Gateways

Download the article: Meeting the Needs of the Times

This article is excerpted from the forthcoming publication What Is a Waldorf Kindergarten? (available September 2007 from SteinerBooks). It offers a brief overview of the expansion of the Waldorf/Steiner early childhood movement in North America from being primarily a kindergarten movement to the inclusion of parent-child programs, extended day programs and childcare. It introduces the work of LifeWays North America as representing one model of care that has developed from the Waldorf/Steiner early childhood movement.

Rudolf Steiner believed that one of the essential aspects of education was to teach in such a way that the children would learn how to properly breathe. In early childhood we might say "to live in such a way that the children will learn how to breathe."

As a young child in the 1950s, when my mother worked part-time I was always with my grandparents. On days my mother did not work, I was home all day for several days in a row. Occasionally, mother would go to a neighbor's home for coffee and a chat, and I would go with her and play with the children of that household. Whether I was at grandma's house or at home, I was playing by myself or with neighborhood children while the adults went about tending the home. Often my mother would gather the neighborhood children together and sing with us and read stories. It was not called "home-based preschool" back then. It was just life, like breathing.

Download the article: Educating the Feeling-Will in the Kindergarten

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 4, "Educating the Will in Practice," of the book Educating the Will by Michael Howard. The book as a whole explores the quality and training of different aspects of the will in Waldorf education: the thinking-will, feeling-will, and comprehensive or common will. Here Michael Howard argues for the critical importance of cultivating the feeling-will in early childhood, with many practical suggestions. Reprinted with permission, © 2004 AWSNA Publications.

The defining characteristic of feeling-will is the capacity to live deeply into the inner quality of something outside us, knowing and feeling it as if we are within it or it is within us. In the early childhood years a healthy child is naturally inclined to drink in the inner mood and qualities of places and persons. It is one of the tragedies of our times that the ways of the world, including the life of family and school, can dull rather than foster this natural soul attunement. Tragically, many young children come to kindergarten with a sense-nerve disposition already strongly developed. Their thinking has become prematurely intellectual and abstract, and their feeling life inclines toward strong personal like or dislike. It is crucial for later life that in these early years we do everything we can to keep the feeling-will alive as much and as long as possible.

Download the article: Connections with the Pickler Institute

This report is by two attendees of the November 2006 Pikler Institute Course on Socialization and Conflict in Budapest.

Susan Weber: For those of us working with parents and very young children, or working with children alone in the first three years, an aspect of social development that will come to each of us sooner or later is that of aggression and conflict. Observing the child make her way from walking to joining her social community in play as a three-year-old, we cannot help but recognize that conflict is part of this journey. As a playgroup leader and teacher of teachers for many years, I have tucked away so many moments of the experience of conflict - child to child, child with parent, and child with teacher. I have pondered, studied, and practiced facilitation of groups of little ones who are tenderly reaching out into their worlds in anticipation of strengthening their nascent selves and of building connections with others.

Download the article: The Power of Touch

In February 2007, I had the pleasure of working again with Fred Donaldson as we both delivered keynote talks at the east coast Waldorf early childhood conference. For those who don't know Fred, he is a "play specialist." He travels the world playing with children, youth, adults, and elderly persons in all kinds of venues from ordinary preschools to prisons. He also plays with animals, most notably wolves, elephants, and lions as well as dolphins and manatees.

He's learned important lessons along the way, and at the essence of his work is the realization that play is a form of love. It is a gift from the Creator and provides a deep connection between us and other living beings. It is part of the wellspring of all that is creative within us. A child once said to him, "Fred, when we play we're not different." This expression of unity and love that is experienced within the world of play is among the great gifts that Fred imparts when he speaks and shares his stories.

Download the article: Meeting Each Other: The Human Encounter

The following is an excerpt from the opening lecture of the 2005 World Early Childhood Conference at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. It was given by Dr. Heinz Zimmerman, longtime Waldorf educator and former leader of the Pedagogical Section of the School of Spiritual Science. In 1964, Heinz Zimmerman wrote his doctoral dissertation on the "Typology of the Spontaneous Conversation." This interest in what takes place during our human encounters has continued for more than forty years.

