Author: Waldorf Moraine

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Almost overnight, there has been a significant shift towards the use of screen technology as a primary means of communication. While this technology is not new, social distancing has brought us into a new level of dependency on it. As a consequence, many people are experiencing increased stress and a lack of vitality, phenomena described recently in articles in the National Geographic and the New York Times. 

We already know about some of the negative effects of extensive screen time: exposure to EMFs and screen light; the lack of physical movement; and an overstimulation of the eyes. All of these are particularly harmful when not balanced with in-person human interactions, time in nature, full-body movement, and play. 

Here are some thoughts about how to counteract these effects and stay healthy both in this challenging time and beyond.

Be grateful every day for the opportunity to connect online. Appreciate everything and everyone who has helped make our computers, the internet, and video conferencing possible and be grateful for the technologies themselves.  They are truly amazing tools. When we are grateful for something, our relationship to it changes for the better.

Appreciate Real Human Connection. Do not think for a moment that web calls can replace real-time face-to-face in-person meetings. They are only a substitute for those situations where it is not safe or spatially possible to meet in person. The power of human connection cannot be replaced by a virtual meeting. Even now we can find ways to connect with people in face-to-face conversations from a safe distance. Do not underestimate the power of a single in-person conversation to bring joy into your day. 

Have the Right Expectations. Do not expect virtual meetings to provide you with the warmth and the range of experience that in-person meetings offer. At the same time, treat an on-line meeting with the same respect you would an in-person meeting. Many people are finding it helpful to prepare for an online meeting by imagining the others who will be on the call and thinking about them ahead of time. Even when we are meeting face-to-face, this is a helpful practice. 

Create a Comfortable Space. The space you create for the meeting is important whether you are all together in the same place or in a virtual setting. Be comfortable. Be aware of what is behind you that others can see. Dress appropriately. Limit background noise. Try not using background pictures of a different setting, as this can be distracting to you and to the others and it adds nothing to the meeting. It just brings in another illusory element to the event. It is helpful to have something beautiful to glance at when you need to turn your eyes away from the screen. It is much like driving — it is good and less stressful to keep your eyes moving, not just peeled on the road ahead. Sit where you can occasionally glance out the window or glance at something beautiful.  

Be Conscious of Your State of Mind. Take a minute or more before the meeting to check in on your mood and your frame of mind. Your thoughts and feelings are real and have an effect on you, on the space around you, and on other participants. Bringing your most positive self to the meeting may have a significant effect on what can happen in the meeting. Simple rituals can also help you feel more present. Consider lighting a candle or holding a stone in your hand. Consider turning off the video for parts of the meeting/conversation. Just listening, without added visual distraction can be less stressful.

Go Slowly, Breathe, and Look for Balance. The added stress of web conferencing requires more rest time for both your mind and your body. Find a few moments each day to be quiet, especially between meetings. The mind and the computer can move at a pace that the body cannot. Virtual meetings are better when breaks occur regularly that allow everyone to breathe out and recenter. You will find your own rhythm for this. Many people use games, breaking into small groups, or other activities to break up longer sessions. Make sure that the mission of the group is touched upon regularly. Make sure that everyone touches in (when groups are not too big). Begin and end the meeting with an inspirational quote or poem.

Recognize the difference between the picture and the person. It helps to remember that the other person is not what you see on the screen. The screen offers only a facsimile. The real person is vastly more dynamic, complex, whole, and wonderful than any screen image can convey. In many ways, the picture you have in your imagination, with all of its connections of memories, stories, feelings etc. is a much more living picture of the person than what you see on a screen. Bringing an image of the other into your mind can help the screen connection be more living. When meeting with new people, take a few minutes to introduce each other, to share something personal so that the screen image is more alive. It helps to think of the person(s) before the meeting to bring more life to the online interaction. The interest you take in others, whether in person or virtual, can make a significant difference in the quality of your connection and your time together.

