Gateways

Download the article: Early Childhood Travels in Japan

After a year and a half of planning, untold faxes and much translating activity, Man Yamaguchi Allen, kindergarten teacher at the Cape Ann Waldorf School in Beverly, Mass. and I found ourselves at last in Hitachi, Japan at the invitation of Okabe Yochen, at his Waldorf inspired nursery-kindergarten of 170 children. We visited for two and a half weeks in August observing in classrooms, working with the teachers of the school, and offering a course for the teachers and others interested in Waldorf early childhood education.

We met a wonderful, warm, and open group of young teachers and their school director, our host, in a most special setting. The present school was founded twenty-eight years ago by the father of its present director. He devoted the major remaining part of the family farm to create a school for the growing population of families in the immediate neighborhood whose young children did not have a school available to them. As an employee of the school district himself, he recognized this need and was determined to meet it. One sees along the school corridor a long row of photographs, showing Mr. Okabe - and later his son - in the annual school picture with each successive class of children.

Download the article: The Effects of Hidden Anger in the Classroom

It is said that we learn the most from our mistakes. I recently went through a period of intense learning, and I would like to share some of what I learned with other kindergarten teachers in hopes that you might learn from my experience.

I was starting my second year in the associate program for early childhood education at Sunbridge College, and had taken a new job teaching in a school half way across the country from where I was previously teaching in a new initiative. This would be my third year of teaching kindergarten, and I eagerly looked forward to teaching full time as part of a faculty in a school, instead of part-time teaching in a rented church room. Things got off to a rather rocky start with a large, rambunctious group of children and two co-teachers. We changed our daily rhythm several times and searched for calmer, easier to follow circles, and stories that would help calm the children. Finally we divided the class into two rooms, and began to enjoy a more peaceful classroom atmosphere with fewer children.

Download the article: Reaching out through NAEYC

In mid-October I attended our state-affiliated chapter of NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children), called WECA (Wisconsin Early Childhood Association). The first thing I took note of is that soon I will be a member of two WECA's when we change our name to Waldorf Early Childhood Association!

After getting lost the first day trying to find the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee (I've only lived here ten years - give me a break!), I found my way to the tail end of a discussion on the importance of research in the field of early childhood education.

They were featuring the High Scope method in which the children in the child care centers are encouraged to Plan-Do-Review. This means that the children plan what they want to do by choosing from a Planning Chart, then they do it, and then they come back together to review what they have done and “discuss” it. This is a program for 3-6 year olds. One of their highlights is small group time where children “learn actively: experimenting, predicting, observing and evaluating. Adults support children’s learning and encourage hands, mouths, and minds to be busy.” Minds, mouths & hands (High Scope). Head, heart & hands (Waldorf). Hmm, something about that middle realm seems to be significantly different! I visited two of their featured centers, one for the 3-6 year olds and one for t through 5th grade, where the children are in mixed age groups. These centers are currently drawing national attention. The grade school is in the same building as the public Waldorf school in Milwaukee, so I had a firsthand experience of seeing the qualitative difference just from the decor on the walls. As with most child care centers I have visited lately, the sensory overload is astounding.

Download the article: Child Care Report

What a summer and autumn! Starting with the June AWSNA conference in New Hampshire to the Anthroposophical Society conferences in Ann Arbor, Michigan in August to the NAEYC Conference in Wisconsin in October to The Endangered Years conference in Sacramento in late October, a consistent thread for me has been networking (forgive the computer language) with other individuals who are on fire for creating new impulses in child care and the work with birth-to-three and parenting.

We are off and running! The whole country, it seems, is riveted to the issues of child care, particularly from two vantage points, brain research and welfare reform. Our government realized it had created a big problem with welfare reform by initially overlooking the issue of child care as they prepared to send all these mothers into the work force. I think their “recovery” measures vary from state to state - in some places by lowering the standards for which programs could receive government funding for giving care to the children of the welfare moms. In my state, I know there was also an initial thrust to get day care centers to hire these mothers as they train them to become child caregivers. The few providers I spoke with were overwhelmed with the task. Many of the individuals they were being asked to hire did not have basic parenting skills, and now they were expected to hire them to care for the children in their centers. Of course, in the midst of it all, there are the occasional stories of individuals turning their lives around and taking up conscious parenting and care giving. As with most things, it is a mixed bag of success and failure. One thing I hope we will all do is keep these mothers and care providers in our hearts during this time of seemingly forced transformation.