Dr. Zimmerman gave the opening and closing lectures of the 2005 conference to early childhood educators from 40 different countries. The following excerpt is from the end of his opening talk, where he spoke about the art of education as an art of human encounter. In early childhood education today, working together with other adults is often the most challenging aspect of our work. Dr. Zimmerman describes how we can cultivate our ability to truly meet each other, "I" to "I". It is this human encounter that creates the vessel of community in which our children develop.

Download the article: A Whitsun Letter

I am writing to share my delight in reading about Ruth Ker's work with older children in the kindergarten. Her descriptions took me back immediately to my mixed-age kindergarten teaching years, and memories of individual children arose over and over.

But my greatest joy was not in these memories, as wonderful as they are. My delight was in Ruth's delicate tapestry of the subtle elements of a Waldorf early childhood program for older children. One after another, Ruth articulates, with living examples, the pedagogical elements of Waldorf early childhood education. These gossamer threads shine with the radiance of the life forces and powers of true imagination that identify such a program. Her equanimity, positivity and openness to what the children in her care need, to the subtle processes of human development that the older kindergarten child undergoes, are the hallmark of the blessing that this education can bestow upon the incarnating individuality.

Download the article: Clean-up Time and Gnomes

Occasionally when I visit kindergartens, I hear a particular song which accompanies clean-up time, and recently there was a lovely anecdote in Gateways which involved this same song about a "dusty gnome" who calls on us to clean our home. I would like to pass on an experience I had many years ago when a master teacher from a European Waldorf school came to Acorn Hill to teach a course. I no longer recall which teacher it was, nor how this topic arose.

Download the article: The Essentials of Waldorf Early Childood Education

Is there a Waldorf early childhood "curriculum?" Are there specific activities - perhaps puppet plays or watercolor painting, for example - that are required in a Waldorf program? Are there certain materials and furnishings - lazured, soft-colored walls, handmade playthings, natural materials, beeswax crayons - that are essential ingredients of a Waldorf setting? What is it that makes Waldorf early childhood education "Waldorf?" Rudolf Steiner spoke on a number of occasions about the essentials of education and of early childhood education. His words shed light on what he considered fundamental:

Essentially, there is no education other than self-education, whatever the level may be. This is recognized in its full depth within Anthroposophy, which has conscious knowledge through spiritual investigation of repeated Earth lives. Every education is self-education, and as teachers we can only provide the environment for children's self-education. We have to provide the most favorable conditions where, through our agency, children can educate themselves according to their own destinies. This is the attitude that teachers should have toward children, and such an attitude can be developed only through an ever-growing awareness of this fact. (Rudolf Steiner, The Child's Changing Consciousness)

Thus the essential element in early childhood education is actually the educator, who shapes and influences the children's environment, not only through the furnishings, activities, and rhythms of the day, but most important, through the qualities of her own being and her relationships: to the children and other adults in the kindergarten, to the parents, to daily life in the kindergarten, and to living on earth.

Download the article: The Healing Power of Play

When I began teaching young children in 1971, I was untrained and unsure of myself as a teacher, but I was convinced of two things: There was a spark of spirit in every human being and there had to be a way of keeping it alive in children; and there was a way for a classroom full of twenty three- to six-year-olds to play deeply and harmoniously with each other and not sink into chaos.

It took me some years to realize how closely related these two realities are-spirituality and play. It is hard to put into words, but there were many days in my kindergarten when I experienced the deep hum of children at play and think, this is as close to heaven as you are likely to get in this lifetime.

Over the years, I saw many individual and cultural differences in how children play, but I was especially struck by the universal quality of play. Play is one of the core experiences of life, and is intimately connected with children's growth, health and well-being.

Download the article: The Name of "John" and the Fairy Tales

This is the second in a series of article looking into the depths of fairy tales and trying to shed light on some of what can be found within. The editor asks that others offer up their own thoughts, comments and questions on this theme as shared knowledge that there is not a "one and only way" to understand stories, or any other aspect of our work with young children.

