Gateways

Download the article: East Coast Kindergarten Conference 1995

Harlemville, N.Y.

Each February, early-childhood teachers in the Northeast welcome the opportunity to escape the winter's chill and bask in the warmth of their shared striving. Snows may be deep and skies gray, but at the East Coast Kindergarten Conference in Spring Valley, we are nurtured and renewed as we meet old friends, eat wonderful food, and attend lectures and workshops that provoke and inspire us.

A new spirit of openness characterized this year's conference. Where formerly we had perhaps been too aware of the "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" surrounding Waldorf kindergarten work, this year's questions and discussions were uninhibited and searching. It is clear that we need the courage to try new things and to value our experiences. Then, we must seek to validate those experiences in a concrete, objective way.

The conference theme was "The Development of the Senses in Early Childhood as a Foundation for Later Life." Joan Almon, of the Waldorf Kindergarten Association, and Dr. Gerald Karnow, a pediatrician and Waldorf school doctor, addressed the topic in three lectures.

Download the article: With Love for Geneve

Hawthorne Valley School

Note: The following talk was given by a kindergarten teacher for a child she knew well who died while in first grade.

The last time I saw Geneve was here in this hall. It was late June at an evening concert. She stood there, on the bench, poised and quietly watching the people, listening to the music, nestling in her arms the little flannel baby she had sewn so proudly in Kindergarten - like most of the children going on to first grade. The picture of her standing there remains with me - such a beautiful impression of childhood - the taking in of quiet wonder, the tender holding... amidst the turning of larger, noisier spheres.

Geneve graced our Kindergarten at Hawthorne Valley for three years - what a blessing for us all to have shared that time with her! Sunny and bright, fairy light, Geneve was so agile and graceful in her beautiful, upright being; the most amazing jump roper! - able to master skills quickly.

Download the article: Helping Children in a Time of Trouble

Acorn Hill Children's Center

In a time of trouble, such as the death of a family member or friend, parents are faced with the question of how to help the children through this time. In a sense, the question will have many as answers as there are particular children and since children respond so differently to a situation, according to their age and nature. Parents are frequently brought up short by the realization that they must first face their own feelings and questions. Next comes the necessity of dealing with a child's questions.

A generally-accepted "rule of thumb" in responding to children's questions is to give only as much information as the child is actually requesting. As adults, our thoughts on a topic tend to be quite far-ranging, while the child's question is likely to be on a much more direct level. It is better to err on the side of simplicity; if a child needs to know more, another question will surely follow. Your answer to "what happens to someone who has died" will, of course, depend on your own view of this; in any case, a simple picture is usually best for a child. Your honest expression of sorrow and sympathy is very beneficial in helping a child to experience and cope with loss, but uncontrolled emotions are usually troubling or even frightening for the young child. The adult's efforts to recognize and accept grief without being overwhelmed by it can be a profound example to a child.

Download the article: A Poem for the Advent Garden

Acorn Hill Children's Center

For many years I have told a story in the Advent Garden about Mary's journey seeking threads to weave a robe for the Child soon to be born. I am very fond of the story and the images it brings, and a number of parents have been quite moved by it. This story was published in the Kindergarten Newsletter, and more recently in An Overview of the Waldorf Kindergarten published by the Waldorf Kindergarten Association. For the last few years, however, the need to penetrate to the very essence of our festivals, thus arriving at the universal aspect which can speak to the hearts of all human beings, has become ever more clear and more urgent. One spring morning I woke up knowing I could no longer tell the old story and this poem arose. It is as yet untested in practice, but I offer it on the chance that it may speak to a need perceived by others.

Download the article: Christmas Season in a Public School

James Peterson teaches a combined kindergarten/first grade in a small school district in northern California. From time to time he provides us with rich pictures of life inside his classroom, where he integrates Waldorf ideas into the school curriculum.

It's not easy to bring the mood of Waldorf Education into a public school setting. Recently, however, during the Advent and Christmas season, it seemed essential to me to try to bring something of the sacred to the children in my K-1 class. While other public school teachers gave their kids dittoed Santas to cut, color and paste, I tried to put into practice my twenty-five years of association with the Waldorf movement.

Instead of an Advent table, I had to content myself with a nature table based on winter and solstice themes. The earth was covered with snow, with only a few pine trees and bare deciduous trees interspersed. An opening in a clay hill revealed Mother Earth descending away from the surface. Under the nature table was a crystal cave, where hibernating animals lived side by side with an assortment of fairies and gnomes.

