my first chalkboard this year -- Ymir and Audumla

comparisons

today's lesson wasn't the one I had planned to present today -- I presented tomorrow's lesson instead, but I think it's alright, as it continued yesterday's introduction to the study of geography. Today, we stood on our desks and looked down at the room, imagining what a bird would see if it were flying over top of everying in the room. I put one child on my shoulders and had her describe how things looked from five feet up. Tomorrow, we'll draw a bird's eye view of our room as a class, and the children will write in their lesson books about the compass rose.

You see, I had a plan yesterday. It revolved around our being able to see the sun. Mr. Golden Sun did not cooperated, having chosen instead to stay under his nice fluffy blankets and snooze. Therefore, we were unable to use the sun to find the cardinal directions. Instead, I took the children for a walk down to the paddle-boat and cruise docks, where there is a beautiful compass rose laid into the sidewalk. We learned about the four directions and reflected on how we could travel east or west forever, but once we hit the north pole, we can only go south.

I find myself comparing my work to that of other teachers, teachers with far more experience or resources at their disposal. We work with what we have, and I'm constantly checking to make sure the children are getting enough, that they are stimulated to think and to use what they are learning, and that it makes sense. Our math work right now is still all review of the previous three years. We're on long multiplication now, and it's going well this time around; even OB is following along without too much frustration.

It's hard when I look at sites like educating alice not to compare myself with Ms. Edinger, who has been teaching for many years and who has the resources of one of the most prestigious private schools in NYC at her fingertips.

Our first block of the year is done. Norse Mythology and Grammar have filled my head and the children's books for the last four weeks, and I am ready for a change. This year, I tried something new. Rather than have the children put their work into one book, and merge the grammar and writing lessons in that way, I had them keep two Morning Lesson notebooks, one with compositions and dictations on the Norse myths we had been hearing, and one with grammar rules and explanations. I found this to be moderately successful, but it was a lot of work for the children. Nearly everyone had to take home his or her book to finish copying their work from their rough drafts, and it meant their spending about 40 to 60 minutes of each morning engaged in writing, rewriting, editing, copying, or illustrating. Add in 20 minutes for opening rhythmic and action activities and ten to fifteen minutes at the end for the story, and my time for review and presentation of new material were cut very short.

Part of this came from my trying out Else Gottgen's practice of "free rendering". In its pure form, free rendering gives the children an opportunity to bring forth out of themselves their own response to the previous day's material through artistic expression, be it sculpture, drawing, movement, or writing. I tried having the children write short compositions during this time, but found that while some of them could crank out a three-paragraph retelling of the story from the day before with little or no problem, others couldn't get beyond the first sentence. This is a cue to me that we need to work on our retelling skills, as well as organization of a paragraph or compostion. I'd like them to be putting the following into their books each week of a language arts or humanities block:
1. A dictation
2. a composition they have written on their own
3. a full-page illustration or diagram
4. a class composition copied from the board.

This average of four pages per week has held true -- we have nine pages of work in the Norse book and seven in the grammar book.

Things to remember for the next block:
-- take time to walk them through the instructions in more than one way -- don't just tell them what to do!
-- have an example of good work up for them to view -- I need to create my own lesson book to show one way of doing the work well. They are past the age of needing to do all their work in a guided, step-by-step way. They just need to know how high I've set the bar.
-- plan out the work for each week in greater detail.

So, we will start our local history and geography block on Monday. I'm calling it, "Where are we, and how did we get here?" We will start with our bodies, orienting ourselves to the movement of the sun, finding the four cardinal directions. We will branch out to our classroom, school, and community as far as each of our homes. Meanwhile, our history work will address the question, "what is history? How do we relate to our past? How did we come to be here, together, now?"

the last night of summer

I took the dog for a walk earlier. It was hot today. We only stayed a few hours at the fair; it was hot and bright and full of people. We ate slushies and roasted corn and foot-long corn dogs, and butterflies landed on us at the butterfly house.

