Gateways

Download the article: Potato Pogatcha Recipe

Here is a traditional Hungarian recipe to use with your rolling pins. It comes from the new WECAN publication For the Children of the World: Stories and Recipes from the International Association for Steiner/Waldorf Early Childhood Education, and was submitted by Joli Kiss, the IASWECE Council representative for Hungary. Proceeds from the sale of this book benefit lASWECE’s work on behalf of children around the world.

Download the article: The Little Seed

This delightful spring story is also excerpted from For the Children of the World. It was submitted by Silvia Jensen, the IASWECE Council representative for Brazil, and translated by Louise de Forest. The illustration (in the pdf) is by Gudrid Malmsten from Sweden.

There was once a little seed that fell from a boy’s hand, the little seed looked upon the earth and saw so many beautiful things that she began to feel sad that she was only a very little seed. She longed to be like the cherries hanging above her or a sweet and juicy orange and not just a little seed.

Download the article: The Merry Month of May

Bracelets that look like miniature maypoles can be made with the children before doing this circle. A round form can be made from paper twists, pipe cleaners or other material that fits over the child’s hand. Streamers of various bright colors of crepe paper can be cut into thin strips and tied onto the bracelet. This is a fun way for the children to practice tying. This decorative bracelet can be worn during the May Day dances to make them festive. This circle gives the opportunity to whistle, something the children love to practice. A small felted robin bird can also join this circle.

On May Day we dance           Turn round Crouch down
On May Day we sing
For this is the day                Crouch down
We welcome the spring          Jump up to standing position
Clap on the word “spring”

To continue please download the full article, link above.

Download the article: Three Russian Kindergartens

Around the World

The kindergartens our small group of four from ISIS Cultural Outreach International visited in central Russia this past summer started around 1989, when glasnost had opened Russia’s doors to the world in the midst of the chaos ensuing from perestroika.

At our first stop in Irkutsk in Siberia, near Lake Baikal and the border of Russia and Mongolia, German and Scandinavian Waldorf educators came and worked first with mothers of children with special needs and then with those wanting a Waldorf school, the kindergarten is in an old section of town with great charm but also many challenges, including drafty buildings, and until recently a dependence on a well on the street from which water had to be hauled to the kindergarten on a sled, even in bitter winter weather, the Anchorage Waldorf School will continue to help raise money to winterize another set of windows to hold the heat from the large, centrally located masonry stove in the nap room with its bunks for the children who stay all day.

Download the article: Book Review: Therapeutic Storytelling by Susan Perrow

Therapeutic Storytelling
Hawthorn Press, 2012

Children love stories, The nature stories and fairy tales we share in our early childhood classes provide daily soul nourishment, There are also the “pedagogical” stories we create spontaneously to picture to the children a more healthy behavior when something is out of kilter in the moment. In her new book, Susan Perrow takes us a step further to introduce therapeutic stories.

Susan is described as a “story doctor.” She has done her work as storyteller, early childhood educator, and teacher trainer in Australia, New Zealand, the British Isles, South Africa, Kenya, eastern Europe, Asia, and China. In her storytelling workshops with educators, therapists, and parents, she has shared many stories and the tools we need to create stories for our own children. She gave the introduction to this type of story in her first book, Healing Stories for Difficult Behaviors. Now this volume expands with examples of one hundred and one stories that have arisen out her own creative work and within workshops she has guided in different countries.

Download the article: Book Review: Under the Stars by Renate Long-Breipohl

Under the Stars: The Foundation of Steiner Waldorf Early Childhood Education
Hawthorn Press, 2012

This is a very thoughtful book of essays that provide a stimulating journey through the phenomena of early childhood development, the introduction includes an interesting historical overview of how Steiner/Waldorf early childhood work developed purely through oral and experiential tutoring for twenty-five years before any publications on the subject or formal training courses appeared, then some of Rudolf Steiner’s own words on the child under seven were compiled for the use of the growing number of kindergarten teachers, and guides to the practicalities of kindergarten work slowly began to appear. More recently there have been deeper works going beyond the practical, alongside the development of more formal trainings, this book is an important addition at a time when the tremendous international growth of Waldorf early childhood education requires research and consideration of the quality that it offers.

Download the article: Sea Turtle Puppet Play

Visiting the Carolina coastline, I was newly introduced to the wonderful and mysterious world of sea turtles.

During their long lifetimes they travel far and wide, often swimming over a thousand miles to return to summer beaches from whence they hatched for the purpose of laying their own eggs, ^is done, the female sea turtle covers the eggs with warm sand and returns to the sea. About two months later these eggs hatch and by the light of the full moon the “hatchling” babies find their way to the sea before the cold winds begin to blow, They must complete this sandy journey by nighttime’s shelter to avoid hungry predators.

