An excellent 3 minute film on England’s Steiner Waldorf Schools.
The longer version is below
A New Short Film on Waldorf Education
The Secret to Producing Great Readers
Professor Helen Vendler, a distinguished scholar and leading American poetry critic, imagines what kind of early schooling would produce great readers. Here’s what she says:
In a utopian world, I would propose, for the ultimate maintenance of the humanities and all other higher learning, an elementary-school curriculum that would make every ordinary child a proficient reader by the end of the fourth grade—not to pass a test, but rather to ensure progressive expansion of awareness. Other than mathematics, the curriculum of my ideal elementary school would be wholly occupied, all day, every day, with “reading” in its very fullest sense. Let us imagine the day divided into short 20-minute “periods.” Here are 14 daily such periods of “reading,” each divisible into two 10-minute periods, or extended to a half-hour, as seems most practical to teachers in different grades. Many such periods can be spent outside, to break up the tedium of long sitting for young children. The pupils would:
- engage in choral singing of traditional melodic song (folk songs, country songs, rounds);
- be read to from poems and stories beyond their own current ability to read;
- mount short plays—learning roles, rehearsing, and eventually performing;
- march or dance to counting rhymes, poems, or music, “reading” rhythms and sentences with their bodies;
- read aloud, chorally, to the teacher;
- read aloud singly to the teacher, and recite memorized poems either chorally or singly;
- notice, and describe aloud, the reproduced images of powerful works of art, with the accompanying story told by the teacher (Orpheus, the three kings at Bethlehem, etc.);
- read silently, and retell in their own words, for discussion, the story they have read;
- expand their vocabulary to specialized registers through walks where they would learn the names of trees, plants, flowers, and fruits;
- visit museums of art and natural history to learn to name exotic or extinct things, or visit an orchestra to discover the names and sounds of orchestral instruments;
- learn conjoined prefixes, suffixes, and roots as they learn new words;
- tell stories of their own devising;
- compose words to be sung to tunes they already know; and
- if they are studying a foreign language, carry out these practices for it as well.
Much of it sounds like aspects of the Waldorf curriculum. To read more of her thoughts, go to this article:
2011 Dinner for Two Anywhere in the World Raffle Winner
The “Dinner for Two Anywhere in the World” raffle was a great success, raising $20,000 for CAWS. The winner of the big raffle couldn’t be more excited! He lives in Boise, Idaho, and is uncle to parent Margie DeWeese-Boyd.
We love Paris in the springtime… Guess where we’re going?
When Bev and I were dating (she 18, me 20), she went to Europe with her aunt. They traveled around to various countries and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I missed her so much that when she came back, I proposed to her at the airport…
I always hoped I would get a chance to take her back to Europe and we could enjoy it together. That just never seemed to happen. We retired recently and have been talking about making that long awaited trip together. Imagine our delight when we heard we had won the drawing. Our 45th anniversary is coming up next April 1st. (Our anniversary date should give you some clue as to our personality.)
We hopefully will be able to fly to Paris from San Francisco, spend 3-4 days there and then get a Euro Rail pass and go to Amsterdam, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and then back to Paris. We figure about three weeks.
Our attitude has always been that whenever children are involved in fund raising, we buy in, never expecting to ever win anything, because that isn’t what is important.
That is not to say we don’t enjoy winning this. We are ecstatic and will give you a call tomorrow to see if our plans can work OK within your parameters.
Thank you… thank you…. thank you!!!!
-Gary Pelley
Thank you to all of you who participated and here’s hoping you win next year!
Fifth Grade Competes in Olympic Pentathalon
The fifth grade traveled to Lexington on Friday, May 13, 2011, to compete in an Olympic pentathalon fashioned after the original Olympics in Greece. This annual event draws Waldorf schools from around the region for a day of festive competition that complements the fifth grade study of Greek history and mythology. Thank you to parent Scott Harlan for sharing this report from the big day. (Photos by S. Harlan and J. Poore.)
The warm, sunny spring day and beautiful, green setting provided the perfect conditions to watch the festival unfold. This year, about 100 fifth graders from area Waldorf schools gathered in Lexington. The participating schools were: the Waldorf School of Cape Cod (Cotuit MA), the Meadowbrook School (West Kingston, RI), the Monadnock Waldorf School (Keene, NH), Ecole L’Eau Vive (Montreal, Canada), Cape Ann Waldorf School, and the host school, the Waldorf School of Lexington. This is the 24th year that the Waldorf School of Lexington has hosted this event (and it is the school’s 40th anniversary this year).
After each school presented an offering to Zeus, students recited the Oath to Zeus to pledge good sportsmanship. Then, students warmed up and were mixed into ancient Greek city-states. Each city-state rotated through the events of the traditional pentathalon: the javelin, the discus, the long jump, wrestling, and two running events, the fifty-yard dash and the long run.
Following the initial round of events, students were recognized based on their performance, and then invited to compete in a final round at each event. Five CAWS fifth graders were invited to compete in specific events: Jenna Hoch (javelin, discus); Matthew Rugo (long jump); Spencer Poore (javelin (left)); Matthew McGaunn (discus, wrestling); Brendan Harlan (discus, wrestling).
At the closing ceremony, laurel wreaths were awarded to some students to recognize their speed, distance, and form in the events. Every student received an authentic Greek coin to honor their participation.
My son, Brendan, was thrilled to take part in this Waldorf tradition and my family enjoyed watching as much of the action as possible. As a volunteer City-State parent, I escorted one group to each of the six stations/events while carrying the Thebes banner along the way. This role provided a fun way to be near the action as well as a chance to get to meet some of the students. All in all, a great day! —Scott Harlan