Download the article: Changing of the Guard and Introduction

I have before me a folder full of our Kindergarten Newsletters beginning in Fall 1981. Even before we decided to start a Waldorf Kindergarten Association, a group of teachers decided we needed a newsletter to link us all together and provide us with articles and stories. At that time there were almost no books available for Waldorf kindergarten teachers. Just how I became editor is no longer clear to me, but I know that editing the Newsletter has been a wonderful opportunity for growth for me, and I am very grateful to have been able to do it.

Several times over the years it seemed time for a new editor. I would put out feelers, but it was hard to find someone, and then a new wave of enthusiasm would come, and I would happily continue. Last fall, however, it became clear that it was time for a change. Ideally our newsletter needs an editor who is in the kindergarten or in a kindergarten training and therefore very close to today's children and the issues facing parents and teachers. I have spent most of this decade visiting kindergartens but not teaching in them, offering courses but not full time in a training center. I've had a chance to broaden my perspectives and look forward to sharing thoughts and experiences in the newsletter, but it was definitely time for a new editor. Thus, I was so grateful when Nicola Tarshis, board member of the Waldorf Early Childhood Association and kindergarten teacher at the Toronto Waldorf School, offered to take on the editor's position. I've enjoyed co-editing this issue with her and look forward to reading next year's newsletters with her in charge.

Download the article: The Young Child in the World of Today

The following considerations result from three lectures given to early childhood and kindergarten teachers in Adelaide in April 1997 on the occasion of the Vital Years Conference.

The theme will be unfolded in three steps:

1. The Universal Aspect of Childhood
2. Challenges and Dangers for Children in the World of Today
3. Educating Modern Children

Download the article: From Birth to Three and the Child at the End of the Century

Dr. Bruno Callegaro gave three lectures at the East Coast Kindergarten Conference in Spring Valley, New York in February, 1998. These notes were prepared by Sandi Chamberlin of Acorn Hill Children's Center in Maryland and have been checked by Dr. Callegaro.

At this year's conference, Dr. Bruno Callegaro, in discussing the child from birth to three, presented a broad, comprehensive vision of the individuality deciding to incarnate long before actual conception and birth occurs. He illustrated how the individual's will gradually penetrates the body in the first three years. He also explored the role of the teacher today, which is unique in human history in that very young children are now often placed with caregivers rather than being sheltered at home with mother, grandmother or other extended family members. The threshold of early childhood has been opened and this presents new challenges.

Download the article: In Memory of Dr. Helmut von Kügelgen

Our dear Helmut von Kügelgen crossed the threshold of death on February 25, 1998 in Stuttgart at age 81. Although his health had declined in recent years, he was able to attend meetings and write letters until shortly before his death. He was known throughout the Waldorf kindergarten movement as the wonderfully wise man who took four classes through as a class teacher and then in retirement devoted himself to the young child, serving as head of the International Waldorf Kindergarten Association. He was also an active teacher in the Kindergarten Seminar in Stuttgart and was a leading force in the circle of religion teachers in Waldorf schools.

Download the article: Reaching Out

International work has been part of our Association's work from its beginning. The Kindergarten Association was founded by a group of 23 kindergarten teachers in the summer of 1983, and our first major task was to help 50 North American kindergarten teachers attend the Dornach kindergarten conference at Easter 1984. The international movement got into our blood, and it's been there ever since.

As the worldwide kindergarten movement has grown (there are now about 1300 kindergartens in 50 countries), the need for activity and support from all the member countries has also grown. Germany still provides the bulk of financial support with incredible generosity year after year, but other countries, including our own, are beginning to take on more responsibility. This year we approached the kindergartens and schools more directly for membership dues, and are very grateful for the result. We also want to thank all of the individuals who have contributed to the International Fund.

Download the article: From the Heart of an African Village

(An Experience of the Essentials of Early Childhood Education)

Day 1: (cold and raining)
“There's the kindergarten!” Ruth Majoweni beamed proudly as she pointed down the muddy village road, past the goats and geese and pigs, past the smiling waving children, past the muddy brick huts, and past the village dam. We could see it in the distance -- a brightly painted tin shed (about the size of an Australian backyard tool shed), set in the corner of a fenced grassy field. A few minutes and many potholes later (a wonderful advertisement for the endurance capacity of a Toyota sedan), our car eventually arrived at the gap in the fence -- apparently there used to be a gate but it had been stolen by one of the neighboring villagers.