There is nothing of greater blessing than for a child than to nourish it with everything that brings the roots of human life together with those of cosmic life. A child is still having to work creatively, forming itself, bringing about the growth of its body, unfolding its inner tendencies; it needs the wonderful soul-nourishment it finds in fairy tale pictures, for in them the child's roots are united with the life of the world. (Rudolf Steiner, The Poetry and Meaning of Fairy Tales)

Download the article: Observing the Young Child

Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere and into the here. . .
And how did you come to us, you dear?
God thought about you and so I am here.
George MacDonald

When Waldorf early childhood colleagues are together, we are always talking about the children in our classes, care groups, and homes. We carry these children in our hearts and have a deep desire to serve them. I have heard many stories, and have a few of my own, that demonstrate how a single school year, a few months or sometimes even a more brief encounter, are evidence of the help and support teachers can offer children in this life-phase of their journey on earth. There seem to be children coming to our classes who are more individualized than in decades past, and the face, the movement/activity of childhood is changing. And it occurred to me, like in the MacDonald poem, God must be thinking a lot about us because these children are finding their way to us in increasing numbers. At the February 2006 WECAN conference at Sunbridge College, among mounds of sparkling snow, I witnessed over three hundred teachers who were up for the challenge of wanting to know better how they might serve these children of today.

Download the article: In Search of Nursery

Introduction
The Worldwide Initiative for Early Childhood Care undertook to establish a global network of caregivers. Responding to a mandate from the International Waldorf Kindergarten Association (now known as the International Association for Steiner/Waldorf Early Childhood Education), we sought to strengthen linkages between Steiner-based caregivers and mentors worldwide.

We devised a questionnaire, had it translated into German, Danish, Spanish and Russian and distributed as widely as possible. Caregivers responded by sending us back basic information about their programs (childcare, parent education, playgroups, etc), the ages of children in their care and a profile of their professional training, education and work experience. They also shared their personal philosophies and motivations and the particular problems and challenges they faced. They were also asked to indicate whether they felt they needed mentoring or whether they could offer it to others.

Download the article: An Update on the Alliance of Childhood

When the Alliance for Childhood formed in 1999, we had one major goal in mind: to address the declining health and well-being of children and help restore many of childhood's healthy essentials such as play, the arts, story telling and strong relationships with caring adults. I often ask myself, how are we doing?

There is certainly a much wider recognition now than there was then of the growing stress children face and of problems like obesity that plague many children's lives. The awareness is not yet deep enough, but the beginnings have been made. We are working toward a "tipping point" when the public awakens enough to the problems and becomes committed to taking action. Impossible? We don't think so, but it is certainly challenging.

Meanwhile, we are working on several fronts: the excessive use of computer technology and other media in children's lives; the commercialization of childhood, and most actively now on the restoration of creative play in childhood.

Download the article: Sharing Impressions of England

A summer holiday trip to England had me reciting verses and songs from the kindergarten Wynstones collections. I was actually seeing things I had only imagined.One Wynstones song kept coursing through my mind as I saw "bracken" for the first time.

Yellow the bracken, golden the sheaves,
Rosy the apples, crimson the leaves,
Mist on the hillside, clouds grey and white,
Autumn good morning, Summer goodnight.

Bracken (if you share my unfamiliarity with it) is a tall, vigorous, fern-like plant that grows on the hillsides. But unlike the ferns I know, these are huge. A hike took us tramping through a hillside of bracken, as tall as my shoulder. We literally had to whack our way through with a stick, so thick, sturdy, and abundant were these tall "fern trees." Our English friend guiding us said that though they seemed like a small forest in the height of summer, in the autumn they would all fall flat to the ground, covering the hillside like a yellow carpet. When I saw a photograph of autumn bracken, I experienced with my eyes what the song describes. The color is a golden yellow. The plants are completely collapsed to the ground. To see it grow and regenerate the next spring must be a very heartening and encouraging experience.

Download the article: Nuestro Hogar: A Sheltering Environment

In the brilliant morning sunshine of la sierra (the highlands), the fields and gardens along the road leading to Nuestro Hogar in Pifo, Ecuador sparkled greenly, while the distant peaks of the Andes were royally adorned in soft purple hues. "It is a perfect morning for a walk," said Maria del Carmen Vasquez, director of Nuestro Hogar, as she greeted me warmly at the top of the road. She and the older children went for a long walk every morning at the same time, regardless of the weather, Maria del Carmen told me.