Take an Active Interest, Stay Open-minded to Others. Keeping an open heart and mind to colleagues, friends and new acquaintances can make a significant difference in the quality of interactions with them. There are many practices to help maintain an open attitude with others.  Try to see them in a positive light. Be grateful for how they are part of your life. Loving interest is a living force that can overcome all manner of interpersonal hindrances. 

Separateness and Wholeness. In an online meeting, the digital nature of the medium cannot capture the wholeness of the meeting or of the group. The participating human beings give the meeting a sense of wholeness, purpose, and camaraderie. To be really enlivening a meeting needs to provide a sense of individuality and wholeness. 

We always live life on two levels at the same time.  We experience our life as a world of separate things, people, and places. At the same time, we also experience life and the world as a unified whole,  interpenetrated, interwoven and full of unexplained wonder. 

It is the combination of these two levels that allows us to create wholeness out of separateness. 

One imagination that can help is to remember that the physical distance that separates people also connects them. We stand on the same earth. We breathe the same air. We are warmed by the same sun, see the same moon in its phases, and wonder at the same stars. The mountains, the valleys, the rivers and the seas are all connected. Through them we are and can feel connected and in touch no matter where we are.

All of these suggestions have a common foundation – the practice of interest, respect, and care for the self and others. One possible result of this global pandemic will be a much greater understanding and consciousness of the ways we are and can be connected, heart to heart, even over long distances.

Michael Soule
Whidbey Island
May 2020

Michael Soule has been involved in Waldorf Education since 1983, as a parent, teacher, school administrator, board member, AWSNA Executive and school advisor. Currently, he is the administrative director of Sound Circle Center teacher training in Seattle and works with experienced colleagues in Leading with Spirit, an initiative to provide training, professional development, resources and advisory support to schools and school leaders. You can contact him at mhsoule@gmail.com or visit his website, www.Leadtogether.org

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Dear Families,

Here is a lovely craft to welcome spring to your home.  I will send along some verses for you and your child to enjoy with your bunny and chick.

Warmest wishes,
Kate Hill
Parent & Child Teacher

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To begin, click on these two videos to guide you with this project.  I clicked on the mute button and watched the videos without sound. J  I have provided step by step instructions with visuals, too.  If you already have a pompom maker or plan to order one, you may skip the first video.  I used a Clover brand pompom maker Item #3124, size small.  Your child likely will find it easier to help you wind the yarn with a larger pompom maker. 

How to make a pompom maker from cardboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXFCO3LBJss

Note:  you may also wind yarn round your fingers to make pompoms.

How to make a Pompom bunny or chick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cssxMT3FbY

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Here I cut out bunny ears and beaks for the chicks.  Wool felt or other fabric bits with some stiffness work well.

You will need disks of two different sizes to make the head and the body.  For the body, I traced the outer and inner circles on cardboard using a lid jar and a quarter – make two of this size.  For the head, I traced the outer and inner circles on cardboard using a spool of thread and a dime – make two of this size.  Cut a small opening in all the cardboard disks.  Press two disks of same size together and begin winding your yarn round and round.

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Here are two disks pressed together. Wind yarn round and round so you have three or more layers. The amount of yarn you use will determine the size and fluffiness of your bunny or chick. Once you’re done winding yarn round the disks, cut yarn along the edge of the disks. Use a piece of yarn to tie off pompom by stringing yarn between two disks and tying a knot. The yarn strings you have from tying knot, will be used to tie the two pompoms together. Check out second video for detailed instructions.

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Make two pompons using the bigger disks for the body and the smaller disks for the head.  The yarn you used to tie off the pompons is now used to tie the pompons together, putting smaller one on top for the head.  Be sure to tie pompons together securely so your child may enjoy lots of play with the bunny or chick.  Yes, these are bunnies and chicks for children to play with, not just for decoration!