Download the article: Helping Hands

Once there was a little girl who lived in a little yellow cottage at the edge of the wood with her mother. One day, not long ago, when she was playing outside she found a big brown mushroom near the vegetable garden. Underneath the mushroom cap, she saw a little hobgoblin in the grass lying on his back. He wore a red hat that was a little crumpled and needed a washing.

“I want a little friend that I can always carry with me,” she thought. “Will you come and live in my pocket and play with me?” she asked the hobgoblin. “Well, then, pick me up, and tuck me into your pocket, and be quick about it,” he muttered a bit crossly, and so she knelt down, picked up the hobgoblin and tucked him into her pocket.

Download the article: Halloween Circle

There was an old witch, believe it if you can
She tapped on the window and she ran, ran, ran.
She flew helter skelter with her toes in the air
Cornstalks flying from the witch’s hair.
Swish went the broomstick, meow went the cat
Plop went the hop toad sitting on her lap Wheeeeee said I, such funny, funny, fun....
Halloween night when the witches run!

Download the article: A Glow of Inspiration

I have been back from the International Conference at the Goetheanum for a few weeks now, and I am still feeling a glow of inspiration from the mysterious veils of encounter that I experienced there. Images of light, color and form in the richness of beauty in nature, the arts, thought—and most of all, humanity—filled my soul and continue to bring sustenance for my work. I am so grateful for the communion of soul nourishment that was shared with so many others. It is a gift to have had the chance to raise voices in song, follow threads of thought woven round the mystery of the child’s incarnation, and to have delved into practical activity that deepened those thoughts.

Download the article: A Journey to Dornach: Desire and Determination

I had wanted to go to the World Early Childhood Conference in Dornach since I first heard about it when I was still in training at Sunbridge in 2009. Dr. Michaela Glöckler, Renate Long-Breipohl, Helle Heckmann, and Edmond Schoorel, not to mention amazing teachers from North America, were all going to be there and I wanted to hear what they had to say. It seemed incredible to think it could ever happen, that I could actually get on a plane during the school year and go to the Goetheanum. There were many obstacles to my going—finances, the fact that I was a first year faculty member at a new school, my six-year-old son and our two dogs that would need care during my absence. Yet at last everything came together and I was able to go.

Download the article: The I and the Body in Sensory Existence

Two polarities come into play now when we consider sense experience. Where are the twelve senses with regard to the young person? We have two streams, One is the stream which we bring from the past, from Isis to Sophia, the stream of wisdom. These are the inner images we bring from life before birth. Then through the twelve senses we turn toward the world, toward the future, from which the sense-experiences approach us.

An example from the “past” stream can be seen in questions a four-year-old asks. “Mummy, how does God make hair grow?" The parent answers, “It grows like grass.” The next question is, "How does God make legs and arms grow?” These are questions coming from the inner stream of wisdom.

Then from the other stream come other questions. A little child is sleeping in the car and is wakened by a loud bang. He wakes with a start, jerks eyes open, and stretches his arms like a marionette moved from outside. But then the child continues to sleep. The I of the child is outside in the surroundings. It perceives what has happened, and reacts in the limbs, but the child goes on sleeping. What happens in the middle realm of the soul? The senses go on this stream, to the future. Little children intensively take in the environment in their experience and then do something with it.

Download the article: Accelerated and Delayed Development

The theme suggested to me for this lecture was that of hindrances to the incarnation of the I. Out of the many possible hindrances I chose to focus mainly on two: on delay with respect to the development of movement and on acceleration with respect to the development of speech and thinking. These are the two most common challenges for the incarnation of the I in children today. I am well aware that 1 am speaking out of my experiences with children in an affluent country where children are endangered not by hunger, but by obesity and related conditions, and by over stimulation of the senses. However I am confident that what is presented here will be relevant with modification for children in a wide range of circumstances.

Download the article: The I, the Self, and the Body

As you think upon your own experiences, do you recognize this? You have prepared a wonderful program for your group, your class, or your child ’s birthday party. Everything is well thought out and well prepared. And then suddenly something happens that messes everything up. It storms and rains while you prepared the party for outside. There are extra children in your class because your colleague got sick. Or the helper for the birthday party has called to say she cannot come. The whole plan is changed, but then you have to improvise.

