Seek the truly practical material life,

In a conversation on a transcontinental flight lately, I mentioned that I was a Waldorf teacher and was asked what distinguishes the Waldorf approach, say for example, from the public school approach. I answered something like: “One of the main differences would be for me that Waldorf schools shape their methods and the content and timing of their curriculums such that they are appropriate for the developmental stages of the growing children, and that Waldorf teachers are trained to think about this in a specific way, that of antroposophy.” Reflecting on our conversation later, I tried, for myself, to get a firmer grasp on what characteristics of development in the children are particularly important for me as a woodwork teacher, at the moment of grades five to eight, and how I should appropriately work with these.

Following Rudolf Steiner’s pedagogical indications, in a nutshell I have the following picture of the soul disposition of the children * coming to woodworking between fifth and eighth grade. Parents and early childhood teachers have helped the children during the first part of childhood to shape their physical bodies. This occurred mainly by means of creating myriad varied opportunities worthy of imitation. When the children entered first grade, work began supporting them in enlivening their souls, employing music, rhythm, art, movement, story-telling, games, speech, play-acting, counting, and more. For most children in third grade the “nine-year-change” occurred, which started a usually quiet, but deeply felt crisis. The experience of their individual being as separate from the world took the natural security of connectedness and unity away and brought a deeply felt need for assurance. This need is usually met by parents and teachers. Through interest in the children and love for them, they are able to instill trust that the adults in the children’s lives are doing the right things for them and will keep them safe. This frees the children to stay involved with their soul life, which soon, with the onset of puberty, occupies them strongly until the end of childhood. All children need to find their own specific way (with our support as a safe backdrop) beyond the physical and hormonal changes they go through and the impact these have on their feeling life and their social relationships. This, varyingly, takes until about the age of fourteen.

Following this picture, for me the job of a woodwork teacher in middle school is to grab the children’s interest in the physical world intensely enough that they get distracted away from their inner life and away from the important relationships to their peers, and they allow a different dimension of their relationship to the world come to the fore; one that is mediated by their will. This is a will, if things go right, that the children over time discover they control. Many of the changes in fifth grade children take place on a subconscious level and are just confusing for them. The children experience themselves as passive (sometimes suffering) onlookers to what physical growth and puberty bring about. Now, instead of acting instinctively or impulsively, with the exploration of the conscious will the children can discover an area in their lives where they can begin to consciously exercise their transformative capabilities. These are the capabilities that at some point will shape their future, and will create their life for them. And I am not talking about using a chisel or a saw here. I am talking about this exceptional opportunity for the children to have during puberty, the experience of creating something or transforming something “at will”: to be in control. For the children to experience this will as a tool, which they can learn to develop into something at their disposal, allows them to experience a profound quality of humanity. At the same time as they experience the transformative biological forces at work, that are independent of their conscious will, and come with the inescapable quality of nature that takes its course, they also are given the opportunity to strengthen their most human powers and experience them in a positive way in the form of the creative will. These can be experienced as personal, individual powers that come with the attribute of freedom, resting upon the shoulders of a long historical development, representing the cultural powers of humanity. Waldorf pedagogy works with the creative will in many forms and in many subjects. Woodworking is one of the more physical and more conscious forms. It appears to me that the experience of these personal powers through a physical relationship to the world is particularly suited for the middle school children since their feeling life, being in turmoil and transition, gives them little to hold on to, the intellectual capacities that could guide them are just starting to develop, and their relationship to the adults who they could turn to at this time begins to move into a highly volatile state.

During this time the children also become aware of another side of their will forces, more instinctual and impulsive in nature. It shows itself in the form of desires. Most visibly acknowledged today, as the children’s sexuality matures, are those desires that have, or can be made to have, sexual roots. Commercialization and sensationalization of sexuality are known to target teenagers and children of an ever younger age, exploiting their subconscious desires for financial gain. For a balance our societies have little healthy orientation and guidance to offer to a teenager. Meaningful traditional organizational, cultural, or religious rites of passage have all but disappeared. The experience of self-control, respect of oneself and of the other, and moral judgment have to enter in other ways into the children’s lives. Other desires, equally powerful but less in the public’s eye, that develop during this time in the children’s soul life are idealism and the strong will to do good in the world. To move them out of the realm of the virtual, the imagined, and the “childish dreams” it takes the experience of real creative power that can manifest in the world.