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Here is a lovely chick.  Cut out diamond-shaped beak using wool felt or other fabric bits with some stiffness.  Attach beak using needle and thread.

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And adorable bunnies.  Cut out two ears using wool felt or other fabric bits with some stiffness.  Attach ears using needle and thread.

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Someone asked me what to say to the children. I said, “Let’s go wash dishes; we’ll use extra soap this time!”

I was joking. But it is true that most children do not need to hear much of anything at all when it comes to stressful events. “Yes, it’s a work-at-home day again,” may be enough.

And other simple answers:

• “We are taking a break from school.”

• “We will visit your cousins when it is time.” And then,

• “Don’t worry, your parents will know when it is time!” 🙂

Still, so many little things have changed that we adults are uncertain of answers even for ourselves. And if we are uncertain, the children are unsettled and insecure in everything that they do. The simple statements above are helpful, and an important reminder that children need us more than they need our explanations. But that may not be enough. We also need strong underlying answers for ourselves, as adults, because it is from our own certainty that the children garner the sense of security and hope that they need to grow.

I’m a nursery teacher; I’m not talking about scientific answers.  I’m talking about a positive, all-encompassing truthful picture of ourselves, our situation and the people around us that we can hold onto and share with our children as need arises. Therefore, I would like to introduce The Queen of Corona. She just might help. She explains a lot for me. If she prompts fresh ideas for you, either how you think about the current situation or how you talk to the children about the day-to-day, please let me know.

She came up for me after being out in the woods yesterday. You see, where I walk, this coronavirus has led to awkward moments. The other hikers and I bend waaay out from the trail as we pass, leaving the trail in the middle between us. We’re calling it “social distancing,” but that’s not relevant to a child’s experience. Yesterday I wondered:  what would I have told the Snowdrop children had we been together, out in those woods bending off of the trail? I think I would tell them that we are making way for The Queen. I might even bow to the empty trail and to the people across the way. “Greetings, Your Majesty!”

This is because I can imagine, as an adult, that all the world is being visited by a vast and powerful queen. And just as we might stop business for an important day of mourning, or an international day of celebration, so now are we paying extra respect to this most particular and powerful of visitors.

How did she get here? Where did she come from? These are good questions for adults to ponder.

I think that she came from far, far away. From beyond the sun even. She is the Queen of Corona, after all. I do not know how she travelled here. Perhaps a good many horses were involved. The truth is, I have never seen such great distances traveled by anyone except the sunbeams, and I am still trying to figure out how they get here. So, I may just have to wonder at this question.

And why do we honor her? Why is she even here?

Now this answer I do know! She is here to teach us something important:  how to touch another person without physically touching. She is requiring us to connect in a more deliberate way. We may think at first that she wants us to avoid people, but I do not think that that is the case. And I am not referring to video here. I’m trying to think more old fashioned: talk with someone, say something sincere, do something nice for someone, call someone you have not called in a long time…

Touch is so important. But it can be problematic. It’s just too shorthand sometimes — an abbreviated substitute for actually showing that you care – and, on the heavier side, it can lead to trouble. We become wary of each other.

So maybe one way to look at it is that The Corona Queen has given us a new, safe physical space from which to interact. She wants to help us to shake old habit, rediscover “longhand” methods of connecting. I felt more connected to the people I passed in the woods yesterday than I ever did to those I have shared the trail with in closer proximity. I can still picture their faces! The joint confusion about the space we occupied – you could see it in our slowed pace, our off-trail stepping, and our awkward chuckles – brought to consciousness what is usually less conscious. Confusion over personal space and proper social distance is not new. The Queen of Corona is new, reminding us that we can safely interact with other people if we let ourselves.

