Waldorf Education

I have to say, again, how much I appreciate Waldorf education.

This year my son got his first "grades" teacher. In Waldorf training, kindergarten teachers go through a completely different specialization process than grades teachers, and the Waldorf method treats these ages very differently. Going into the "grades" is a big deal. Ideally, his first grade teacher will be his teacher through 8th grade.

Last year my son's teachers made his second year of kindergarten amazing. If you read my previous Waldorf posts, you know how much I loved his teachers last year.

This year... not so much. Since this school is a public charter, their first priority when hiring a new teacher is a California credential, then any Waldorf training as a bonus. If the teacher does not have both (which is likely), the school contributes to the cost of sending the teacher to Waldorf teacher training. Most of the credentialed teachers at this school are still going through some phase of their Waldorf training.

The teacher that had been originally hired to fill this spot came from another Waldorf charter school in the bay area, had both her state credential and had completed her Waldorf training. She had been a teacher at that school for several years, and was well qualified. However, she changed her mind about leaving her old school about a month before school started, and the school was left scrambling (I believe) to find another teacher.

Anyway I hope that was why they chose this teacher. She has no Waldorf experience besides the two weeks of training they could squeeze in before school started, and has no classroom experience either! She was a substitute teacher in the public schools before landing this job.

From what I can see, she loves her job. I can't imagine a more fun environment to teach, but perhaps I'm biased.

However, I've had several negative experiences with her already. I don't know if it is merely because she's new to teaching and isn't yet comfortable with dealing with parents, but so far her "method" is to ignore me and hope I go away, from what I can tell.

Frankly, I'm just about there. My son can be difficult to deal with. He's active, smart, and confident (a lethal combination), which means he's paying attention when you think he's not, bored and distracting anyone around him when he's not engaged, and answering all the questions whether you want him to or not. Basically a lot of work. Knowing this, I've tried to be as involved as possible in order to make her job as easy as possible.

However, if she's not interested, I'm sure I can find other things to do. I'm just concerned that her methods, if not what he needs, could alienate him from the learning process I've tried so hard to teach him to enjoy.

All that said, whatever he thinks of her (and I don't really know) is not affecting his learning. He loves his school, and LOVES main lesson. This is where they get the bulk of their academic training. This large chunk of the morning is when they cover math, science, writing, learning the alphabet, and whatever else they are supposed to learn in first grade. However, they learn all this through storytelling and drawing, and so every lesson is weaved into a tale that the kids then illustrate and copy into their lesson books, which are the Waldorf equivalent of textbooks all through the grades.

Last year, I would ask him at the dinner table to tell me the story he'd heard that day. In kindergarten, the teachers tell the same story every day for two weeks. By the third telling he was so bored with it, I couldn't get him to even tell me what the story was called. I stopped trying to get him to tell me the story once I saw how much it bothered him.

This year the story is shorter, and a new one is told each day. I've gotten out of the habit of asking him at the dinner table, but last night he volunteered the information. He told us he's learning 12 stories about 12 knights that are on a quest to find the perfect number, and that although he didn't have time to tell me ALL the stories, he'd be happy to tell me two per night until I'd heard all twelve. I have to say, that makes me super happy!

More Praise for my son's school...

I know I've written about my son's school a couple of times. I know I will most likely write more as the years go on. I can't help that they impress me!

My son goes to a charter Waldorf school in my area. As I've said before, I love the Waldorf philosophy, even though I'm not 100% on board. The teachers that are attracted to this environment are amazing, as I wrote about previously. Finding out that they are also non-union only impresses me more.

But this isn't about politics or philosophy. This is about his two special kindergarten teachers.

My son is active. According to his teachers, he has a boundless source of energy! He is smart, social, and bores easily. He is very tiring! It takes a lot of work to keep him occupied and engaged, although he does love to help and will do almost any task, the trick is always finding the right motivation.

Last week my husband and I met with his Student Success Team. His teachers suggested that we have a special meeting in order to discuss his strengths and "strivings" (as they call it). This team is assembled to address how to best meet the needs of individual students in order to make them successful in school. Although the meeting was scheduled for an hour, it actually took two. The team consists of his two teachers and their mentor teacher. The mentor teacher brought years of experience and an unbiased third party to the table. It was a very productive meeting.

The focus seemed to be on finding the right mix of participation and activity to keep him focused and engaged. His trouble seems to be in getting bored with the activity and then becoming restless and disruptive. The teachers talked about the kinds of activities they have been doing with him to keep him engaged, while giving him a physical outlet on which to spend his excess energy. The amount of extra attention and care he has received from his teachers astounds me.

My concern has always been that although he is not a bad kid, his excess energy and his ability to pull other children into his disruptiveness would give him the reputation of being the "problem student" and that would follow him throughout his school years. One thing I appreciate about this school is that his 1st grade teacher would be his 2nd-8th grade teacher as well, and that would give his next teacher plenty of time to get to know him, know his strengths and weaknesses, and find the right mix to work with what he needs. However, a bad impression at the beginning could sour his whole experience.

During the course of our meeting the teachers brought up some issues they've noticed that I hadn't even recognized. What I considered to be an anger management issue, the teachers actually thought was a sensitivity to sensory input. At first I objected to this idea, but my husband (who does have sensory sensitivities) was quick to agree. I argued that how could a kid who loved to be hugged and cuddled be sensitive to touch. But my husband and the teachers brought it to my attention that it was actually unexpected touch that sets him off, and his response to unwanted touch is the same as children with more severe sensory issues.

They also thought he had an especially low pain tolerance, which again I objected to. However, my husband again overruled me and agreed with the teachers. What I had considered to be an amazing dramatic act at every scrape or fall might actually be a real display of pain. Huh.