The exercise of a craft in a class brings with it the necessity for self-discipline, self-control, increasing knowledge of ones strengths and limits, experience of other’s struggles and successes and the value of mutual support, striving for and valuing of beauty in all work, and the experience of the possibility for improvement that points into the future. In a multi-year process with many deepening repetitions each child will experience the creative will in a profound way.

The value of taking hold of the conscious creative will between the ages of ten/eleven and twenty one cannot be stressed highly enough, because that is when our soul forces, much of our physical body, our intellect, and our relationship to the spiritual world take their basic shape for the rest of our lives. Our conscious will forces are able to bring morality and harmony into this development to form a solid basis for our future activities in life. **

In a parent meeting some years back I said provocatively that I am not really teaching the children woodworking at all, that this is just a pretense. What I am really teaching are extremely helpful basic human qualities. For example: In fifth grade carving I am teaching the children attention to detail, but mainly patience. In sixth grade I teach them to find joy in repetitive movement: with a gouge, with a plane. (For years now my family has had a note on our fridge: “We are, in fact, the result of what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore is a habit not an event.” A translated quote from Aristotle.) Over all four grades I teach them breathing, rhythm, balance, right posture, standing firmly on the ground. Goals I try for all grades to adopt for themselves are also to complete projects, to value beauty over expediency, to stay within time frames. Eighth grade in particular I teach to share and to help others. The “project”, the product, completely steps back for me as a teacher behind the qualities I want to teach and learning goals I want to achieve.

Early on in my teaching I rejected the notion of working with power tools with the students. This was first a less conscious choice but consolidated later as supporting the pedagogical purpose of woodworking in a Waldorf school. More and more I have found value in working with the primitive tools of the trade like wedge and mallet, hatchets, and drawknives. Their lack of sophistication allows for experiences that are archetypal in nature, and I found that students typically respond with enthusiasm and joy to working with them. I think of it as a re-living of historic stages of humanity’s cultural developments of eras gone by, which led to the technologies and skills forming these tools. They are still easy to understand. This touches the students in some profound way. Because many of these tools are extremely sharp, I also teach the students a certain reverence for these tools that prompts them to treat the tools with care and awakens the wish to learn to sharpen them, which then acts as some kind of learning spiral.

Over the last few years I have begun to understand why in teaching woodworking in middle school it is very important for the woodwork teacher to be able to rely just on his/her authority (a person-specific moral quality) as an adult and teacher. If children and parents alike trust me, and my instructions in class are being followed more or less unquestioned, this will allow me to predominantly focus on developing the conscious will forces in the children as the counterbalance to the soul forces. No distracting conversations and arguments about the “why”, choices, or alternatives are necessary, and plain, satisfying, productive work can be done, for which most middle school children are very grateful. For them this makes for easy relationships during woodshop class and straightforward goals. If the conditions are right children cherish the time, when they can live just in the physical world and can forget about their inner life. Healthy authority is still an important vehicle of learning for children in the later part of childhood. It relieves the children of the burden of responsibility and the stress of failure. They will be fine, if they just try hard to follow my instructions. If something goes wrong then, it is my fault and I have to come up with ideas to fix it. If they don’t follow my instructions, the students easily understand the connection. No blame; no harm; try again; an easy relationship. Authority as an acceptable basis for the relationship between teacher and student is ideally only later replaced by expertise (a more objective quality) in adolescence, around the age of fifteen. (The switching from authority to expertise has been experienced as painful both, by me and my students, because for someone in the class the focus and content of the lesson for some time is always more about their relationship to me than about woodworking, and the bystanders who are not at this point in their development suffer.) ***

However, I cannot say that in most of my classes I am able to draw the children fully into a process of working just on the material level. During the last decade it has been my experience that it became more and more difficult to create these ideal opportunities for the children, where they gladly let go of the noise inside of them and revel in the experience of the moment, where they can feel their conscious will power and enjoy it. Children come with a higher level of fear and skepticism, with less trust in the adults, and to me they appear to be more alone than they used to. They also come with the expectation of being given choices or to dream up their own tasks without being prepared for these choices or tasks with experience or valid criteria and the intellectual ability to weigh the pros and cons. Children also seem to have a more complicated relationship to the physical world. They have less experience with it, they don’t start out from a point of feeling safe in it, rather a point of wariness, and they are more reluctant to experiment with it. Patience, tolerance for repetition, and a high threshold for frustration I find in less and less students. ****Also the level of cynicism I have met in middle school children has surprised me. For me as a teacher this means that my effectiveness in helping the children in middle school to a balanced development has slowly decreased and the moments of joyous satisfaction for the children and me with it.