As we walked along the path to the house, I saw the three older children run to the gate to greet her. "They know of your visit and are very excited," she said as she squatted down to greet each child at his eye level, taking his hand or touching him lightly on the shoulder. She spoke softly and clearly as she told them that she had come to take them for their walk. "This is Senora Gallardo, our visitor. She has brought us bread to eat and flowers to decorate our house."

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.

Download the article: The First Seven Years: The Physiology of Childhood

If you have ever wished that someone who had fully digested Steiner's Study of Man would focus on the first seven years of the child's life and expand and deepen our communal understanding by writing a book on that theme, then consider your wish fulfilled. Dr. Edmond Schoorel, a Dutch pediatrician, has written such a book. Originally published in Holland, it has been translated and published in English and is available now. As Rena Osmer says on the back cover, "This book may well become the new study text for Waldorf early childhood educators." Dr. Schoorel looks at all aspects of early childhood and penetrates it with his deep understanding. The workings of the four bodies of the human being, the developing and function of the senses, the workings of the etheric all receive in-depth treatment in a clear and accessible way. In particular, Schoorel examines Steiner's admonitions in Study of Man to teach the children how to breathe, and how to sleep. So he looks at much of child development, and the activities that can support that in the light of breathing and/or sleeping.

Download the article: Kids Are Not the Problem

A case for investing at least the same attention and resources to inspire and mentor adults, parents and childcare providers, as we give to the care and education of young children.

Mention parenting or early childhood education and people naturally think about children. Children don't need early childhood education. Parenting is about adults. We hear the words "parenting is about adults," nod our heads up and down, but deep down we know it's really about kids. This prejudice is blinding.

Focusing exclusively on kids, ignoring the needs of adults, is like changing a tire when the car is out of gas. We do it all the time, mostly out of self defense.

Download the article: Meeting at the Eye of the Needle

The WECAN Mentoring Task Force has been studying professional development for Waldorf early childhood educators. How do we learn as adults who work with young children? What is the role of a mentor in this lifelong learning process? How is learning of adults different from the learning of children? In this article below, task force member Susan Silverio explores the work of Coenraad van Houten on adult learning and the life processes. Her article will be included in the guidelines for early childhood mentoring that the Mentoring Task Force plans to publish through WECAN in the coming year.

And so they meet - two early childhood teachers/caregivers.
Perhaps one is retired from classroom teaching. Perhaps one has just begun her first Waldorf kindergarten class, or a home-based Life Ways center.
Or perhaps both are seasoned teachers seeking further development and the inspiration to continue.
Both are united on behalf of the young child and the future of human development.
At this time, one is called to serve as a mentor.
We will call the other the "mentee" for now. Although one is designated the mentor, both are on a path of self-education and adult learning.
What are the various paths of adult learning and what are the processes involved? And how might these relate to mentoring?

Download the article: Finding the Realm of the Spirit of Humanity

The following is a report on two of the three lectures by Michaela Glockler at the 2006 WECAN East Coast Early Childhood Conference on "The Spirit of Humanity in Early Childhood Education." The conference took place in February in Spring Valley, New York, and was attended by three hundred Waldorf early childhood educators.

On Friday evening and Saturday morning, Dr. Michaela Glöckler read to us a quotation from Gandhi:
There are times
when you have to obey
a call which is
the highest of all,
that is, the voice of conscience
even though such obedience
may cost many a bitter tear,
and even more,
separation from friends,
from family,
from the state
to which you may belong,
from all that you have held
as dear as life itself.
For this obedience
is the law of our being. (1919)

Download the article: The Daily Blessing of the Older Child in the Kindergarten

I cannot speak about my daily routine without acknowledging the importance of the mixed-age setting within which I work. Repeatedly, the younger children are invaluable for keeping the older children interested in the lively play scenarios, reminding them about the wonder of new discoveries and helping the older children to modify their robust approach to life. Of course, all of this happens spontaneously and unconsciously as they eagerly embark on the ever-new discoveries each day. During our day together, we are constantly reminded about just how important it is to the younger children that the older ones are met with limits and expectations that make it safe and respectful for everyone. There is a sigh of relief and a visible change to the countenance of the older and younger children when the boundaries are maintained and disruptive behaviors are met with matter-of-fact justice.

