Download the article: Day Care
At our last Kindergarten Association Board Meeting, a brief discussion arose around the questions and issues of day care. Realizing that this is an area of work that our movement needs to address, we chose to study the young child from birth to three in this coming year.
In the meantime, following up on an inspired conversation I had in England while attending the 1995 International Kindergarten Conference, I began considering the possibility of helping others bring to birth a new approach to day care that could support the full spectrum from home day care to corporate day care. This would involve establishing a training program, creating a pilot/lab program and, eventually, helping others establish centers.
Currently, I have begun research on the various components needed to get started on this work and have drafted a grant proposal describing a model that strives to work out of Rudolf Steiner's insights into the needs of infants, toddlers, and the growing child. The model includes mixed-age care as well as intergenerational relationships, among other things.
A number of people in our Waldorf early childhood movement have expressed an interest in this work, and some are already doing day care. We will have an opportunity to gather for an afternoon session during the International Kindergarten Conference in New Hampshire in August. Time and place will be announced there.
If day care is of interest to you, please drop me a line and tell me what you are doing or what thoughts or research you have done. Perhaps we can have an article or some type of update on day care as a regular part of our newsletter now. I will be happy to coordinate our efforts if there is interest.
Blessings on your work. See you in August!
Cindy Aldinger can be reached at her home, W2897 High Road, Elkhorn, WI 53121, (414) 642-7151.