Looking back, maybe I should have paused further, from across the way, and asked, “How’s it going?” It would have been a little awkward. But now is the time. Isn’t there something about this “we’re all in this together” kind of time, that makes you want to say hello to someone, a neighbor even, who you rarely speak with? That’s what The Queen of Corona wants us to do, because that’s why she’s here. Thinking of her that way puts me in a more secure frame of mind, allows me to interact with the world in a way that says to the children, “All will be well.” What do you think? Can we adults get to a place where this coronavirus prompts human connection instead of hindering it? Checking in on neighbors and such? Making food for someone and then finding a virus free way to deliver it? Writing a letter? The Queen of Corona is fostering an impulse and providing us the time to manifest that impulse. She’s not telling each of us exactly how to do it.  Personally, I am making something for the three little girls who live two houses down. The parents and a baby moved in seven or eight years ago, then had two more children. In that whole time I have stood on their doorstep and said hello only once, and with a cake that wasn’t even cooked by me. If I had a young child now, I’d say, “Come on, we have a delivery to make.” And then I’d call from the street, “Just stopped by to say hello! Do you have a minute to chat!?” In fact, I am going to do this, sans young child. Don’t worry, I’ll check with the family first. But mark my words; I’m doing it. The question is not quite, “How much do I tell my kids about the coronavirus?” I think the question is, “How do I show my children, now, that the world is good?”

Do you have any ideas for connecting with someone? Darah had a good one; she and a friend met in a parking area. They pulled their cars rear to rear, a safe distance apart, climbed behind their back seats and opened the hatchbacks. Voila, a “trunk date.” They were honoring the queen, each other, and their children’s wonderful world. You can ask her about it if you want.

– James Kennedy, Snowdrop Nursery lead teacher

 

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I’ve been thinking of my childhood and my daughter’s early years. Building forts was a favorite activity. Very likely you’ve all had this hands on experience! Tucked away spots to play with dolls and stuffed animals, make puzzles, color, enjoy books, and day dream. This is a fun building project you can do together. A bit of practical wisdom is once you’ve built it, your child will snuggle in for independent play.

In her article, Stop Entertaining Your Toddler (In 3 Steps), Janet Lansbury says,

“Learning to be a play ‘supporter’ rather than playmate takes practice, entails sensitive observation, open-mindedness, acceptance and, most of all, restraint (especially for those more inclined to do than watch).  But once we get this down, it is an incredibly relaxing, satisfying, Zen-like experience.”

Suggested Fort Materials:

blankets, sheets, pillows, clothespins, chip clips, table(s), 2 or 4 chairs, rope for a tent structure (string rope high and away from the child)

Building Tips:

• Tables for structure: Tables serve as walls and ceilings so you won’t need as many sheets and blankets to build the structure.
• Chair walls: Got a few sturdy chairs? Simply arrange them back-to-back with space in between for your fort. Then all you need is a big sheet or blanket to drape over the top as a ceiling.
• Rope roofs: Tie lengths of rope across two far-apart points (make sure they’re strong and won’t tip over) and then drape your blankets and sheets over the top to create a roof.
  *Add pillows, blankets, and soft toys to “cozy up” your fort.

 

Happy fort making!

– Kate Hill, Early Childhood Faculty

We live in a world rich in people from across religions, races, cultures, and family structures. And at Waldorf School at Moraine Farm, we strive to reflect a tapestry of experiences back to our students and our community.

Representation matters. Studies from many fields have shown that it’s important for children to see characters who look and act like themselves and their families.

Likewise, in pursuit of an equitable world, it’s important to share stories of families different than your own with your children – exposing them to the many, beautiful people in our world.

Among their many initiatives, our Diversity & Inclusion Committee is reworking our classroom bookshelves to celebrate a widening spectrum of humanity.

Here are five books that we are adding to our school library for early childhood and young grade school students.

Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love

My Hair is My Garden by Cozbi Cabrera

What a Wonderful Word by Nicola Edwards

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson

Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña

Stay tuned for recommendations for older students (and parents/grandparents!). We’re never too young or too old to learn and work towards a more equitable world. Start today. ♥️

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