Download the article: A Look at Home Day Care and After Care

Hillsdale, NY

I was very pleased to see the issue of day care and after care addressed in the Spring 1995 Newsletter. As the introductory article said, the question of day care is not new, but the urgency with which we are experiencing it is.

I had some thoughts out of my own experience as a kindergarten teacher who ran a home-nursery for 3 to 5 year olds in my own home for eight years after our daughter, who is now 10, was born. I left the kindergarten work at Hawthorne Valley School in order to adopt our baby daughter, our second child. Shortly after I returned from my sojourn to South America to find our baby, I was surprised by the number of parents who asked if I would start a little playgroup in my home. It seemed to me a delightful way to spend my time at home (the baby mostly slept while the children were there) and I welcomed the small income to help pay my son's tuition at Hawthorne Valley. The home-nursery grew each year until my neighbor and I (a Waldorf-trained teacher at home with her little girl) decided to accept more children and work together in my home.

Download the article: Birth to the Age of Three: Our Responsibility

Duncan, B.C.

Reprinted from the Autumn/Winter 1995 issue of the British Waldorf Kindergarten Assn. Newsletter from notes taken from Dorothy 's workshop at the International Conference.

What is our responsibility to this age group?

One of the answers comes to us from Rudolf Steiner, from Lecture I in the collection of lectures in Study of Man. "...here in the human being you with your action, have to achieve a continuation of what higher beings have done before the child's birth." In the same lecture we are asked to "become aware of birth as an integral part of human development." We are asked to remember that the human being evolves through a long period between death and a re-birth, and as it were, "dies for the spiritual world." The Higher Hierarchies have worked on the soul-spirit and given it the strength to incarnate into a physical body here on earth. To incarnate, to take on a body of flesh is a struggle for the new soul-spirit as it strives to form the inherited physical body as its own. Rudolf Steiner describes this struggle in another lecture series, Kingdom of Childhood "...if a glove were to fit your hand as badly as the body generally fits the soul, you would discard it at once."

Download the article: Whitsun, Multiculturalism and International Working

Waldorf School of Mendocino County

Festivals come and festivals go, but how one permeates the very essence of the festival determines the depth of our relationship with it. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the International Waldorf Kindergarten Association. The work has been going on much longer, but the organization was established in that year. Each year, at Whitsun time, the International Conference for Waldorf Kindergartens takes place with teachers, parents, board members, physicians, and curative workers, from all over the world. This year, in Hannover, Germany, there were 739 participants from 28 different countries! But Whitsun, why Whitsun time? Is this mere coincidence?

Dr. Helmut von Kügelgen, head of the International Waldorf Kindergarten Association, and Dr. Heinz Zimmermann, leader of the Pedagogical Section of the Goetheanurn. both referred to Whitsun and its relationship to the conference. In the Book of Acts, one has the picture of the Disciples and Mary gathered together with flames of fire over their heads. Each began speaking "in tongues," in their own language, but through their heart forces, they understood one another. This is the Whitsun experience: to be enkindled with spirit and working with the Christ impulse, and through this, to have an understanding of one another. What exhilaration and what wonder and awe to be one of three (the only one presently teaching in Kindergarten) from the United States, and to understand and be understood by those from halfway around the world.

Download the article: Storytelling

Reprinted with some changes from the Newsletter of the British Kindergarten Association A report of a workshop given by Margarite van der Heidie at the York Steiner School.

First we were introduced to a wondrous new approach to spindle spinning which we all enjoyed and found far more practical than the drop-spindle method. These simple spindles can easily be whittled from a "Y"-shaped section of a small branch. No two spindles are alike, some are quite curvy and others straight.

While we were familiarizing ourselves with this new approach, Margarite gave us a thumbnail sketch of her work in Holland especially with kindergarten teachers and how she herself developed her own storytelling skills. For many years she pondered over images such as the witch's bread house, and the episode surrounding the oven found in Hansel and Gretel and in similar stories in Russian and Romanian folk tales. She realized that just as Gretel exclaimed, "I do not know how I am to do it..." after she was told to see if the oven was hot enough, small children have to be shown how to do a particular activity by imitating the presented "image," they can do it. That is the way we are taught before we are born. The Angels present activities to us through images. Speaking of the daughter of Baba Yaga she came to realize that the daughter of the witch is not a human being. In Romania they call these beings "beings from the other bank."

Download the article: Early Childhood and the Consciousness Soul

Waldorf Kindergarten Association of N.A.