I am now at a point where I am starting to look at woodworking’s curative aspects. While I have occasionally worked successfully one-on-one with children suffering of ADD, ADHD, OCD, or just a high level of anxiety, I still have to master the art of meeting the needs of a class of children all over the spectrum from highly motivated and ready to work to actively defiant or cynical.

Woodworking in American Waldorf schools has often been an optional program or one that was taught by woodworking parents or class teachers on the side. Until recently, there has not been a training for woodwork teachers at any Waldorf teacher training institute in America. Unquestioningly the typical Waldorf school curriculum offers many places in many subjects where redundantly and in different contexts, with different methods and tools the same will and soul qualities are addressed. However, with my article I have tried to show that woodworking, taught as a craft ( that is: as much more than how to make specific products ) has a unique potential to enrich our students’ lives for the future in ways that are sorely needed today.

For help and clarification:

* I use the word childhood for the period between birth and the end of puberty, or roughly 14/15 years of age; also about the age of graduation from middle school/eighth grade. The actual development may vary from child to child by several years in either direction. Where it seems that scientists have observed a tendency for the physical changes to occur earlier and the psychological changes and the forming of the self later, even much later.

For a brief, structured look at this: Developmental Signposts of Adolescence by David Mitchell;

http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/david%20mitchell.pdf

 **On the Real Nature of Will in the Childby Caroline von Heydebrand

http://www.waldorflibrary.org/pg/research/research.asp

Arts and Their Relationship to Adolescent Development by Van James

http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/AWSNA%20art.pdf

*** Christof Wiechert: Research into Resilience, 2011.

http://www.waldorftoday.com/2011/08/resilience-by-christof-wiechert/

Or: http://taruna.ac.nz/articles/research_into_resilience.htm?xignore=true&xid=1046

**** Nature Deficit Disorderby David Mitchell http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/RB20062.pdf

Or: Richard Louv, Last child in the woods, NY 2005

About the author:

With ten years of teaching woodworking in Waldorf schools Atta Turck is, in Waldorf circles, a relatively new teacher. However, he felt fortunate to come to it quite late in life. Woodworking apprentice, student and teacher of economics, world traveler, contractor, craftsman, farmer, manager, and entrepreneur were his stages before. His life experience helped him to reflect on his teaching from various angles and learn intensely and rapidly from his work with the children. The opportunity to regularly meet hundreds of master woodwork teachers from Waldorf schools in Europe at the yearly “Werkstattgespraech”was tremendously enriching to him. He is currently teaching woodworking at the Eugene Waldorf School.

Alert!  Daylight savings is November 6th this year.  If your children are still young enough that a 20 minute delay in a meal or a bedtime can, on occasion, result in a complete meltdown, this mini-article may be for you.  If, however, your children are older and will completely delight in rolling over for an extra hour on Monday morning the 7th, congratulations and no need to read on!

One of the things Waldorf education is known for is the protection of childhood.  Being well rested and ready to greet the adventures of the day is a key component of this.  As parents, too, we can appreciate a child who sleeps well.  It is counterintuitive but experts know and many parents have experienced that the overtired child wakes up too early. 

As a parent of young children, I find that the "fall back" is much more difficult than the normally less popular "spring forward".  My already early risers waking up that Monday morning at what is painfully early sets the whole week on a poor course.  There are a few things I do now that help in the transition.