Download the article: Brazilian Kindergarten Conference

I worked as a Waldorf class teacher and as a kindergarten teacher for many years. Now I work as a coordinator in the Monte Azul Waldorf School, for very, very poor children in the “favela” in Sao Paulo. I was at the International Kindergarten Conference at Pine Hill and it was a great experience to be there. Because of your conference last year, we organized a Brazilian kindergarten conference which was held in August, 1997. We received a great impulse from your conference. Our kindergarten conference was very, very good. We could meet and share our experiences and feel that we are together in this hard, but beautiful work. Brazil is a very big country with a lot of poverty. We have now 120 kindergartens in all Brazil, north, central and south. They are like little seeds in the desert. In the central area, where we have only small, very poor villages, the Brazilian people are very open to Waldorf education. They “thirst” for new and good ways of working. It is imperative to organize more conferences and meetings, because these make us stronger for the work.

Download the article: Circle Garden

“What was Paradise?
but a garden
an orchard of trees
and herbs, full of
pleasure, and nothing
there but delights."
William Lawson

A kindergarten needs a children’s garden, one where the children can freely enter and enjoy the spaces with easy access to the plants. At the Little Yarra Steiner Kindergarten we have a circle garden. Seven circles within the form of a large circle. Pathways are heavily mulched to reduce weed growth and to define their borders.

The center circle is bordered by the children’s favorite - strawberries. In the center of the strawberry ring stands a beautiful pink rose with garlic planted around its stem. The rose being the Queen and the garlic being the King of the garden world.

Children love to run through the garden and round and round. With their feet on the pathway, their little arms can reach into the circle to pick a strawberry or to pull a carrot. You can begin a circle garden with just one circle adding a second and third whenever you can. The circle garden allows many hands to work together, when planting, weeding or harvesting. The children and teacher are able to work together in a ring. The children follow the teacher with their feet on the path and their hands out-stretched into the circle garden bed.

Download the article: Adult Activity in the Parent and Tot Program

Since the initiation three years ago of a parents and tots program at our Waldorf School in London, Ontario, the focus of the adult activity in the room has evolved. We have gradually expanded the scope of parent work to better meet the needs of a growing number of families per session and a larger space. We have also attempted to work with the Waldorf early childhood principles of imitation and rhythm more fully by surrounding the children with meaningful, rhythmical and understandable work endeavors.

We began with five families in a small and intimate space first at the school and later in my home. During this early experience parents began working each morning on a craft project while the children either played, sat beside a parent to help or participated with me in preparing the snack. Because the space and numbers were small the children felt comfortably connected with their parents and easily moved closer to them or away as the inclination arose.

Download the article: Multi-Culturalism in Waldorf Education

The 1989 Children’s Act requires that adults working with young children show an awareness and sensitivity towards multi-culturalism in the community. This awareness must embrace not only racial groups, but also cultural and religious minorities.

In order to begin to address multi-culturalism we need to ask ourselves certain basic questions:

• Do we create an environment in our kindergarten which affirms the humanity of an African-American family? or one of Asian descent? etc.
• Our past and present is filled with racism, imperialism and nationalism - and minority families are asking us “How can we heal these situations for our children’s future?”
• We must recognize that today there is hardly a spot on our earth where people of diverse cultures have not converged.
• We must recognize that diversity exists within us too. “Learning about another culture makes us more conscious of our own culture and our own heritage”.
• We need to develop an inner attitude of respect and reverence towards people of all cultures (adults and children) so that the children can perceive this and imitate it.

We can review certain aspects of our work in the light of sensitivity to multi-culturalism, e.g. the stories we choose, the celebration of festivals, and equipment.

Download the article: Nkosnati and the Dragon

This story accompanies Steve's article that appears in the Fall 1997 Newsletter.

Once upon a time there was a boy called Nkosnati who lived with his mother in a village at the foot of the Drakensberg. He fetched water from the river and looked after the goats. Sometimes his friends went with him and they found clay on the river bank and sat and modeled animals together.

At the beginning of the rainy season, the people of the village became fearful. They saw the sky darken, heard the roar of the dragon, and saw the flashes of fire from his nostrils. When he was angry, he came over the mountains and brought lashings of wind and rain and blew over people's huts and flooded their land.