When Rudolf Steiner spoke of the human being, he not only described body, soul and spirit, but spoke of three levels of each. Thus within the body there is the physical, etheric and astral bodies, within the soul there is the sentient, intellectual and consciousness souls, and within the spirit there is spirit self, life spirit and spirit man (in its broadest sense.) This is described in more detail in the opening chapter of Rudolf Steiner's book Theosophy as well as in his introductory booklet, The Education of the Child.

What is particularly important for modern human beings is the development of the consciousness soul. This is the newest aspect of the human soul, for the two lower soul forces were developed in earlier epochs. It is our current epoch, beginning with the Renaissance and continuing for about 2000 years, that provides the conditions with which humanity as a whole can develop this higher soul capacity. It is the consciousness soul that carries a full awareness of the soul nature of the human being and also serves as a bridge to an understanding of the spiritual. In the future, humanity as a whole will be able to develop spiritual capacities in a much fuller way than is possible today. Nevertheless, each human being is able to develop soul and spiritual capacities to a large extent, if they so will, especially if their upbringing and education are supportive of it.

Download the article: Introduction

This issue marks a number of changes. For several years we have wanted to switch to a more permanent format with stapled binding, but the cost seemed prohibitive. Now, with the help of our advertisers, we have been able to make the switch, and we are most grateful to them. We have also realized another dream, and that is to have a cover design that we could use for several years and which would be associated with the Kindergarten Association. Michael Howard, who designed our original logo of a child in a boat, an image of incarnation. has developed it further to put the child under the protective gaze of a loving figure. Dale Hushbeck did the calligraphy to match, and we are very grateful to both of them.

Download the article: Letter from the Editor

My hope as editor is that Gateways stimulates thinking in our readers, that the support we offer to Waldorf early childhood professionals inspires them to something more. When readers respond in writing and share thoughts with us, then the editor knows what speaks to you in our newsletter. The last issue of Gateways included an article on nutrition in the kindergarten, and it led to being contacted by Anne-Marie Fryer Wiboltt. She writes: I am a Waldorf class and kindergarten teacher in Wisconsin as well as a WECAN regional representative. I read Gateways with enthusiasm each time it arrives. Thank you for all your work with the magazine. I especially enjoyed your last article, "Nutrition for Young Children." I too serve a full meal (including sauerkraut) in my kindergarten very similar to what you are serving your children. Last year I published a book [entitled] Cooking for the Love of the World: Our Relationship to Our Spirituality Through Cooking . . . In the book I invite the reader to perceive the world as spiritual activity. I 'lift' food out of the material realm of minerals, proteins, fats etc. into the fluidity of life. . . .

Download the article: Developing the Eyes to See

Notes from the 2009 East Coast Early Childhood Conference

The early childhood educator is sometimes a "magician," a "priestess" or "priest" who sings form into being. This was the opening picture Dr. Gerald Karnow shared with the early childhood educators at the February 2009 East Coast Early Childhood Conference. He described how he had observed kindergarten classes where he saw apparent chaos while the children played. Yet the chaos was highly structured. Within it he could perceive developing organs of interacting groups, mobile flow forms, messes, battles, and intimate relationships developing. When the chaos lost its organization for a moment, the teacher sang a song. The children suddenly moved into a circle and heard a story from which they moved to put the room into perfect order. 'Ihe children knew just what to do. When he sees this in an early childhood class, it is utter, beautiful magic.

Ihese experiences reminded Dr. Karnow of an image from Rudolf Steiner's lectures, Cosmic Memory. A priestess sings to a group of people. 'they move in relationship to what she sings, and the song deeply impresses itself into those who listen. Something is structured through the song into these human beings. Recalling the thoughts presented from the previous year, Dr. Karnow re-emphasized that everything the children experience in our classes literally forms their physical being-as well as their social and psychical being-for the rest of life. Our intention and responsibility as educators is to connect what the children have brought from the past with lawful activities to form and guide their future. To do this rightly, we must find ways through our inner development to become priestly.

Download the article: A Contemplative and Reflective Format for Early Childhood Study

It will indeed come to be for us a necessity
That we observe the children day by day
And also exercise in ourselves day by day
Control of our own thought and feelings.
Every child has a subtle perception
Of whether the person looking after him*
Or teaching him is inwardly equipped in her soul.
The child's well-being depends to a great extent
On what is growing and developing in the inner soul
Of the person in charge.
Develop your keenness of observation;
Nurture the powers of your inner Being;
Develop vitality of thinking;
Depth offeeling, strength of willing.
-Herbert Hahn

This verse is an amazing one to contemplate when beginning to look into the world of child study. It is so very interesting that Herbert Hahn would emphasize that the child's well being depends upon the inner striving of the teacher. It is true that when we try to understand and contemplate the child, we are immediately faced with the question of whether we can find the mood of soul that is needed so that genuine perceptions can be born in us and give us the possibility to accompany the child on his or her journey-the child who is, as Henning Kohler so eloquently states, "the guest looking for the way."