Two main points, one is that I begin the transition to the new time on the Friday evening rather than waiting for the actual change on Sunday.  Beginning on Friday drastically reduces the shock on Monday morning.  Secondly, I have developed this chart to gradually acclimate to the new time.  My girls sleep 7 pm - 7 am normally, so this is what the weekend of Daylight Savings will look like in our house:

The wake up time we don't have so much control over, but I list them here to show they do adjust with a day or two lag time.  I do know some families, including mine, that use a timed night light to indicate to children when it is wake up time.  Using such a timer, I do adjust that time to reflect the chart, above.  That way, even if they do wake up early they know it is still quiet time in the household.

Good luck and be strong. 

This article is reprinted from the Spring 1991 Cascadence, later printed in the December/ January 1998-99 New Tidings (an EWS publication), written by LeeAnn Ernandes. She is one of the founding members of our school community and has taught here throughout the years both at EWS and in the WTEE program.

The words we speak are a reflection of our inner moral ideas about life and an influence on the inner pictures and ideas of all those who hear our words. Uncensored language and concepts, filled with images and ideas about the human being and the universe, seep into our soul from every direction: parents, friends, teachers, media and the street. And there in the soul, they meet what lives in the moral imagination where the hearer gives place value, unconsciously perhaps, to what has entered.

Now consider briefly the situation, or dilemma, in which we live. We human beings are spiritual beings living in physical bodies in a particular time. Our “time” has its unique advantages and disadvantages, but one can safely say that we live in a milieu of mechanistic thinking. Most every phenomena has its finite explanation and its hypothetical functional relationship to the rest of the universe. And we put a lot of store in these “answers.” The concrete has great appeal. We learn that the heart is a pump; the brain is like a computer; the sun, a ball of burning gases. We think we understand gravity and electricity and how stars are “born.” We take air and water as commonplace, as if we understood them completely. Human relationships too, reflect underlying materialistic and mechanistic values.

In our time, the mechanical, materialistic outlook inevitably penetrates language and thinking processes to some degree. To that degree, people will unconsciously bear within themselves, images of self and the universe which have lost their spiritual heritage and become hardened, matter-of-fact and mechanical. These images will “recycle” in attitudes and language and be passed on as if they were circumspective truth.

This is where one significant illness of our time begins. The pressure to conform to modern concepts is so strong that we may learn to say what isn’t true. In our heart of hearts, we naturally bear a holy feeling about ourselves, humanity, and the world. We do, that is, until it comes into doubt when held up to modern ideas. Left to media and modern myth, that holy feeling may be squelched. We may choose to ignore or suppress the pain we feel when we speak in a way which belies our inner knowing. This is a process of annihilation of soul. Our own language denies the true nature of our being. We become disenfranchised from ourselves.

If children are subjected to information and reasonings which do not resound in their hearts as being true, education does not heal, but only increases disenfranchisement. We must continually search for and speak only that which is circumspectly true. This will help to heal what ills our time has wrought. We must endeavor to cultivate alive, warm, holy and true pictures and thoughts  about human beings and the universe. Every thought, word and deed should lift us to the highest true ideals for humanity to which we can aspire.
~by LeeAnn Ernandes

Drawing by Anyasha Aragon-Herbert, 7th grade in 2009

Thanks to our friends at the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America for this report.

Recently, Johns Hopkins University sponsored a one-day Roundtable on Arts and the Brain, based on a report released by the Dana Foundation that demonstrates how the arts light up parts of the brain like nothing else does. This was followed in Washington, DC by the tenth annual conference on Learning and the Brain. The Roundtable was an invitation-only event and included 200 researchers, teachers, educational leaders, superintendents, principals, and policy makers.

According to Patrice Maynard, leader for Outreach and Development for the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America, who attended both events, one particularly moving presentation described the effects of music on the ability of the brains of children to receive and comprehend math concepts, offered by Dr. Elizabeth Spelke, from Harvard University. "Dr. Spelke stated that she has demonstrable evidence that in babies and young children the making of music (not the listening, but the singing, composing, playing an instrument) illuminates parts of the brain, as visible in fMRI imaging, that helps the comprehension of math to accelerate. She emphasized that the use of the playing of instruments should not be a substitute for the teaching of math, but rather, that understanding math concepts is easier for children who play a musical instrument."

The Dana Foundation research report shows how arts activities influence cognition. The results demonstrate levels of brain activity that reflect engagement or attentiveness during learning, including the kinds of arts activities (music, dance, painting, etc.) that hold children's attention.

