Download the article: A Report from Kolisko, Mexico
The Mexican colonial city of Guanajuato and the Colegio Yeccan, a Waldorf School in Guanajuato, hosted the North American Congreso Kolisko (conference) in August. The Congreso Kolisko was held in a hotel conference center that was once a monastery where vast halls with high stone walls gave us ample room for lectures and meetings. When an almost daily thunderstorm coincided with a lecture, it pounded the roof and rumbled with a great voice through these spaces. Going outside once the rain subsided I encountered how quickly everything dried off, which it gave me the sense of how precious water is in the semi-arid hill country of this inland state. Guanajuato is a charming town and was a welcoming place for the gathering. About two hundred fifty teachers, doctors and therapists attended. Nearly half were from Mexico, another larger group from South American countries and a small group from the US, Canada and Europe. Lectures were simultaneously translated.
Guanajuato is the capital city of the state of Guanajuato, and the Congreso was opened with words of welcome by both the mayor and the governor. I was heartened by the governor's remarks that love, freedom and justice are needed in an effective education.He is a former university president and spoke of his commitment to education as a critical agent for change. Octavio Reyes Salas, the General Secretary of the Mexican Anthroposophical Society, also welcomed participants and proved to be a hero of many needed details throughout the weekend. A Kolisko conference is an active dialogue gathering. Interest groups meet following the lectures to take up points from the keynote and work with them. I attended the group for early childhood educators in English; another much larger group met for Spanish speakers. In the English section group, there were a few teachers from Mexico schools and initiatives, Norway and the USA. I introduced myself for WECAN to the Spanish language section later on in the week. Our group was led by Joan Almon of the Alliance for Childhood and a Waldorf school doctor from Germany. Here in this small group representing different cultures, we met with common issues in parent work and parent education, working with challenging children and finding a balance in ourselves as teachers.
Dr. Michaela Glöckler gave five keynote addresses on "The Medical Foundation of the Waldorf Curriculum." Her lectures spanned the child's life from birth to age twenty-one. Each day she presented aspects of the body's maturation and growth describing how that is observed in activity, soul activity and what is needed from the relationship of the adults. With each age she emphasized that the teacher must ask:
1. What are the age-specific intentions of the child?
2. How is each child managing its age-specific life-situation? As a teacher, how do I find where the child is meeting and not meeting milestones, and where is support needed?
3. How can the teacher deepen understanding of the child's development, so that the child finds a partner for its development?
Of special interest for Gateways readers, Dr Glöckler shared how the child in the first three years parallels Christ's three years from the baptism to Golgotha. In Christ's call of "I am the path, the truth and the life" (John, 14:6) we see the child take on walking (the path) in the first year, speaking (the truth) in the second year, and the birth of fantasy (the life) in the third year. In the first year, the child is drawn to uprightness to achieve its human destiny; in the second year, the child is only capable of speaking the truth. She points out that because we adults have all experienced this in our own childhood we have access to this reality. And in the third year, the birth of independent spiritual activity with the blossoming of imagination is the only way one can come to true self-direction in self-thinking, which is true life.
Dr. Bruno Callegaro presented on child observation, diagnosis, and how to support the child's needs. He pointed out the boundaries between the pedagogical and the remedial and medical professionals. The doctor works from the past into the present, and the teacher works with the present for the future. Pedagogical diagnosis is different from the medical, however, the teacher and the doctor can meet on common ground through the observation and descriptions of the physical body. The physical descriptions are the same across the professions and here is where we meet as natural scientists. Descriptions of behavior will be different because the description includes the person describing. These descriptions can be fruitful, but we must accept there will be different points of view and that these differences must not be feared, but welcomed.Dr. Callegaro recommends that a child study process follow this sequence:
1. Describing the physical - here everyone can find agreement.
2. Reproduce/imitate the child's movements and reproduce/imitate the child's speech - by trying this, the group can come to trust and find confidence in the observations of the physical and reach greater understanding. (Here he believes it is also possible for a sense of peace to enter the group because they meet a common understanding. This peace can enhance our social workings when sharing differing behavior descriptions.)
3. Describe behavior - this allows for different points of view to be appreciated.
Dr. Callegaro brought the challenges of autism, ADD and Dyslexia. He shared stories of the children he observed and interacted with who taught him core issues of these conditions. He expressed gratitude for the obstacles children and adults face as true inspirations for our development as teachers, doctors and therapists. Our role is not to eliminate these obstacles but to see how they translate as gifts.
The Medical and Pedagogical Sections at the Goetheanum have a companion publication for the conference, Education- Health for Life: Education and Medicine working together for healthy development. There is a Spanish language volume as well.
Andrea is teaching at Sunbridge College as program director of the full time Early Childhood Teacher Education program. She is a WECAN board member and the Mid-Atlantic representative and previously taught at the Waldorf School of Baltimore.