teach him to persevere - but to ensure that he is appropriately challenged (in handwork, writing, chores, music lessons) to learn to persevere.

 

Next the parent needs to look at the children together and the family as a whole to get a sense for the overall balance of the upcoming year. What are the needs of the different children and how might they be met? What are the needs of the family as a whole and how are those needs met? Where might compromises be necessary? Where might sacrifice be necessary? An example is a family with a lively outgoing 10 year old who wants to join every homeschooling field trip and activity possible. But... the 2 year old really suffers if she has to come to too many outings, ride in the car a lot and generally have her weekly schedule upset. It might well be that the 2 year old's needs are seen as more important - and that the parent knows that as she gets older, she will be able to adapt more easily. The 10 year old will have to make due with fewer activities which take him out of the home.

 

And in that situation, it might well be that the 10 year not only learns that family is important and one sometimes has to sacrifice ones own desires for the needs of another person, but that actually too many activities was feeding an imbalance in that child and really, he becomes more settled and grounded by a less hectic social life.

 

Back to planning....

 

So what lessons and activities can be done with both or all the children together? If you have a very large family, it might well be that a lot of homeschooling is done in shifts, with various children put together to play or do lessons together. Or an older one looks after the little ones - and so on. For sure, the larger your family the more flexible you have to be - and the less hung up on the purity of the curriculum and what "real" Waldorf might be. It might well be that the main organizing principle in a large family is "a large family in itself is the learning experience for these children" and what happens, happens. Because really, with a big family it seems to me there are two choices: boot camp or gentle chaos ( or frantic chaos but as that isn't healthy, it's not really a choice!). Either it's Parent as Sergeant or Parent as Helper. Parent as Teacher might not be really possible - at least in extended periods - in a large family.

 

When can you combine your children and teach them together? One thing that many homeschoolers find useful is to not teach their first grader recorder until her younger sibling is in first grade - then the two children are taught together at the same level. This can also work for handwork projects other than knitting - that really is a MUST for every first grader (but you can just continue with knitting in second grade if your other child is then a first grader - they both knit but do different projects). If you're very lucky (!!) you might also be able to do this with math and/or writing/reading. If your older one is "slower" in a skill like math and your younger one is faster, there will be many lessons which can be done together. Just do make sure that the younger one does not miss out on the active and imaginative stage of math and that the older one is, when appropriate, challenged to move from imaginative pictures to abstract thinking. Stick to the "soul lessons" which the story material meets at the different stages of the child's development - but be more flexible with when certain skills (like learning multiplication tables) are addressed or accomplished.

 

Sometimes it is possible to do a main lesson on different levels at the same time. Man and Animal, Building, Saints & Heroes and Geography main lessons come to mind. If, for instance, you have a fourth grader doing Man and Animal and you also have a first or second grader, you can let that younger child join in. She can also do a main lesson book and just focus on  drawing and copying a word or two ((HORSE, EAGLE etc) or a sentence or two while you help your 10 year old write a report. During a geography block on US Geography (or whatever country you live in) all the children can listen to regional stories and go on field trips. The second grader can do some writing if she insists - the kindergartener can draw (and don't worry if she also wants to do some writing - it will probably pass - her natural imitative powers compel her to do what the older ones are doing). Just weave back and forth. And maybe when it's time for that second grader to do her own fifth grade block in geography you either find a different focus or revisit some of what you did earlier.

 

My Curriculum Overview can be very helpful for people to work out what lessons are done when in Waldorf schools and - most importantly - why. Then parents can figure out what the essence of of those lessons and be better able to adapt to family circumstances. And, as homeschooling is not school at home, one will have all sorts of things which will need to be allowed for - Grandma's month long visit; a move; a new baby; your child's passion for horses or ballet. You might decide to do a mini main lesson on horses or ballet - with the help of my Overview you can perhaps see what soul lessons are important for your child at her age and ensure that she gets them - even if her focus is on horses or ballet, neither of which show up in the Waldorf curriculum!!

 

There's so much more to say.... and this blog entry is getting too long. Let me just finish here by saying - make goals but ensure they are flexible. Process is usually far more important than goals when it comes to teaching and parenting - let the goals be guideposts but never let them bind you into a situation where one loses sight of a child's progress and, equally important, set-backs, over time.

 

And do consider getting in touch with me to talk through your plans and visions for the upcoming year! Go to the Consultations section of the Christopherus website for details of what I offer.

 

Happy planning!

 

 

 

 

Thinking About Music Instruction

One of the things that so many parents appreciate so deeply about Waldorf schools is the way that music is an integral part of the curriculum. From earliest days in the kindergarten as the children sing and clap and play - as their sense for rhythm is nurtured through the very rhythmical order of the days, weeks and seasons  children in Waldorf schools are imbued with the health-giving benefits of music. And "music" here is a very broad word - indeed, Steiner spoke often in terms of the need for a teacher to develop a "musicality" in his teacher. By this Steiner meant harmony, sensitivity, rhythm and fluidity, all essential characteristics of a good teacher and all qualities necessary for every human being to develop.