The report validates scientifically what Waldorf educators observe on a daily basis in their classrooms: Artistic activity encourages motivation. Highly motivated children stay engaged in activities. Artistic activity stimulates both hemispheres of the human brain and deepens learning. The language of Waldorf teachers differs from that employed in the Dana report, but the report supports Rudolf Steiner's statements, made in the early part of the twentieth century, that modern science would catch up with his view of education and confirm the remarkable benefits it provides.

The difference between the approach of the Dana Foundation and Waldorf education is the difference between materialistic science and a spiritual - or anthroposophical - view of human beings. The first proceeds from cause to effect; the second begins with the wholeness of the child, which it allows to develop at its own pace, knowing that all learning must be digested artistically, and that the engagement of a child in education is essential.

Dr. Jerome Kagan, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, "made an impassioned plea for wholeness in human beings, ethical standards in child rearing and in the world, a remembrance of what real play was like, and less dependence on external things," states Ms. Maynard.

The Dana report includes suggestions for to how to improve test scores and increase brain capacity through use of the arts, supporting a current "outcomes based" approach to education. Waldorf educators might also use the report as scientific verification of their practices and continue the important task of enthusiastically approaching the human being as a mystery to unfold, not a product to generate. The arts are among the best educational means to assist in just that task.

For more information on Waldorf Education or to read more about the Dana Research Report, visit www.whywaldorfworks.org.

Eugene Waldorf School is a full member of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA). AWSNA is a not-for-profit membership organization that supports independent Waldorf schools, initiatives, and teacher training institutes, and promotes Waldorf education throughout North America.Waldorf education is a holistic and developmental approach that integrates academic, practical and artistic elements as it addresses the changing needs of the growing child and maturing adolescent. Waldorf schools engage the heart and hands as well as the mind with a lively, experiential curriculum rich in the basics, literature, history, languages, the arts, the social and natural sciences and technology.

Each school year at the Eugene Waldorf School begins and ends with a Rose Ceremony. In the fall, at our welcome assembly, it is the role of the new eighth graders to present roses to the budding first graders as they begin their journey through the grades. This year the first graders stood on the stage with quiet reverence while one by one each eighth grader took a rose from his or her teacher. The students presented the roses to their new first grade buddies and then stood supportively behind them. Finally, Liz Hartman—our eighth grade teacher, offered roses to Laurie Leaf Bowman, our first grade teacher, and her assistant Tricia O’Neil.

This simple ceremony is celebrated in many Waldorf schools as a marker of an important transition for the children. Entering the grades is something many of the kindergarteners have thought a lot about and looked forward to. It marks an important developmental milestone as the individuality and capability of each child emerges and grows.

At the Eugene Waldorf School, we use roses to mark this passage. Roses are symbolic to many as a sign of love and beauty. In Waldorf 5th grade botany lessons, the rose is often compared with the lily. The lovely lily’s hold on the earth is more tenuous, as it grows from a bulb. The lily’s bloom can be briefer, and more succulent. The rose, while sensitive and delicate, is also quite bold. It is strongly rooted to the earth, and even has thorns to protect itself. Its unfolding is gradual, as each round of petals comes to bloom — the rose’s transformation from bud to blossom is a significant change. The hardy rose celebrates life on this earth.

Next June, at the end of this school year, another rose ceremony will take place. The first graders, grown in height and confidence, will offer roses to their eighth grade buddies marking another significant transition. The eighth graders graduate from one community formed by friends and teachers, to another community the students choose and foster on their own. Waldorf education offers rituals, such as the Rose Ceremonies, as a celebration and a support to our children, and their families, as they experience these important milestones in their lives.                  

By Marina Taylor

Painting by Jelena Jaehnig, 5th Grade Teacher

What is a Waldorf School, and what is a Charter School?

Last September marked 90 years since the first Waldorf School opened its doors in Stuttgart Germany, and an important change came to the world’s educational landscape. Since that time, more than 900 Waldorf schools and 1,600 Waldorf early childhood programs have been founded on five continents. Each has its own spirit, responding to its location, the children and parents involved, and the teachers who guide it. In Eugene, we will celebrate our 30th year serving the community this fall; a good time to examine what a Waldorf school is, and why we work to keep it that way.  Occasionally we get questions about what exactly a Waldorf school is, and also about the relationship between Waldorf schools and charter schools that use Waldorf methods.