As Amos and I made our way around the circle, I called out a hello to a neighbor and her daughter sitting on their stoop. The mother was painting her child's toenails, a first-day-of-school pedicure. They were giggling and loving one another. We saw a young gray squirrel bounding across the street with a walnut clamped firmly in his teeth. The squirrels know the heat won't last.

My lunch is packed. I have picked out my clothes for tomorrow. I have read and re-read my story for morning lesson. Now all there is to do is wait, and sleep, and go to school.

anticipation

My classroom is ready. My lesson plans are ready. Now, all there is to do is wait. On Monday night, I'll review my story -- the beginnings of the world from the Norse myths, practice a couple of poems and songs, and get some good sleep.

On Tuesday, I will welcome twelve hearty little souls to the fourth grade. Already, Welcome to Fourth Grade is spelled out in Runes on the chalkboard, right next to my chalk painting of Ymir and Adunla, and beneath it is a Celtic knot I took great pains to draw so that the weaving in and out of the strands shows.

Trying again

dear readers (if there are any!),

I am trying again. this isn't going to be my thesis project anymore. I have a new one, and I think it will be fine. Now all I have to do is to DO IT! I wrote five plays for my classes to perform over the years, and I am putting them together with some production notes, some introductory commentary, and a conclusion. If anyone has experience writing plays for children to perform, please let me know.

Now, that said...

It's the start of a new school year. I am taking a group of my students to see an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts called "A Mirror of Nature: Nordic Landscape Painting." We'll be in fourth grade this year when we hear the stories of Odin, Thor, Loki, Freya, and the rest of them. I'm pleased that I can get 3/4 of my class together to see these paintings before they leave. This is the only North American stop for this exhibit, and I want them to start to get a feel for the lands and seas the Vikings traveled.

Last time I was teaching grade 4, the Smithsonian traveling exhibit "The VIkings" was at the Science Museum of Minnesota. It was perfect timing, and the children were delighted to see the material vestiges of the culture to which we had built such a connection over the year.

I have grand plans this year. Grand plans. I hope to keep good records, make accurate assessments of the children's skills, and keep from getting too run down. Also, I hope not to give up on lesson preparation after the class play is done!

Back from the Desert

Our class play is done. We have folded all the costumes and put away the props and are back to our regular program. The play went well, though it wasn't quite as smooth in performance as I had hoped; I don't think I will take the shortcut of using someone else's class play again. It was harder for my class to memorize, and I had trouble feeling a connection to the language of the play.

The new morning lesson block is math, which means we'll be doing language arts during our practice (extra main) lessons. This will give us more time to practice the spelling words. I am learning more about the abilities of my students to spell words. There are a few children whose difficulties don't surprise me, but there are others whom I thought to be better spellers than they are.

I read two articles by Arthur Auer this week in the Research Bulletin from the Research Institute for Waldorf Education. Both articles were about teaching reading in Waldorf schools, though the second was far less tangible in its argument, and Auer spoke at length about the way reading is taught in the early childhood classes in Waldorf schools and in the first three grades. I will bring quotes and questions from these articles in my next post. However, I am still left with my underlying question: how do we extend our teaching of reading into the middle grades in a healthy, life-giving way, once the children are already comfortable with decoding the printed word?

So, my question, in reading an article by Arthur Auer in the Waldorf Education Research Bulletin from last spring, is this: Is an education promoting an engagement with literature and love of reading in keeping with Steiner's indications? Do we want the children to read, and to love to read, in third through sixth grades? And if not, why not?

Monday morning, after a snow day.

I'm reading Robert Lawson's Rabbit Hill aloud to the class. It's not a book that I read as a child, but it was recommnded by an experienced teacher who read it to her third grade class. I have really loved Lawson's othe books, though -- Ben and Me is one of my favorites.

The language in the book is rich, with a widely varied vocabulary and clear differences in dialect among the characters. As I read, I sometimes wonder if the children have the understanding needed to follow the story, but they giggle at the appropriate times, and they aren't shy about asking for definitions of unfamiliar words. It is not a book many of them could read on their own yet. Perhaps LM, who has been reading since first grade, or Cd might be able to understand and enjoy reading it, but the others are still at a point where such a book would be a source of frustration and boredom.

