("The Grades" refers to grades one through eight.)
I haven't wanted to write about Waldorf elementary education until I felt I had a good basic understanding of what it was all about. I still feel like my understanding is very, very basic. I just recently read my first "Steiner". (Rudolph Steiner, a philosopher in the early 20th century, was the founder of Waldorf education.) It's pretty heavy-duty stuff. Some ideas I disagreed with, some I was unsure, some I LOVED. I love almost all of the how's and a good deal of the what's. I'm not so clear on all the why's--sometimes that matters, sometimes it doesn't. I'm not getting into all the why's in the post. Just the basics.
First of all, Waldorf students stay together as a class and with the same main teacher for eight years, from grade one until grade eight. (Unless, of course, a teacher quits for some reason.) There are specialists for some aspects of music, handwork, etc. This requires the teacher to form a deeper relationship with each student. If you get a "problem" student in your class, you HAVE to figure out how to understand and love that student. This also means that the teacher must study and understand the curricula for all eight grades. Lots of effort for the teacher, but I can see where it would be such a fulfilling experience with so much growth to show for it. Teaching my own children in a homeschool setting, this is exactly what I would be doing.
Block teaching: Students generally only focus on one main subject at a time. They spend 30-90 minutes per day (in homeschool, not sure about a Waldorf school) in a "main lesson" on this subject, and the block continues for anywhere from 2-6 weeks, generally. I'm trying to remember the specifics that I've read on different websites, but throughout the year there will be a couple of math blocks, four or so language arts/humanities blocks, and a few others such as science/nature or geography brought in depending on the grade. This allows time to really delve into each topic and become comfortable with it. Now, there can still be opportunities to practice math and reading/writing skills daily. Math skills such as multiplication tables are often drilled through games, jumping rope, bean bag tossing, and other activities involving movement. Reading and writing skills would be developed in other blocks too, through independent reading time (in a homeschool, not sure about a Waldorf school), etc. The students don't learn through textbooks and worksheets. Each student has a "main lesson book", a nice notebook in which they keep their written work as a record of what they have done.
Head, heart, and hands: A basic premise of Waldorf education is that different elements of the human being are worked on at different times. Early childhood is the time to develop the child's will (hands). We're talking to an extent moral will, but also physical will. The child is learning to have control over body movements, learning to talk, walk, jump, use the hands, etc. Age 14 and beyond the primary focus is on the head, or intellectual development. From ages 7 to 14, the focus is on the heart, which basically means learning with an emphasis on appealing to the emotions. For this reason, academic subjects are taught using stories, art, and other creative means to keep them meaningful to the child.
Reading and writing: Children in Waldorf schools are not introduced to reading and writing until first grade, which actually is closer to age 7 than age 6. They are not even formally taught letters until this point. Children learn to write before they learn to read. Letters are taught through stories and pictures. This is something that I think is incredibly cool! I LOVE the way children in Waldorf are taught letters! For example, the letter K might be taught by telling the story of a king, and then the letter is drawn in picture form. (The king is in the form of the K.) The link in the child's mind between the letter and it's sound is stronger because of the presence of the story. Relationships between letters are taught this way too, for example the King needs help to manage his kingdom, and through an interesting story, the Cat becomes his helper (just as the letter C shares the same sound, "helps" the K). And the Cat can be drawn in the shape of the letter C. The child learns to draw the picture before actually making the letter shape in writing form. This mirrors how human language developed, after all, the first written language was pictorial.
Humanities: This ties in with the teaching of reading and writing. The language arts content in the grades is in the form of stories from various cultures. The reading and writing skills are drawn out of this. There are spiritual reasons, too, that certain stories form the curriculum for certain grades. Steiner was a spiritual philosopher, and everything in Waldorf is done because of how it supposedly affects the "soul development" of the child. Some of this is right in line with LDS teachings. For example, in first grade (age 7) the children hear fairy tales. Fairy tales are full of archetypal (symbolic) images of good and evil. Then in second grade, the stories are all about saints. The term "saint" can be taken broadly--the stories are about people who chose good and made their lives about doing good. In the third grade, the children study the Old Testament stories and Jewish culture. They also frequently study about Native Americans. I can't remember what all the topics are for the older grades, but there is a big overlap with language arts and history, and it's all done through stories rather than dry facts. I know in the 3rd grade (I think) there is also often a "shelters" block, where the students learn about housing. I've seen interesting projects related to Native Americans and housing, with kids studying the different kinds of shelters that were used by Native Americans in various parts of the U.S. This also ties into geography and science, learning about how different climate conditions affected housing and other things. Everything is done in a very creative, artistic way. Never just dry facts being memorized. There is lots of coloring, drawing, painting, building, etc.
The next post will talk about math, which I also LOVE the Waldorf way. And more about science, handwork, art, music, etc.
I haven't wanted to write about Waldorf elementary education until I felt I had a good basic understanding of what it was all about. I still feel like my understanding is very, very basic. I just recently read my first "Steiner". (Rudolph Steiner, a philosopher in the early 20th century, was the founder of Waldorf education.) It's pretty heavy-duty stuff. Some ideas I disagreed with, some I was unsure, some I LOVED. I love almost all of the how's and a good deal of the what's. I'm not so clear on all the why's--sometimes that matters, sometimes it doesn't. I'm not getting into all the why's in the post. Just the basics.