Rudolf Steiner, a scientist, philosopher and artist active at the turn of the last century, worked to promote cultural renewal. Just as a healthy human being thinks, feels and does tasks out of freedom, our society has these three parts as well. Steiner proposed a three fold way of looking at the cultural, economic and legal realms as a way to address imbalances in society. These imbalances manifested then in World Wars, economic disparity, a growing industrialism, and cultural misunderstanding, and continue to be seen today.

The three realms can come into balance and be healing to our world when they are connected with three guiding principals: Freedom (in the cultural realm, we are all free to express our selves and work in artistic ways), Equality (in the legal realm, each of us are equal), and Fraternity (in the economic realm we have a responsibility to care for and support one another.)

In this model, schools are creative and cultural institutions, and must be free from pressures from the other two realms. The work of schools is to create free human beings. Being a good citizen and a skilled worker are important, of course, but those concerns should not have precedence over the individual’s own spirit.

Many teaching methods can support children in building self-esteem, critical thinking, and personal empowerment. However, these qualities must also come with a sense reverence for the world, of responsibility for one another, and of capability to act directly to affect positive change in the world. Waldorf education is uniquely capable in this regard, especially in its spirit and in the methods that have been born from that spirit. However, it bears stating that a school using Waldorf methods without this spirit of freedom and love is not a Waldorf school in the whole sense and purpose of Waldorf education.

Waldorf methods, which have been successful in many different venues, were developed through extensive research by individual teachers and groups working together from Steiner’s indications over the last 90 years. This ongoing work is based on an understanding of child development that considers children’s growth and development physically, emotionally, intellectually and as a individual, unique spiritual being. If any of those aspects are neglected, one does not get a complete and accurate picture of who the child is in a living and evolving way.

Our hope is that charter schools will continue to show that there are alternatives to the currently-dominant, mechanistic mode of public education.  For many parents, Waldorf education is the best alternative, one that is currently only available in its full form at an independent Waldorf school.

- Marina Taylor, with the College of Teachers

Storytelling in Waldorf Early Childhood Classrooms

In Waldorf Schools, children swim in a sea of stories everyday; fairy tales, legends, myths, or biographical stories, depending on the age and developmental level of the children.  Waldorf teachers deliver lessons to the children through clear and beautiful speech, based on a solid and loving relationships developed over time.  All the subjects in Waldorf Schools, including math, reading, history and science, are taught through a living interaction between human beings, in the preschool, kindergarten and grade school.

In the Early Childhood realm, the teachers engage themselves purposefully in an activity, like baking, sewing, or sweeping. Young children learn through imitation. They want to participate with and imitate the adults around them. In a Waldorf early childhood classes the children are allowed to play freely under the warm guidance of the teacher who is engaged in an activity. This activity may resonate with the children who often then incorporate the activity in their play. During the preschool and kindergarten morning, activities are constantly interwoven and enriched with stories.

Benefits of Storytelling and Repetition

Storytelling is vital in the life of a young child. In a Waldorf classroom, often stories are told rather than read from a book. While telling a story that the teacher has memorized, a relationship is established between the child and the adult, a relationship of the heart. “Learning by heart” is different than “learning by rote”. Teachers make the story theirs, and picture and imagine each part. Then, when they pass the story to the young child, a connection is made where the child can live into those pictures. Only then, can the child receive the story in reverence. A connection between the heart of the teacher and the heart of the child is created, and the child’s soul and spirit are nourished.

When hearing a story, children can create their own imaginary pictures, just as the teacher has done. These pictures are not materialized or imposed upon the children. The children are free to create what is necessary for them, in their own life and development, and dream in a healthy way into the stories.

The teacher works to be conscious of using good language syntax, and the content of the story is rich. In the Eugene Waldorf kindergartens teachers choose specific fairy tales from the Brother Grimm, appropriate to the age of the children. The vocabulary selected in these stories draws on words rarely used in everyday language. The phrases themselves are poetically written and rich in pictures. The teacher uses also simpler stories drawn from the realm of nature and the seasons. Often the teachers write their own stories for special occasion or from inspiration.