 

Homeschoolers are usually as keen that their children become musical as any other parent. One thing every homeschooler can consider is Steiner's injunction to "be musical" in one's teaching!

 

Then come thoughts about which musical instrument for a child to learn and at what age. Other issues also arise when thinking about musical instruments.

 

The thing that jumps out at me first is the issue of playing with others and playing alone. In Waldorf classroom, the first and second graders all play together with their teacher - everyone works together, listening to each other, imitating their teacher who stands in front of them and plays as they play. Often, especially nowadays (this wasn't the case when I was a 7 year old in the Waldorf school I attended) they are playing pentatonic flutes - the pentatonic scale is considered to be more "heavenly", more developmentally appropriate for the child than the diatonic scale. And, lastly, when playing a wind instrument such as a recorder, the child IS the instrument, her breath is intimately bound up with the beautiful music which she makes. Steiner repeatedly emphasized how important it was for a child to experience BEING an instrument (singing, is of course, the other way the young child - anyone - can experience this).

 

So when a child plays an instrument such as a piano or violin, he stands alone (I know that nowadays in many Waldorf schools the children ALL take violin and play together so this is a bit different). From a Waldorf point of view, is it developmentally appropriate for the 7 or 8 year old to "stand apart", to "stand alone" in this way? If I think of other parts of the curriculum - drama, for instance - the first and second grader does not yet stand alone. The group recites together and though individual children may act out parts, they don't engage their emergent egos in the same way as they would if they had lines to speak.  So back to a young child playing the piano or violin - might this not be a premature way of making the child separate, making him "stand alone" as it were? This is what I'm thinking about. And I do wonder if those children who have a musical gift, who are begging for lessons, might need in fact to start this early - but that for the other children, those who will hopefully gain some skill and joy from playing an instrument but who do not have a particular gift, might be better served to wait until 9.

Is She Ready to Read or Not?

Something that is very important to ponder is the difference between teaching a child who is not ready for something and allowing a strong impulse in a child to unfold. I would hope that no parent who is interested in the healing benefits of Waldorf education would ever teach their tiny child how to read or write - but equally, would also hope that if they had a small one with an overwhelming desire to read that they would never prevent it. By that I mean take away books or pencils or say "no".

However, the danger that I often see with parents is the assumption that once a child shows an interest in something like writing that the parent assumes a certain progression and that "this is it - she is starting to read". If a 3 or 4 year old show interest in reading, it may well be that they want to spell their names or the names of people significant to them. They might want to read signs and the writing on a cereal box. But this does not mean that it's time to teach them their letters or to get out the readers! My almost 25 years experience with children in many different realms tells me that they do not, by and large, learn in a linear fashion. Learning takes place in cycles and in fits and starts -the elegance of homeschooling is that we can recognize these patterns and adjust our expectations to them. Then homeschooling becomes a case of shaping the curriculum to fit the child - and not the other way around.

Many, many tiny children go through a phase of wanting to read and/or write. If the parent remains neutral about it - giving them paper or spelling out words for them or writing things for them ONLY AS THEY REQUEST!! - then most children are satisfied and for a great many of them, the phase passes. Some might return to an interest when the parent introduces academic work in first grade. Others might take a few more years to become interested again.

And, of course, there are a number of children who teach themselves to read at 4 or 5. That's fine, too. Again, I would just leave it - neither encouraging nor discouraging. If this reading carries on I would still - perhaps especially! - recommend that one continue with a kindergarten routine - that no formal teaching or formal reading time be part of the kindergarten routine. If the child reads on her own - that's fine. She will need the support of the extra emphasis on nurturing her senses, strengthening her physical organism by powerful rhythms in the home environment and making sure that her head is not simply leading her body along. What one does not want is a child that burns out.

And that is the danger. It is not simply because Steiner said these things because he felt like it. He observed the effect of intellectual head-orientated work on the physical organism of the child and based his recommendations on that. He saw that the child until about 6 1/2 is busy making up his own physical form and "coming into" (incarnating for those of you who can deal with that term) his body and needed his life energy as it were ( the etheric forces that Steiner talks about) to be free to build a healthy vessel for the soul and for the later intellectual powers to enfold.

And we can see the effect of early intellectualism all around us - overstimulated, choice-burdened, early taught children who burn out at 9 or 10 and refuse to read, refuse to go to school, are put on medication, become apathetic or hyper.... the list goes on and on.

So I would say it's not a matter of "imposing" something on a child - no more than I think of it as imposing on my child that they can't eat too much sugar or that they can't run out into the traffic. Sometimes as parents we need, out of our experience and knowledge, to oppose something our child might seem to be interested in. Or - and I would say this is more often the case - intuit into what he is expressing, hear behind his words or actions and help meet his needs in a developmentally appropriate way. So much about learning to be a part of this world, of growing up has to do with health. For me this is the greatest power of Waldorf education - a way to understand the child and to enfold him in a way of parenting and educating that enhances his potential to be healthy - in mind, body and spirit.

I write in great length about this in my language arts book for those who are interested. Many of the audio downloads have a lot about these issues as well within a larger discussion of, for instance, kindergarten or first grade.