Download the article: Why are we Teaching? What are we Teaching?

When I first began teaching, I thought my main goals were to create a wonderful environment for the children, to create a harmonious breathing in the morning and to give them an opportunity to experience through their head, heart and hands. I still feel these are important elements in our work. However, over the years I have come to see that there are other, more subtle aspects that are equally important.

These lie in the social realm. Many questions come to mind. Is it part of the teacher's role to enter into the social realm or do we "let the children work it out?" Do the children feel safe in our classroom? Are the children free to play with whomever they want or can they reject other children? Do we step in when the play becomes exclusive or too rough? Is the role of the teacher to create the social mood, or is it set by the children? How do we meet the children who at the age of six are saying, "You are not the boss of me?" What do we do when we are met with outright defiance from a child?

Download the article: The Path of the Frog King

If you really read the fairy-tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other - the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales. The whole happiness of fairyland hangs upon a thread, upon one thread. Cinderella may have a dress woven on supernatural looms and blazing with unearthly brilliance; but she must be back when the clock strikes twelve. The king may invite fairies to the christening, but he must invite all the fairies, or frightful results will follow ... A promise is broken to a cat, and the whole world goes wrong. A promise is broken to a yellow dwarf, and the whole world goes wrong. A girl may be the bride of the God of Love himself if she never tries to see him; she sees him and he vanishes away. . .A man and woman are put in a garden on condition that they do not eat one fruit; they eat it, and lose their joy in all the fruits of the earth.

This great idea, then, is the backbone of all folklore ­the idea that all happiness hangs on one thin veto; all positive joy depends on one negative. Now it is obvious that there are many philosophical and religious ideas akin to or symbolized by this; but it is not with them that I wish to deal here. It is surely obvious that all ethics ought to be taught to this fairy-tale tune; that, if one does the thing forbidden, one imperils all the things provided ... This is the profound morality of fairy-tales; which so far from being lawless, go to the root of all law ... We are in this fairyland on sufferance; it is not for us to quarrel with the conditions under which we enjoy this wild vision of the world. The vetoes are indeed extraordinary, but then so are the concessions ...

Download the article: Nurturing the Mother and her Newborn

Wherever a baby is born - in a brightly-lit, shining hospital, in the dimness of thatched hut, under an open starry sky, in the mother's bed - it is the mosaic of faces, voices, and hands that receive him that are the first messages about the world he has been born into. Some cultures have encoded the behaviors and attitudes that, from the moment of birth provide for a healthy, nurturing and protective environment for newborns through the wisdom of long-practiced traditions.

Babies born in the Highland region of Ecuador are nurtured and protected from the day of birth by a custom known as la dieta. This tradition surrounding the postpartum period guides the care of new mothers and their infants. La dieta provides a complete "script" for the actions of the immediate family. It is the responsibility of the mother's female kin and her husband's female kin to nurture the new mother and assume her household tasks, permitting her to turn her full attention to her child. Mother, mother-in-law, sisters, sisters-in-law attend to her, cook for her and bring her gifts of food from their own kitchens.

Download the article: Pikler Institute's Doors Remain Open

In January, the world became aware of the devastating financial crisis which threatened to close the doors of the Pikler Institute, also known as Loczy, in Budapest, Hungary, a residential home for forty-five infants and children under the age of seven whose families arc unable or unwilling to care for them. The Pikler Institute is a research and training center for early childhood professionals as well as a residential home for children, founded by Dr. Emmi Pikler in 1946 at the request of the city of Budapest.

By early February, the Pikler/LoczyFund USA reached its goal of raising $100,000 for Loczy in just three weeks! Contributions came from all over the USA and even from Mexico, Canada, Australia, and Israel. Anna Tardos, daughter of Emmi Pikler and director of Loczy, in a letter to the board of the Pikler/Loczy Fund USA, wrote of her gratitude and joy at the support given by all who helped keep Loczy's doors open. She was astonished that it took only three weeks to reach the goal of $100,000.