Download the article: Child Observation

The Teacher's Daily Prayer
Loving father, please help me to completely obliterate myself as far as personal ambitions are concerned so that Christ can make true in me the Pauline words 'Not I but the Christ in me' so that the Holy Spirit may reign in me. This is the true trinity.
-Rudolf Steiner

Make me empty of noise, fear, prejudice and any form of projection that obscures my seeing what there really is. Do not allow me to imprint my interpretation and judgment on to the imagination of the child before me. Let me stand in the right place, not too close to see only a partial picture, not within the magnetic ring of reaction, not too far to see clearly and with focus and not so far as to wash over the truth. Let me stand where I can clearly see the whole child. Let me be selfless.

Download the article: Self-Review for the Teacher

Sally writes, "Some years ago I began to write down questions I had asked myself regarding my work with children and the adults surrounding them; it made it easier not to forget things, as I wanted to feel I was doing the best I could and improve where I knew I was not. Since having the joyful, rewarding and challenging task of being an early childhood advisor for the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, I have extended them and occasionally offered them to a colleague. Now I have been asked to pass on these contemplations to Kindling [our sister publication in the UK]."

The being of the teacher is more important than the doing.
-Rudolf Steiner

The teacher's example is vital: who we are is soaked up by the child.

Am I aware of my own being as a moral example, of my movements, my inner gesture, my thoughts, my speech, and how and what I said? Do I constantly seek to renew my work?

Download the article: The Importance of Singing

I have often found myself involved in a classroom activity wishing I knew a song to sing while grinding grain, or sewing, for example, that would gather the children to the task at hand. I would often improvise a simple song, but I wished for a resource where this type of songs could be gathered. I felt there must be other teachers who had the same thought, so I wrote A Day Full Of Song as my final project while in training at Sunbridge College three years ago. It is a book of songs in the mood of the fifth pertaining to work in the kindergarten and at home. There are songs for shoveling, raking, hammering, grinding, baking, washing, folding, and so on.

In earlier times, people sang to accompany their work much more than people do today. Not only can it help to pass the time while one works at the multitude of daily tasks which could, if one let them, become tedious and dull, but I believe there are also other benefits to singing while we work. It can definitely help one to bring more joy to any activity, and it may even facilitate the actual physical movements of the body. Moving in a rhythm while working is more efficient, and you may even get more done!

Download the article: Plant Dyeing in the Kindergarten

Sitting by an outdoor fire on a grey November day, five pots of colored fleece simmering and with a group of kindergarten children gathered close around me, I felt warmed through. I felt warmed by the fire's radiant heat and the children's close attention to all I was doing. The Life Process of Warming was present.

The small wood fire burning out-of-doors is archetypal, as one small child reminded me: "This fire is ancient:' Working with the elemental forces of fire and water, and with the alchemy which happens when these are combined with plant materials and sheep fleece, is a deeply warming and enlivening experience. The feeling that lingered after a morning spent dyeing fleece on an outdoor fire was of inner calm, mellow warmth, and clear perception. I became aware of a deep and even rhythm in my breath. There was a feeling of physical strength and of being fully present.

Download the article: Saint Martin

The following is an excerpt from volume 10 of the Little Series, newly published in English by WECAN in 2009. The Little Series was developed by Dr Helmut von Kagelgen, founder of the International Kindergarten Association, to support the inner work of the early childhood educator, and several of the other volumes explore the major seasonal festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Michaelmas. This study can help to awaken modern American readers to the historical and esoteric significance of Martinmas. While some Waldorf early child educators do not celebrate saints in kindergarten or earlier, many programs celebrate a lantern walk at the time of year of Martinmas, perhaps even the same date (November 11). Saint Martin is also reviewed by Nancy Blanning on page 29 of this issue.

Saint Martin in the Fourth Century
Martin was born in the year 316 in the Roman city of Savaria, today part of Hungary. His father was a Roman officer in the local garrison. Thus Martin was born as a Roman into a military environment. His unusually long life (he died in his eighty-first year) was not filled with inward contemplation or bound to one place. He spent his childhood in Italy, then we find him as a young man in Amiens, in Worms, later in Poitiers or on the island of Gallinaria (now Isola d'Albenga) off the western coast of Italy, to name only a few places, until he finally found a base in Tours for his long journeys through Gaul. He could not be prevented from going into the diocese of Candes to mediate a controversy, although he foresaw his death; there he died on November 11 in the year 397.