In a Waldorf class, the same story is repeated many times.  The younger the child, the longer the period of time during which the same story will be repeated. Children love to hear stories again and again. It can give them security and allow them to enter more deeply and imaginatively into the content and language of the story. It allows them to relax for they feel held by a continuum which is extremely nourishing to them. Repetition gives order to children’s worlds, which they need in order to grow in the healthiest fashion.

Many Kinds of Puppet Shows

In a Waldorf Kindergarten, the children listen to and experience the same story for several weeks.  First the teacher tells the story to children for a few days. Then the teacher creates a puppet show out of the same story with simple marionettes. The puppet show will be presented for a few days. Finally, the teacher will involve the children in a play of the story. Often all the children participate in the play. There are very few props, but the children enjoy wearing capes, a crown or a hat to distinguish the characters they represent. The teacher tells the story and the children move along following the story line. By that time, they know the story very well and can recite parts of it.  The children love to act out the story and prior to the play, some will ask the teacher:  “May I be the queen? May I be the bad son?”  The plays are done for a few days, so children can experience different roles.  Then the teacher moves on, introduces a new story, and the rhythm repeats itself.

The puppets used for the puppet shows are handmade by the teachers out of natural material, cotton, wool, silk. They are simply made, often with no facial features, and the differences between them lie principally in the color of the cloth chosen for the outfit. For example, a prince wears a yellow garment and a red cape while a king wears red and purple. A baker will wear white, a woodman brown and dark green and so on. A simple puppet for a three year old child might be a standing puppet, meaning that it can stand on its own without the help of the storyteller. These puppets move about in scenes but do not have much flexibility to gesture on their own.

Marionettes made out of silk can do more. They have arms that the storyteller can move. The marionette can bow, kneel, carry objects, and gesture. These marionettes are more appropriate for children six and older. Six year old children will relish the challenge of manipulating the marionettes themselves. They create their own characters and use them in puppet shows of their own creation to share with classmates. At times, the teacher may call on some children to help with presenting a puppet show. Most puppet shows are done on a table where the scenery is built out of simple material and silk of appropriate colors with minimal added details.  The soothing gentle colors of the fabric help the child to dream into the story.

In general, the teacher tells the story with a melodious voice without dramatization.  This helps avoid personal interference within the story which will prevent the children from creating their own inner worlds.  Some puppet shows are done on the floor and all the children can participate. Some are done on teachers’ laps, and some from a “story apron”. Within these guidelines the teachers are free to create puppet shows that are suitable to the age of the children, their specific needs, or a specific situation in the classroom or a child’s life. Creating a puppet show is a work of art and heart.  The possibilities are infinite.

Storytelling with Movement

Another form of storytelling is presented in the “circle” or “movement activity”.  The teacher creates a simple story out of songs, verses and poems. The theme often reflects the seasons. Teachers speak the story while moving along the “circle” and making gestures related to the meaning of the actions in the story. The children naturally and enthusiastically imitate their teachers.  This activity helps the children to move in a social context, to follow the lead of the teacher and to interact with their peers. It also allows the children to use their sense of balance, movement, hearing, speech, and touch while listening to poetry and music. This activity challenges the children in many ways, but because this is presented in an artistic way and with much joy, the children are eager to participate.  The same circle story will be repeated for a number of days with slight variances.

Storytelling is an important part of the developmental foundation built in the formative years between birth and seven years. Children in Waldorf classrooms have a healthy, strong relationship to each other, their teachers, and to learning throughout their lives.

By Marie Christine Lhomond, Early Childhood teacher at Eugene Waldorf School, and Marina Taylor, teacher and PR and Enrollment Coordinator at Eugene Waldorf School.

In Waldorf schools one highlight of the year is a play that emerges in each class from the curriculum. Every child in the class participates, uniting the class artistically and socially. The art of articulation and expressive speech demands the full attention of each student. Music weaves throughout the plays and eurythmy adds yet another dimension. The plays help to deepen the students’ understanding of the main lesson work. They become the Romans, Vikings, or the Greeks, or they might become the wolf, dragon, or demon. The characters become actively real to them. The curative opportunities are endless. A shy child might be given a bold, outgoing part; or a boisterous, choleric student given a sensitive, compassionate part.