One morning, Nkosnati and his friends went with the goats down to the river. They were sitting and making clay animals when suddenly the swallows flew low over their heads. Nkosnati was so excited about their flight that he ran along the river bank and jumped up every now and then, flapping his hands as if he would fly.

Download the article: Briar Rose

Our thanks go to Nancy Foster from Acorn Hill Children's Center for transcribing the nusic and submitting it to us. We do not know the origins of the circle game and would be very grateful if someone could inform us of its background.

This is a large PDF for download only.
Keywords: songs, singing, music, kindergarten

Download the article: Link Between Antibiotics and Developmental Delays

For further information contact: Patricia S. Lemer 301-654-0944

A new, nationwide survey of nearly 700 children is showing a disturbing link between children with developmental delays and the amount of antibiotics they have taken.

The survey, which included youngsters between the ages of one year and 12 years found that those who have taken more than 20 cycles of antibiotics in their lifetime are over 50% more likely to suffer developmental delays. Children who have had three or fewer rounds of antibiotics were half as likely to become developmentally delayed.

Download the article: Report on Vaccination

Gerhard Bedding, Jennifer Thomson and I, attended the First International Public Conference on Vaccination on September 13-14, 1997 in Alexandria, Virginia. The organizers of the conference were Barbara Fisher and Kathi Williams, who lead the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) in the Washington, D.C. area and who have worked tirelessly these past 15 years for the right of parents to informed consent and to freedom of choice with regard to vaccination of their children. They are a voice of sanity crying in the wilderness of misinformation and fear surrounding the issue of vaccination.

Barbara Fisher is the co-author, with Harris Coulter, of the 1985 classic DPT: A Shot in the Dark, which is still the most illuminating book available on the subject of vaccinations. Ms. Fisher and the NVIC lobbied for a Federal no-fault compensation system for vaccine-injured children, which became law in 1986. The vaccine manufacturers supported it because it meant fewer lawsuits against them for the adverse effects of their vaccines. Since 1986, some $800 million dollars have been awarded to injured children or their parents through this system, yet the medical profession incredibly continues to deny any causal connection between vaccinations and brain damage. They maintain that “spontaneous” neurological dysfunctions are not uncommon in childhood and therefore a significant number of them will occur soon after vaccination since these are given so frequently in childhood.

Download the article: Letter from Editor

In preparation for the Kolisko conference, it was recommended that we read Balance in Teaching by Rudolf Steiner. This series of lectures I found to be a great source of wisdom for the early childhood educator. Dr. Steiner states that we must imbue our work with true knowledge of the growing child. It is not an “educational guide book” that we need, but the faculty of loving, objective observation wherein the truth of childhood can be found.

“If we as teachers can enter into this unfolding of the child, there will arise, out of this understanding, the insight into how we need to act.”

Download the article: World Kindergarten Conference

The 1998 World Kindergarten Conference was truly a Whitsun festival, taking place at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, the world center for Anthroposophy, just after the completion of several years of sculptural and artistic transformation of its Great Hall. Sculptors, painters and many volunteers from around the world, working in an intensive process of artistic collaboration, had taken hold of and transformed the Great Hall so that it now radiates warmth, life, and the activity of spiritual, artistic formative forces capable of transforming matter. This was an inspiring context for a conference devoted to the theme, “The Spiritual and Formative Forces for Education and Social Life at the Threshold of the Millennium”.

More than a thousand kindergarten teachers from Europe, Asia, Africa, South and North America gathered in this space in the middle of 1998, at the threshold of the millennium, to consider anew the spiritual foundations of our work in the context of the challenges and unique opportunities of our times.

Download the article: Impact of Evil in Our Time

Reijo Wilenius is the former General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Fin/and. As a young man he was a Waldorf teacher and then taught philosophy at the University for 25 years. He now teaches at the Snellman College, a seminar for anthroposophic studies and Waldorf teacher training in Helsinki. This lecture was given at the International Waldorf Kindergarten Conference in Dornach on May 31, 1998. The article was written by Susan Howard and Joan Almon from their notes of the talk and it has been reviewed by Reijo Wilenius.

Childhood is not merely a preparation for something else; it has a value unto itself. Novalis said,

“The beginning of our humanness is childhood. To the extent that we preserve childhood in ourselves, to that extent do we preserve our humanness.”