Improvising is the normal situation for a child who comes to earth. Children carefully prepare. They choose the country, the culture, the language, parents and other people they want to meet. But the reality then turns out to be that the parents they have chosen are getting divorced, the school is shutting down, the best karmic friend is moving away. The child needs to improvise all the time in the incarnating process. Most children can cope with this; they have the possibility in their physiology to do this, though the circumstances may be difficult. We will speak today of the physiology of the predictable and the unpredictable in development, steps going up and down.

First we will look at two incarnating routes before working them out. The threefold human being is the starting point with the upper pole, rhythmic area, and lower pole. Rudolf Steiner gives these three areas double names: the nerve-sense area/upper pole, metabolic-limb area/lower pole, and in between the area of rhythmic processes—breathing and circulation.

Download the article: From Unborness to "I" Consciousness

There are three steps for 'I"-consciousness awareness to find its place in the physical body. How does this happen? We constantly experience I -awareness as a point [a large dot as 'point” was drawn on the blackboard]; and if we don’t succeed in focusing, concentrating, so that we become totally present with ourselves, we are not really there. We have to “be there” to look at the complexity of this world and make it clear to ourselves, the world of thoughts, feelings, of our striving, of what we want to do and are not able to do because of something in our way. There is all this richness, this wealth. On the other hand there are the complex conditions of our life—one billion people are starving; they live with the minimum. Someone else has too much to eat, and those in between ask what planet we are on here where this can be tolerated. Rudolf Steiner said calmly that the social question is a pedagogical question. And the pedagogical question is a medical question. If you don't know what is healthy and what is sick, how can you recognize the healthful aims of education?

Download the article: Our Children: Our Guide Towards Becoming Truly Human

I started my teaching career in a daycare center, working with young three-year-old children. That is where I met Natasha. She was the only child of a poor, uneducated family. Her skin was pasty white—a sure sign of lack of nutritious food—she was obese and had a little upturned nose. She had tiny blue eyes and long, straggly hair. Every day she would stand in the door with her large body and announce, ‘I'm here," in a whiny, nasal voice. Outwardly I treated Natasha fairly, just as every other child; whenever she wanted, she sat on my lap and she joined in all our activities. She was a member of the group, but inwardly it was clear to me that I did not like her. When she would announce her presence, I would experience a sinking feeling in myself and would inwardly groan. I was glad to see Natasha move on to the four-year-old class.

But I have never forgotten Natasha; all these years later she is still with me, I failed Natasha. Natasha invited me to go on a journey with her, which I refused to take. She was providing me with an opportunity to develop and learn something that I had not yet learned. I think Natasha sacrificed herself for my growth as a teacher and now I always feel her right behind me.

Download the article: The Coming into Relationship with the Physical Body

Imagine how we each came to our kindergarten trainings and our individual kindergarten settings. How much did we initiate ourselves, and how much was the result of events we could not plan or anticipate? After four years of teaching, I had planned to resign my post and go to teach in Italy. But that did not work out. We approach something out of our own intentions, but what actually happens can be something quite different. When we reflect back we can often see that where we have ended up is more of what we truly wanted than what we asked for. We have an intention in mind and then the world answers with its will forces.

So we picture being in our kindergarten. We want to continue to learn. How can we do this together with the children and our colleagues? How can our colleagues help us continue our evolution? Colleagues can point out that we talk too much, we sing wrong. We are somehow also attached to our difficulties. My difficulty was in keeping the kindergarten tidy and ordered. My class families came to clean the classroom and a mother pointed out that the radiator was dusty. But the child said," Philipp likes dust.”

How can we talk about such things with colleagues with confidence, trust, and love? We do not want to be stuck in seeing only the difficulties. But we want to see how we can help each other to go further. We need to feel the invisible side of our colleagues, what it is one wants to become. Within ourselves we have a cold and antipathetic side and another side of strong sympathy and warmth. We want to feel the possibilities of the colleague and where he truly wants to go. We need to have a good mixture of these two sides—that is real love.

Download the article: From the Editor
By Nancy Blanning

At birthday time in our Waldorf early childhood groups, the child is offered a story of the birth journey to the earth, the details differ, but the imagination usually follows a similar thread. A child is playing contentedly in another land when suddenly an awareness, a longing, awakens within the child. Memory stirs of a long-ago-made promise to travel through the stars to the earth to be with old and new friends and family with whom he will complete unfinished adventures and begin new ones, the child readies for the journey, perhaps also being given gifts that will be useful for earthly tasks to come—a crown, cape, cloak, cup, sword, lantern, or seeds to plant as possibilities, then walking over the rainbow bridge, sailing in a boat of starlight, or even riding on the back of a great white bird, the child finds his way into the parents’ waiting arms, the child is born and the earthly biography begins.