Out of imaginative play, first grade students bring a fairytale play. The class learns the whole play, for the children are too young to hold individualized parts or to stand facing an audience alone. Groups of students step forward to enact various parts, then step back to join their class, speaking in chorus.

Stories of saints and fables fill the second grade curriculum. These students practice facing their audience, speaking clearly, and producing beautiful gestures and movements.

The developing children in third and fourth grade can maintain individualized roles. They work with more demanding parts, music, and eurythmy. They mostly imitate the class teacher’s expressive guidance. Third grade plays have many Old Testament stories from which to choose. Often fourth grade plays feature Loki, the trickster (a favorite character with the children!) There is a wealth of humor, tragedy, and romance in the Norse legends. The class awakens to the understanding that the smallest part is as significant to the whole play as the largest part. Only by the children working together and doing their best can a play have a chance to succeed.

The study of myth leads us seamlessly into the study of history.  We look at ancient myths of India, Persia, and Mesopotamia, and slowly awaken to the cultures of Egypt and Greece. The fifth grade student who is leaving childhood and moving into preadolescence is grandly met by the beauty, grace, and harmony that permeate the ancient Greek culture. Greek myth lends itself well to artistic interpretation.

The study of actual human beings in real life historical situations weaves through the sixth grade curriculum. Ancient Rome and the Middle Ages offer rich material. In this period, conflict and strife struggle with law and order. This is reflected in the social structure of the sixth grade and transformed within their play.

The study of biographies continues through the seventh and eighth grades. In the seventh grade, the class teacher finds material for the class play in the Age of the Explorers, the Renaissance or in their geographical studies.

The eighth graders complete their travels through the ages of humankind, arriving in our present. Delving into the industrial age, they explore the idea of freedom through the French and American revolutions. A Shakespearean play is often produced in this year. Shakespeare offers a beautiful command of the English language.

A play entertains, inspires, instructs and transforms. What magic happens between a player and the lines of a play? What transfers between a performer and an audience? What takes place among the players as they depend on each other to deliver their lines? We have personally witnessed tremendous transformations in students through class plays. We have seen the students gain self-confidence, admiration, appreciation and acceptance among their peers. We have seen them uncover strength, sensitivity, and courage in their performance. We have seen each student reach a new understanding of what it means to “become human.” Through this artistic endeavor, we observe classes evolving socially and appreciating each other. Our curriculum at the Eugene Waldorf School continues to impress us in its richness, artistry, and depth.

Written by Robin Morris, former class teacher.

Each December the Oberufer Shepherd's Play is performed for EWS students and friends by our faculty. The name Oberufer Play applies not only to The Shepherd’s play, but also to a Paradise Play and a Three Kings Play.

Oberufer is an island in the Danube, east of Vienna, close to the borders of Hungary. This island was settled by farmers from the Lake Constance region sometime in the 15th Century, and due to the relative isolation of island life, their traditions and folkways remained intact for centuries.

One of their traditions was to perform these plays each year. In fall, when the harvest was in, the players were chosen regardless of religious affiliation or status, and received their parts from an esteemed farmer who would direct the plays for years, and then pass this honorable responsibility on to his son. The songs and words were passed on by word of mouth for generations.

In the middle of the 19th century, a professor from Vienna, Karl Julius Schröer, who was researching folklore and regional traditions, discovered the Oberufer Plays. He was charmed and impressed by them and returned a few years later to write down as much as he could. Years later this professor became the teacher and revered friend of Rudolf Steiner.

Towards the end of the 19th century Professor Schröer spoke to Steiner about these plays. His enthusiasm and concern about the possible loss of such precious folkways touched Steiner, who quickly realized their beauty and proceeded to bring order to the sketchy script and the music. In 1910 the first revived performance took place in Berlin, Germany.

From then on, these plays have become part of the Christmas time tradition for many Waldorf schools all over the world. They were first translated by Cecil Harwood, from England, who tried to keep intact the medieval way of speaking—the simple beauty of expression.

—Written by Ilse Kolbuzowski, now a retired teacher and mentor at our school.