Download the article: Emmi Pickler Haus, Part 2

Part One of this article, published in the previous issue of Gateways, described a visit to Emmi-Pikler-Haus, a residential home in Germany. Part Two gives more background on Emmi Pikler herself and on the two teachers who took up her work in relationship to that of Rudolf Steiner.

A Brief History of Lóczy
After many children had been orphaned by the war, pediatrician Emmi Pikler was commissioned by the City of Budapest in 1946 to organize and direct a foster home where children would live until they were three years old. The fundamental ideas on which this home was founded have a history which goes back to the 1920s in Vienna, where Emmi Pikler went to medical school and received her medical training under Prof. Clemens von Pirquet at the University Hospital.

Download the article: Teacher Training in Mexico

Waldorf education is alive and well in México! This summer marked the ninth year that the Centro Antróposofico has hosted teacher training courses, currently at the Waldorf School of Cuernavaca, (the City of Eternal Spring) in the state of Morelos.

The teacher training started in 2001 and the directors of the Centro at that time were Alida Gonzalez, Teri Block and Verónica Gabucio. Feliz and Beatriz Zimmermann, longtime Waldorf teachers from Switzerland, had already spent years offering workshops, conferences and talks on Waldorf education in México and, given the interest and the rapid growth of Waldorf programs and schools, the time seemed ripe to offer professional training.

Teri Block has since gone on to pioneer new ventures, but Alida and Verónica have steadfastly carried the Centro and its students for each three week intensive. This past summer was no exception.

Download the article: Pictures from Norway

In early May, 2009, I found myself waiting to meet Susan Howard in the airport of Oslo, Norway. We were on our way to Arendahl, a small, seaside town close to the southern tip of Norway and we had come to speak (along with Ann Sharfman, from South Africa) at their national early childhood association yearly conference. These yearly conferences are held in different schools each year and the school hosting this particular conference, Stjerneglimt (Star Glitter, or Shine) was also celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary. Founded by Eldbjorg Paulssen, who still teaches there, it is now home to infants through five-year-olds. When we attended an Open House there, we met several young mothers who themselves had been children there in the early years of the school.

My first impression of Norway was that of granite, pushing the land into jutting mountains, steep hills and rock-strewn valleys. It is no wonder that the Norwegians became a seafaring people-the land looked impossible to farm! Trees are tall, forests dense, and the rock, almost like a sleeping beast just under the surface, always present. I understood all the trolls and giants in Norse tales now that I had seen this rugged and wild landscape.

Download the article: Book Review: Saint Martin

Saint Martin: Between Michaelmas and the Holy Nights by Michael Martin (WECAN Books, 2009).

Martinmas is not one of the American traditional celebrations (outside of some Waldorf schools), yet it is appealing in its images. The simple story of the legend of Saint Martin we know. Martin, a Roman soldier, took pity on a poor, shivering beggar. He cut his cloak in two and bestowed half of it upon the beggar. Later in a dream Martin saw that the beggar he had served was the Christ. This event at age eighteen transformed his young life completely, and shortly afterward he sought baptism and true, humble dedication to his new Christian faith. Two years later while still serving in the Roman army, he laid down his sword and refused to bear arms against another human being-in opposition to family expectation, training, and instruction of his Roman commanders. Martin went on to become bishop of Tours in France. He was known for his humility and compassion toward others, especially the downcast, the poor, and those whom society had rejected. The light and sense of hope he brought to these people is reflected in the Lantern Festival some of us celebrate in our Waldorf schools each autumn around November 11.

Download the article: Letter from the Editor

A colleague in Denmark, Christine Christiansen, sent along a short and noteworthy quote from The Sense of Wonder, by Rachel Carson, perfect for starting off this issue of Gateways. Carson writes, "If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in:' It reminds me of something Rudolf Steiner wrote (in The Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy) that has appeared in these pages before. "Pleasure and delight are the forces that most properly enliven and call forth the organs' physical forms.. . The joy of children in and with their environment, must therefore be counted among the forces that build and shape the physical organs. They need teachers that look and act with happiness and, most of all, with honest, unaffected love. Such a love that streams, as it were, with warmth through the physical environment of the children may be said to literally 'hatch' the forms of the physical organs:' Two different takes on how important it is for developing children to be surrounded by adults who live joyously.