First of all, Waldorf students stay together as a class and with the same main teacher for eight years, from grade one until grade eight. (Unless, of course, a teacher quits for some reason.) There are specialists for some aspects of music, handwork, etc. This requires the teacher to form a deeper relationship with each student. If you get a "problem" student in your class, you HAVE to figure out how to understand and love that student. This also means that the teacher must study and understand the curricula for all eight grades. Lots of effort for the teacher, but I can see where it would be such a fulfilling experience with so much growth to show for it. Teaching my own children in a homeschool setting, this is exactly what I would be doing.
Block teaching: Students generally only focus on one main subject at a time. They spend 30-90 minutes per day (in homeschool, not sure about a Waldorf school) in a "main lesson" on this subject, and the block continues for anywhere from 2-6 weeks, generally. I'm trying to remember the specifics that I've read on different websites, but throughout the year there will be a couple of math blocks, four or so language arts/humanities blocks, and a few others such as science/nature or geography brought in depending on the grade. This allows time to really delve into each topic and become comfortable with it. Now, there can still be opportunities to practice math and reading/writing skills daily. Math skills such as multiplication tables are often drilled through games, jumping rope, bean bag tossing, and other activities involving movement. Reading and writing skills would be developed in other blocks too, through independent reading time (in a homeschool, not sure about a Waldorf school), etc. The students don't learn through textbooks and worksheets. Each student has a "main lesson book", a nice notebook in which they keep their written work as a record of what they have done.
Head, heart, and hands: A basic premise of Waldorf education is that different elements of the human being are worked on at different times. Early childhood is the time to develop the child's will (hands). We're talking to an extent moral will, but also physical will. The child is learning to have control over body movements, learning to talk, walk, jump, use the hands, etc. Age 14 and beyond the primary focus is on the head, or intellectual development. From ages 7 to 14, the focus is on the heart, which basically means learning with an emphasis on appealing to the emotions. For this reason, academic subjects are taught using stories, art, and other creative means to keep them meaningful to the child.
Reading and writing: Children in Waldorf schools are not introduced to reading and writing until first grade, which actually is closer to age 7 than age 6. They are not even formally taught letters until this point. Children learn to write before they learn to read. Letters are taught through stories and pictures. This is something that I think is incredibly cool! I LOVE the way children in Waldorf are taught letters! For example, the letter K might be taught by telling the story of a king, and then the letter is drawn in picture form. (The king is in the form of the K.) The link in the child's mind between the letter and it's sound is stronger because of the presence of the story. Relationships between letters are taught this way too, for example the King needs help to manage his kingdom, and through an interesting story, the Cat becomes his helper (just as the letter C shares the same sound, "helps" the K). And the Cat can be drawn in the shape of the letter C. The child learns to draw the picture before actually making the letter shape in writing form. This mirrors how human language developed, after all, the first written language was pictorial.
Humanities: This ties in with the teaching of reading and writing. The language arts content in the grades is in the form of stories from various cultures. The reading and writing skills are drawn out of this. There are spiritual reasons, too, that certain stories form the curriculum for certain grades. Steiner was a spiritual philosopher, and everything in Waldorf is done because of how it supposedly affects the "soul development" of the child. Some of this is right in line with LDS teachings. For example, in first grade (age 7) the children hear fairy tales. Fairy tales are full of archetypal (symbolic) images of good and evil. Then in second grade, the stories are all about saints. The term "saint" can be taken broadly--the stories are about people who chose good and made their lives about doing good. In the third grade, the children study the Old Testament stories and Jewish culture. They also frequently study about Native Americans. I can't remember what all the topics are for the older grades, but there is a big overlap with language arts and history, and it's all done through stories rather than dry facts. I know in the 3rd grade (I think) there is also often a "shelters" block, where the students learn about housing. I've seen interesting projects related to Native Americans and housing, with kids studying the different kinds of shelters that were used by Native Americans in various parts of the U.S. This also ties into geography and science, learning about how different climate conditions affected housing and other things. Everything is done in a very creative, artistic way. Never just dry facts being memorized. There is lots of coloring, drawing, painting, building, etc.
The next post will talk about math, which I also LOVE the Waldorf way. And more about science, handwork, art, music, etc.
Comments
How did you chose your curriculum? Only 30-90 minutes of school a day? Really? Maybe I misunderstood but I had always assumed that homeschooling would be really tiresome with 4-6 hours of instruction etc.
If you want a couple of good intro books, I recommend "Heaven on Earth" by Sharifa Oppenheimer for early childhood and "Understanding Waldorf Education" by Jack Petrash for more about the overall view.
Or, click on some of the blogs I have linked in my sidebar.
I'll have to check out that link!
You asked about curriculum. I haven't chosen a curriculum yet. There are three main homeschooling curriculum souces: www.alittlegardenflower.com (she is LDS), www.christopherus.com , and (I think) www.liveed.com . I could be wrong about the last one, but the curriculum is called Live Ed. I'm looking at Christopherus and have ordered their basic guide to see if that is what I want. There is also Enki, www.enkieducation.org , which is Waldorf-based but incorporates a lot of other things too. I would probably pick Enki first, but they only go up to second grade, and they are also extremely expensive.
I think there is a lot of flexibility within curricula to pick and choose the subjects, storiest, etc. There is a big emphasis on the teacher doing the "inner work" to really know her child and take her child's needs into account when choosing content. Some moms create their own curriculum too.