It's a Tuesday evening, and I'm a bit at a loss for what to post. I think it had better be about two things: spelling, and O.B., one of my students.

I gave the children their first spelling list in earnest this week. Yesterday I walked them through four methods for studying their words. We'll work together this week, and next week, they'll also work on their lists at home for the Friday spelling test.

1. Mapping-- this is a method that comes from Phonographix , to which I was introduced by Charlotte Lovett. The Phonographix reading method seems to make more sense to me than just about anything else i've tried to work with, and I have used it's concepts extensively with my class. Mapping a word is process of connecting the sounds with the written letters by vocalizing the sounds of the words while writing the word in standard English. So, as I write the word "haven," I say aloud, "HHHHH AY VV EH NNNNN", with the letters coinciding with the appropriate sounds. This process is great for children who have a strong auditory learning style.

2. Outlining -- This comes from a number of sources and emphasizes a familiarity with the form of the whole word. I write the word, then trace around the outside, leaving an oddly shaped box, with peaks for the ascending letters and dips for the descenders. Then, I copy the form, and without looking at my spelling list, fill in the letters so that the word fits the box. Then, I check my work against the list.

3. Stomp and Say -- Jump once, feet together, and say the word aloud. Then walk forward, spelling the word aloud, taking one step for each letter. At the end, jump feet together, and say the word. Picturing the word inwardly, walk backwards , naming the letters in reverse order. It is essential to picture the word written correctly, then to name the letters backwards, rather than inwardly picturing the word backwards.

4. Five in a row-- 1. Map the word. 2. cover the word and write it again. 3. Write the word with your eyes closed. 4. Trace the word on the floor with your right big toe (if right-handed) while looking at the word. 5. Write the word again with your hand, without looking.