There is a long drawn out spring time in Finland, and that is very special. While Dornach is already filled with flowers at this Whitsun time, the southern part of Finland is just getting the first leaves on the birch trees. Further north there is still snow. Every aspect of the spring is to be treasured, and this is like childhood which has a beauty in its own right. Its unfolding takes time. The basis of the Waldorf kindergarten is to strive to understand the meaning of childhood.

Download the article: Right to Childhood

These two lectures were given at the International Waldorf Kindergarten Conference The summary is written by Renate Breipohi with Dr. Glöckler's approval. These first appeared in Star Weavings, the Newsletter of the Australian Kindergarten Association.

Lecture 1
Dr. Michaela Glöckler started by looking at the changes that are happening in our time: there is a growing participatory consciousness, a new emphasis on development, and a new awareness of hindrances.

It has been our task to develop relationships with each other and in this process, we find a relationship to the mighty being of Word, for through words we live in relation to each other.

Now, at the beginning of a new millennium, another step is needed - the step to the deed. The intention expressed in this Conference - to form an Alliance for the Right of Childhood - is such a step. It will be hard work to preserve the foundation of human development.

Download the article: News From WE•CAN

Yes, you read it correctly! After years of working closely together Joan and Susan are now officially co-chairs of the Association. As you may already know, Susan directs the full time and associate early childhood teacher education programs at Sunbridge College, where she also co-directs the Waldorf Education Research Institute and publishes the Research Bulletin. The recent appointment of an Administrative Director at Sunbridge created a wee bit of space in her life which she is pleased to devote to the Early Childhood Association. One thing we promised her is that she would not need to trade one administrative job for another. Our own administrative work will continue to be ably carried by Lydia Roberson with some oversight by Joan. Joan and Lydia also have a number of publication projects on their plates (or in their computers) and will spend the winter months working on them.

It seems every organization needs an acronym these days, and we've gone back and forth as to what ours should be. Technically North America should yield us an NA at the end of ours, but WECANA always seemed to evoke sentences such as “We canna do this and we canna do that!” It just didn't seem to work. “WE CAN” seems closer to our spirit. If you dislike acronyms altogether, that's fine. We're most happy being known as the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America.

Download the article: Movement with Children

I attended the Gradalis conference, “Therapeutic Education for the Early Childhood Educator”, this summer in Denver, Colorado. The keynote speakers were Bonnie River and William Bento from Boulder, Colorado, and Dr. Bruno Callegaro from Kassel, Germany. I came away with many “gifts” from this conference - perhaps the greatest one being an understanding of the importance of healthy movement for the young child.

Much of the conference focused on the four lower senses; balance, touch, life and the sense of self movement. Early in the conference the participants were led through an obstacle course. We walked across a balance beam, a few feet off the ground, hung off monkey bars, jumped from rock to rock, skipped, hopped and twirled over a bar that was waist high - to name but a few activities. All fifty-five of us completed the course according to our own abilities, experiencing the variety of different movements. In our discussions afterwards, the overwhelming consensus was that we felt challenged but enlivened, uplifted, and full of life. We then explored each activity to find out which of the four lower senses were involved in these various movements. In walking the balance beam, for example, we experienced:

Download the article: Research Activity

In June 1998, 15 teachers and prospective teachers of Parent-Child programs gathered in Portland, Oregon for a weekend conference entitled, “A Working with Parents and Very Young Children.” Hosted by Erica Camay and the Portland Waldorf School, the conference brought teachers together from all over the West Coast and as well as from Ohio and Massachusetts. It was a truly exciting weekend as we worked together to better understand this relatively new work within Waldorf education.

Out of our working, the participants decided on a common research theme for the year or for the next few years. Using the indications given by Karl König in the book, Eternal Childhood, we are observing the significance of the 280 day cycle in the first three years (pp. 22-26). König states that at nine months we should see an urge to be upright (will), at 18 months an explosion of language (feeling), at 27 months a change in the expression of concepts (thinking), and at 36 months (three years) the “birth” of the ego. Our research project is to observe and record these intervals and pay attention to their archetypal accuracy -ideally leading to a substantive reporting that could be shared with parents. We are also paying attention to children who do not follow this pattern and what we observe about them at those 280 day points, compared to when they actually achieve the corresponding attributes.