Early Winter at Taproot Farm
It seems that summer weather has lasted into November and it is just now getting cold. We are still eating the last crop of peas and lettuce, but they will not last much longer! The trees are nearly bare, although there are still some bright leaves to be seen. Soon it will look like this picture!
Solstice and Advent Celebrations
It is time to begin preparing for the Holidays. Many homeschooling families do not plan to do an academic main lesson the month of December. There are so many wonderful, and educational experiences to be had in getting ready for the holidays: making gifts, learning songs, entertaining and bringing gifts to the elderly or less fortunate, cutting a tree and making decorations. For more ideas about celebrating this year, see: http://www.waldorfwithoutwalls.com/articles/advent
Family Weekends and Training programs
Our three-day Family Harvest Weekend in October was a great success. Highlight of the weekend was the building of a Succah or Hebrew harvest Shelter. Here we all are in the shelter, having honored our departed loved ones and eaten our harvest meal. Jean and Brian Miller led the building of the structure and the celebration. Another highlight was a lantern walk, in which we visited the four elements: Earth, Water, Fire and Air, and then celebrated around a campfire with cookies and hot cider.
Family Winter Weekend
Our Family Winter Weekend will be held January 30 – February 1, and will include exciting indoor crafts, drama and activities in addition to some outdoor winter experiences.
We are proud to introduce John Quimby, who is joining our staff for these weekends. John Quimby has degrees in Entomology and Forestry from the University of Michigan. He was the State Forest Entomologist and Chief of the Forest Health Program of Pennsylvania for 30 years, and a Forester for the U.S. Forest Service in Alaska, Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado, and South Dakota for five years before that.
Since retiring from forest entomology in 1999 'Quimby' (as he is called), has been devoting his time to cabinet making, planting trees, social action, and environmental education for youngsters. He has worked part time/full time for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and was named "Environmental Educator of the Year" by that organization in 2007. The past two summers have been spent guiding canoe trips for youngsters in the Adirondacks of upstate New York State. In that capacity he has run workshops on wildflower identification, tree identification, and other environmental education themes, as well as taken youth out into the wilderness for a week at a time.
Registration and more details will be posted on the website soon. Please save the dates!
Teacher Training at Taproot Farm
Teacher training in 2009 will be August 6—9.
Kindergarten training in 2009 will be August 14—16.
Please save those dates!
Are Your Child’s Eyes Shining? Are Yours?
Last week I received the forward of a video from my friend and colleague, Eric Fairman, author of Path of Discovery Waldorf teacher guides for all the grades (available from http://www.waldorfbooks.com). The video is this: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html
The video got me thinking about how we bring and keep the joy and passion for learning in our homeschooling. The next few months are the time when I receive many phone calls from parents whose children are in conventional schools and whose eyes are NOT shining. In fact, these parents are wondering if their children’s health is in danger. They are wondering if they should pull their children out of school. They are worrying whether they can do a better job at home, whether their children will keep up with their peers, whether they will get into college, whether they will have a good life.
I usually have a few questions for the parents: Do you really like your child? Do you like to spend lots of time with him/her? Do you have a good relationship with good communication? If the answers to these questions are “Yes,” then I tell them,” Yes, you probably can do a better job at home.”
But that answer comes with some qualifications. You need to forget what the neighbors, your sister, your mother-in-law are saying about homeschooling. You need to not worry about keeping up with peers and getting into college. You DO need to think about whether they are having a GOOD LIFE NOW, because they are living life NOW, not just preparing for a future that for them is infinitely far in the future!
The Waldorf curriculum was designed to fit the interests of children at various ages, and Steiner had a good idea of that. But Steiner planned the Waldorf curriculum almost 90 years ago! The world has changed, and there is a lot more to learn about now. Of course we must protect our young children from the unnatural and media driven materialism of our culture. But we also must begin to allow our children to explore their interests in the ways they learn best.
Doing Waldorf at home gives a family the best of two worlds, a Waldorf education and time for un-schooling.
If you have a boy (and it is usually, but not always a boy) who is unable to write more than a few words, keep his writing to a few words and let him express himself in other ways: drawing, painting, sculpture, drama, building projects. If it is three dimensional, take a photo and put that in the main lesson book with just a title.
Take time to prepare your Waldorf lesson, but do it joyfully, and gear it to your child. Choose stories that inspire you and skip the ones you find depressing. That doesn’t mean you can’t challenge yourself, but keep the joy in what you are doing For each main lesson block there are dozens of stories to choose from. You need do only 6 -8 in a three-week main lesson block.
Your job as a grades teacher for a child 7-14 is to be an enthusiastic amateur, giving your children a smorgasbord of experiences and imaginations that appeal to them through their feelings, not to pour information into their heads. Later, in the 14-21 year old phase of their lives, when thinking and judgment come to the fore, they will draw upon this wealth of experience you have given them, and make organized knowledge out of it.
And don’t despair if some days are bad. Every teacher has bad days. Learn from them and move on!
Your formal time should not last more than a few hours in the morning. For grades 1-2 keep it to only 1.5 – 2 hours. For grades 3-4, keep it to 2.5 – 3 hours. Then they have the rest of the day to pursue their own interests. Of course that does not mean vegetating in front of a screen, although for the over 9 child, it might include a short time on the computer.
Be sure you read lots of books to your children, not just the ones for the main lesson, and not just to those who cannot yet read. Keep on reading as a family until they leave home! Curl up with them and a book, and have what one of my clients calls “couch time.”
Explore the outdoors with them, and let them explore it by themselves if possible.
Be sure you have a lot of inspiring things around your house: craft materials, old boxes, wood scraps, tools, fabric, needles, thread, and help them to EARN the money to buy the more expensive tools and supplies that they need to pursue their passion of the moment: telescope, microscope, bicycle, skate board, snowboard—
You will find they are learning just as much from the time they are pursuing their own interests as they are from your teaching. Don’t feel insulted if they learn more by themselves! They need some structure, but many parents find that after a while, their children create their own structure for learning.
Be sure that you do things for others with them: volunteer at a food pantry, visit a nursing home, help an elderly neighbor, volunteer for English as a second language.
Keep a consistent household rhythm. Agree with them what their chores in the house should be and keep them to their agreement. And you keep to yours!!Above all, be JOYFUL! When you bring them home, YOU are responsible for keeping their eyes shining. Keeping your own eyes shining is a big part of that!
Bibliography
Holt, John, many titles
Llewellyn, Grace, The Teenage Liberation Handbook
Staley, Betty, Between Form and Freedom