I hope that with these four different methods, every child will be able to easily learn the words they are given. I have chosen the words for this first list based on three factors: first, words that were frequently misspelled on our most recent dictation; second, words from our class play; and third, words from the 100 most common words in written English from The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists .

~~~~~~~~~

O.B. likes to tell me that she has a perfectly round head. I have never taught a child who so wanted to be hugged or cuddled all the time. She comes up to me and flings her arms around me, burying her face in my side. OB has trouble with reading and math. She loves painting and beeswax, and she has a lovely singing voice. It's hard for her to follow my fingering on the C-flute, as it was on the pentatonic flute.

During free reading times, OB often comes to me asking to play games on a little chalkboard. Trying to decode the written English in a story book tires her out easily, but she enjoys the games we play, many of which come from the Phonographix work. A favorite of hers is for me to tell her a word, and write the letters out of order at the top of the slate. I then make a little blank for each letter or combination of letters (such as "SH" or "OA") and ask her to write the word. As she writes each letter, I ask her to say the sound. So, for example:
M U P J


_ __ __ __

jump

OB has trouble blending the sounds she hears into words; if I say "SH EE P" she replies "eep? Eelp? Eel?" It seems like the disconnect comes in trying to recall the sounds she heard at the beginning as she tries to put them together with the ones she heard at the end, and then to create from those sounds a recognizable word.

OB was working with our Extra Lesson teacher on a weekly basis before the holidays, but that teacher has been out of town (by several thousand miles!), dealing with family needs, since the end of December, and I have seen OB take a step back in her work...

How I came to be a Waldorf teacher, part 3

About halfway through my second year of teaching Russian, which was the first year I wasn't also assisting in the kindergarten, the third grade teacher resigned. As we sat together in the faculty meeting, trying to figure out what was to be done, I heard myself say, "I could teach them until someone else is found." I didn't think then that I wanted to be a class teacher. I was excited about my work with Russian and was thinking about moving back out to New York so I could take the teacher training course at Sunbridge College .

However, as time went on, I fell more and more in love with teaching this class of children. When no one was found to finish out the year, I agreed to stay on. At the end of the school year, I interviewed to take the class through the rest of the grades and was hired. I worked with this class through their fifth grade year, when a number of children left the class due to special needs, family changes, or moving away, and it was decided to close the class.

While I was teaching my first class, I started the part-time training at Sunbridge. As time went on, my desires for my training changed from desperately wanting to be told what to do in the classroom, to why I would want to do a particular thing over another.

My current class entered first grade in the fall of 2004. They are a close-knit, caring, lively group of individuals, and I am honored to teach them, and to learn from them.

So, there you have it. There's more to the story, but time is short, and I would much rather get down to business and tell you what we've done so far, and how we are working now, and where we hope to go in the future...

Before this week's break, I assigned parts for our class play. I love doing a play with my class. I love the rush of rehearsals and the fun of the first day with costumes, and I especially love watching the children grow into their roles. In the past, I have always written the play myself. There are several reasons for this, but the main ones are that I have a small class, and I am very picky. Most Waldorf schools whose teachers have published class plays have classes of 20 to 30 children. My class of eleven is the largest I have ever taught.

Okay, so there are excellent pedagogical reasons for writing my own plays, too, but this year, I have been a little tired, a little overwhelmed by my own life, and I was very glad to find a play that I could use in the book _25 Plays_ Inspired by Waldorf Class Teachers_. David Mitchell's Child of the Nile is not perfect, but it has moments of humor and of dramatic tension, and my class is delighted.

Class play time brings a certain holiday air to my classroom. The children are eager to begin, but they easily dissolve into silliness if I am not very careful with my lesson planning. During our first read-through, I gave children parts to read that I wanted to hear from them. I choose the roles with great consideration of each child's needs and abilities. This year is no different.

WB is a sweet boy who has just turned nine. He has golden-toned skin and wide-set blue eyes. His front teeth stick out slightly, evidence of his sucking his thumb for comfort. WB struggles with reading and math, though his skills are better than he lets on. It is as if he prefers the security of being helped through his work to the satisfaction of braving it on his own. I have chosen him to play the part of Moses in our play at the evening performance. It's my habit to have two children share each role, each performing it once; this allows for a built-in understudy and gives me more freedom
to assign roles therapeutically. WB, after struggling to read through a few pages of this part, came to me and whispered in my ear, "Ms. Tigress, I really want to play Moses."

"It will mean a lot of hard work, WB," I replied. "There's a lot of reading, and a lot of memorizing to do."

"Yes, well, I know my birthday verse already, and I can learn this the same way. I know I can."

Who am I to doubt this confidence?

For the daytime performance, I asked AC to play the role. AC is a small, determined girl with huge eyes and a voice I have to strain to hear. She is the second of four children and the youngest in the class; she won't be nine 'til the end of April. AC is, by contrast, an excellent reader who loves to write funny little stories and illustrate them in her free drawing book. She desperately wanted a big part this year, and she has really increased in confidence this year, losing some of her hesitance and shyness. I know she will have no trouble reading and memorizing her lines; her challenge will be to make them audible and not to rush through them breathlessly.