Then, to my surprise, one of his teachers pulled out a book that she had been reading for children with sensory challenges! She also gave me a copy of some nutritional baths she had researched for children with sensory sensitivity, and mentioned another book that would also be a good read and apply to my son. As she was writing down the title, his other teacher pulls the book she was suggesting out of her bag!

I was shocked and amazed. How often do your child's teachers independently research an issue, and read a rather large text, in the interest of helping a single child in a classroom? I know he did not receive this kind of care from his public school teacher last year!

Every encounter with his teachers impresses me. I just can't thank them enough.

Waldorf Education... (so much for shorter!)

Ok, I promised a post about why I think my son's school is so cool.  I want to stress that this is my opinion.  Some or all of you may not agree with me.  For those of you who have looked into Waldorf, and like what you see, you'll understand.

My son is going to a Waldorf-inspired, charter school.  The "waldorf-inspired" is an important distinction, requested by the private Waldorf schools, to demonstrate that the charter does not offer all of the features or opportunities of the private school.  (It also means it's free, or nearly-free, as opposed to costing around $12k/year.)  This is a public school, part of the school district, that has been granted a charter by either the district or the state (I'm not sure which), to teach in the Waldorf method.  The school is required by the district to have credentialed teachers in every classroom, but the school requires that the teacher ALSO have completed some or all of the Waldorf teacher training.

Personally, I like this feature.  I like knowing that his teachers have the same credentials as any public school teacher.  I also like that these teachers loved the Waldorf method of teaching so much they opted to go back to school to complete yet another teaching program.  I also love that they felt like there was a better way of teaching than what is currently being offered, and set out to find out more about it.  All of them could get better paying jobs at other schools.  They chose to teach here, for the love of the children.  That speaks to me.

The instructors in all of my child development classes so far seem to agree on one thing; kids are being pushed way too hard, way too early, in a desperate attempt to bring our test scores up and show the rest of the country/world that we are dedicated to giving our kids a great education.  It seems to me that the people deciding curriculum look at the problem like this:

Problem:  The reading scores for 4th graders have plummeted.

Solution:  Begin teaching the child to read in preschool and kindergarten to give the child a 'head start'.

Problem:  Math scores for freshman students are at 4th grade levels.

Solution:  Start teaching basic mathematics in preschool, so teachers can focus on more advanced math in kindergarten and 1st grade.  Introduce complex ideas early to prepare them for what is to come.

(Note:  There is more to it than that, this is a hypothetical, simplification.  Emphasis on "seems".)

The Waldorf method, however, emphasizes building a foundation, or context, for learning in the early years, and as the child ages, increases the educational context.  So while the brain is still developing, these teachers focus on listening, comprehension, movement, small-motor skills, community, team-building, sensory data, and immediate and long-term results.  

For instance, a large part of the kindergarten day is storytelling and working with the hands.  The storytelling requires the teacher to memorize a story (usually Grimm's fairy tales or similar stories) and re-tell the same story to the children every day for two weeks.  In the beginning, the story is told while the children sit and listen.  After a couple of days, the story is then told while using puppets to act out the parts.  Finally, the children become the characters and act out the story while the teacher tells it.  By the end of the two week period, the child has internalized the story.  He has been given time to become familiar with the whole story, focus on the words he may not have understood, and infer meaning to those words by the context and the acting of the story.  His vocabulary has grown, he understands the makings of a story, he has walked through the stages of the story, understanding sequence, and internalized the moral of the story implicit in most fairy tales or fables. 

The children work with their hands in a variety of ways.  The children work with beeswax, manipulating it into various shapes.  They play in the sand, pouring and sifting.  They work with wood, filing blocks into different shapes.  They learn a handwork skill, in kindergarten it is finger-knitting.  All of this builds the sensory-motor intelligence of the child.

Studies have shown that retention is stronger when the learning process is accompanied by movement.  Learning with more than one sense at a time (auditory and visual; auditory and kinesthetic; auditory, visual, and kinesthetic; auditory, oral, visual, kinesthetic and tactile) increases the probability of committing the materials to memory.  The more senses used, the better the chance of fully internalizing the subject.

But most importantly, the entire method of instruction is based first on experience, then on relating those experiences to the problem at hand.  The school tries in every way possible to give the child a physical experience to draw on before expecting that child to draw abstract conclusions about anything.  

An example from my son's kindergarten last year:  The kindergarten homework last year focused a lot on three-letter words, especially ones with the same ending sound.  The worksheet would have a list of words on the left, and a set of three pictures next to each word.  The child was supposed to circle the picture that represented the word.  (It's also important to note here that the pictures were 2-D sketches meant to approximate the thing it was representing.)  It seemed that one of the favorite word choices was a proper name.  Like Ned.  Now, unless your 5-year-old has ever known a "Ned" (mine didn't), how is he supposed to correlate the word Ned with the sketch of a guy's head?  Another of these was the word "jet" with three pictures, and one being an airplane.  If you always identified a plane as "airplane", how would a 5-year-old know that they are also called "jets"?  Or to be more specific, that smaller, faster versions of airplanes are jets.  These are examples of asking a child to draw an abstract conclusion about something he has never experienced.

I can go into a long rant here about abstract knowledge, and memory, and how that relates to reading, but I won't.

I also haven't mentioned anything about the school's focus on the imagination and how that benefits every part of his life now and in the future.

Suffice it to say, I am happy with this school's focus.  I think getting a strong foundation is much more important than piling on information my son has no idea how to use.  I think with a strong foundation to build on, the capacity for growth is limitless.