I am looking forward to Monday, when we will start practicing in earnest. This work will only be during the Morning Lesson. The rest of the day will proceed as usual, with Spanish, music, form drawing, painting, math practice, story time and reading, handwork, and games. So that we don't spend all our time in the expansiveness of drama, I'll be telling them the
stories of Ruth and Naomi, of Saul, David, and Solomon, and working with them on journaling about our play and writing our the Psalms of David in our lesson books. Last week, we heard the story of Samson, and there was a general feeling of satisfaction in Samson's sacrifice of his own life to bring down the Philistines. His strength was vindicated, a sign of the triumph of spiritual knowledge and understanding over the fetters and chains of material greed.

~~Tigress

How I came to be a Waldorf teacher, continued...

I spoke on the phone with one of the teachers during the next week and arranged a time to come by the school for an interview. At that time, the school was housed in the undercroft of a suburban church, with large windows looking over a half-acre wonderland of lawn giving way to reeds and goldenrod. The children had departed for the day when I arrived, and I was immediately intrigued by the space and by what I heard from the teachers. The classrooms were soft, lit by natural light and full of texture and color from the wooden playsets, the silk and cotton clothes peeking from baskets, and the tables set with scenes of nature's early-spring awakening.

When I was hired at the school, it was as a kindergarten assistant. I worked in the kindergarten for two years, where I made snacks, helped to direct play and redirect misplaced energy ("Look, dear friend, the shovel is for digging in the dirt! We treat our friends kindly here..."), and was drawn into the wonder of early childhood.

I hear other educators talk about a "language rich" environment for the early years. While in the Waldorf kindergarten, the children aren't taught to decode letters or to work out math problems, they are nevertheless participating in a rich variety of activities that build the necessary underlying skills for healthy literacy and numeracy later on. The kindergarten teachers are trained to speak clearly and beautifully, to use clear language with a varied vocabulary. Every day, the children hear nursery rhymes and poems, songs, and fairy tales, all of which are presented without explanation or translation. The children learn the songs and rhymes as they learn all speech at that age: through listening and imitating, almost unconsciously, and joining in with the teacher.

In my second year at the school, I also began teaching the children of the newly-started grades program. In high school and college, I had studied Russian, and when I learned that the school wished to add a second language to its offerings (the children were already learning German from one of the class teachers) asked if I might teach Russian. Let me be completely open here: I had no idea what I was doing.

More to come...

~~tigress

emailed post

Before I continue my story, I thought I would try out this new way to post, as my usual browser does not like to talk to the blogger login page.

My morning conference has been postponed, and this is parent-teacher conference week, so I am enjoying a morning at home as I make my plans for this blog. Ugh, what a name, "blog." A log is the journal of a ship's movements, or of a pilot's flights. A weblog is ostensibly a record of one's life, published on the world wide web.

I have an ulterior motive here, gentle reader. I am working towards a
Master's degree in Waldorf education, and to that end, I am beginning a "themed journal". The theme of this journal? It is, "Instilling a Love of Reading: How I helped my students learn to read, and how I am supporting them in their love of literature." I will give some background about myself and about Dr. Steiner's indications for the teaching of reading, as well as a sketch of each child in my class, his or her journey to joyful reading, and my research on the topic. I hope to include my own observations and those of my colleagues.

In the summer, this journal will focus on my preparations for the coming year, my ongoing training, and my reflections on my work over the last five and a half years.

Please feel free to comment -- I look forward to many healthy discussions and debates!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
there is a blessing in the air
that seems a sense of joy to yield
to the bare trees, and mountains bare
and grass in the green field.
-- wordsworth

Waldorf Education found me, not the other way around. I was twenty-two, spending my first year out of college working for a travelling educational theater company. I had just been told that I would not be offered a promotion to "team lead" because I didn't know how to work with small children, in their opinion. It was a damp day in March, and I emerged from my local co-op into the weak end-of-winter light.

Among all the postings for yoga classes and punk rock shows was a hand-painted, hand-lettered sign that said, "S---- Waldorf School needs Teachers". I read the sign with interest. My best friend from college was a Waldorf graduate, and I spent a summer teaching crafts at Hawthorne Valley Farm, a Waldorf inspired summer camp, so my interest was piqued. I took one of the little tearoff tabs with the school's phone number.

That week, while I was staying in a Super 8 in some little midwestern town, I called and left a message at the school. It was a preschool-kindergarten program then, and I thought to myself "well, I'll find out if I can work with small children or not." I knew I couldn't stand another year with the theater company. Another year of travel would have killed my relationship with my sweetheart at the time, who had moved out from New York with me after college, and I had a deep feeling that the work we did wasn't all that beneficial to the children. I didn't want to go into more classrooms to be just another adult who leaves, just another face and loud voice admonishing them to stand up to peer pressure and be tolerant of others and say no to drugs... I wanted to be there for someone, to offer my heart. It's hard to offer your heart in one forty-five-minute lesson.

More about this journey in my next post.

~~tigress