Michaelmas

The autumn winds blow open the gate,

St. Michael for you we wait.

We follow you, show us the way,

With joy we greet this autumn day.

Good morning, good morning, good morning.

The silver rain, the shining sun,

the fields where scarlet poppies run,

the fallen leaves blow up and away,

with joy we greet this autumn day.

Good morning, good morning, good morning.

Singing, the Second Graders opened their class play, performing their version of Saint George and the dragon for the lower school on Friday. These were no longer the delicate little children who gave roses to their seniors in May and made scores of parents sniffle into their tissues, as they sang of climbing rainbows with their friends. Their voices were strong, their presence was great and they clearly enjoyed showing us what they had learned. Sophine, who's been having anxiety attacks for several weeks over having to perform in front of other people, rose to the occasion and did a splendid job leading the 5-person dragon.

Following the morning assembly, the entire school congregated on the lower school playground to watch the great dragon being tamed by four lovely maidens with Michael's help from the roof of the school. Then the seventh grade performed a lovely sword dance. The whole day had somewhat of a medieval or Renaissance feel to it, as all classes walked after their banners, children played at jousting and games to test their skills, and the day ended with a four-way tug of war. It was a joyous day with glorious early autumn weather.

I've been struggling a little with what to write on this blog. On one hand, I want to share some of the school culture and stories that I believe may be helpful to others. On the other hand, I am acutely aware of boundaries between my personal and professional life. So in all likelihood, I will keep "school talk" mostly to descriptions of festivals and other ideas that inspire me. This concern over what I feel is appropriate to write here is the main reason posting has been so sparse. For example, I had a whole post written on a short part of a class I taught on Ancient India in the 5th Grade. But once I finished it, it felt like an invasion of sorts to post it and somewhat presumptious. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to balance this delicate subject.

Of course there are lots of other reasons (excuses?) why I haven't written much. I seem to spend my days working way too hard, driving kids back and forth, and spending as much awake time as possible with my children so they don't become strangers. Add the demands of my teacher training and Foundation Studies requirements, and it gets pretty busy around here!

Anyway, I wish you all a very blessed and joyful autumn.

They're paying me for this?

With two days of work under my belt, I am so thankful for this teacher inservice week. It's an opportunity to really meet your colleagues, discuss pedagogical aspects and form relationships with people. Yesterday we focused on our pedagogical work which this year consists of gaining deeper insights into the six constitutional types presented by Steiner in his curative course. As luck would have it, we talked mostly about the type that most closely describes Sophine's many struggles. I realized that we've spent a lot of time treating different pieces of the whole through nutrition, counseling, Occupational Therapy etc. The work we did as a faculty over the last two days helped me get a very deep picture of the whole child and her challenges. I got this eerie feeling that the universe was nodding, whispering "this is why I sent you here."

This afternoon we were blessed with instruction in Spatial Dynamics. We did some wonderful and fun social games with balls, and yes, we did throw the javelin (as do all Waldorf students in 5th Grade, when they meet for the annual Olympic Games.) I feel like I'm having way too much fun! The most wonderful part for me though was coming home to my children, and for the first time in ages feeling completely open to them. We played on the bed, did a rhyming game and made up a very silly story. Not once did I think of calling a friend or checking my email. So today I'm doubly blessed.

I wanted to send a quick thank you for all the kind emails I have received. They mean so much. Change is exciting and quite a bit scary, so knowing that I have people supporting me in this journey means a ton to me.

Tomorrow is the first day

The month of August has been a struggle for me. As you can read in the previous post, removing myself from my regular life was an incredibly inspiring experience. But after all that inspiration, I had to come home and deal with life here and now, and that can be quite a challenge. I feel changed on some very deep level and have struggled with the fact that the world hasn't magically changed with me.

I am not alone in this. Numerous emails, phonecalls and personal conversations with people on this path have confirmed similar experiences all around. So I try to learn to strike a balance between all that I see and want and seemingly need, and the visions, desires and needs of those around me. I think this will be a long road of examining our lives as a family and individuals, looking closely at our values, dreams and needs. The resulting changes won't necessarily be easy, but I think they will be good for all of us.

Tomorrow I begin work. A huge transition for the whole family. I haven't worked outside the home in almost nine years, and I'm getting really close and personal with the whole struggle of balancing work and family. I am blessed that my children are in the same place I am, and that my employer is wonderfully understanding of my situation. I have the working mother's dream schedule, and more support than I know what to do with. So to say I'm excited might be understating things just a bit. I am so thrilled to be working with people who are traveling on the same road I am, though some of them are so far ahead of me, I might want to bring my binoculars. Beats whining "waaaaiiit!" from behind, no?

This excitement is tempered a bit with the fact that my children and husband are likely to find this transition a whole lot less thrilling than I am. Change is always challenging, but I deeply hope that this change will benefit us all in the long run. Heidi, as always, seems the most adaptable, being the go with the flow kind of sanguine fairy sprite she still is. Sophine on the other hand will probably spend some time in regression land before hitting her stride in about mid-October. Husband will likely quietly go about his usual ways until he finds it no longer works for him, then we'll sit down and talk about how things might work differently.

So off I go, a week of working intensely with my colleagues on some of the "constitutional types" as outlined by Steiner. Somewhere in there I hope inspiration will hit me and tell me exactly what materials I need to develop for my classes in order to support their development while staying at a beginner level linguistically. As my instructor from the summer wrote: "Just remember: warmth, humor and limits!"

As a final note, I would like to add a bit of a disclaimer to my last post and perhaps this whole blog: don't ever assume that what I write here is in any way representative of "Waldorf." I am just beginning to learn what it all means, so perhaps in a few years I can speak with some authority. Right now all I can do is shed some light on what it all means for me.

Reflections from teacher training

Since most of my writing at the moment is happening offline (and a good thing that is, too - trust me on this one!), I thought I'd share something I wrote while at teacher training.

I have been asked to describe what this Waldorf Teacher Training experience is like. There simply are no short answers, but I’ll try to give a picture of it anyway. We arrive on a very hot Sunday and gather on Monday for classes. We are in classes from early morning until dinner time or later. We do Eurythmy and chorus every day. I’ve never been so challenged by either before. We have a daily lecture on Child Development by a man who has lived anthroposophical impulses since childhood and has become the kind of person you would like to be one day: deeply warm and intelligent, caring and humorous, incredibly skilled in teaching concepts, in painting pictures in people’s minds of the possibilities of human life if we help it come to its full potential.

Over the three weeks, you come to this awesome understanding that you are here by complete privilege. You are encouraged in your skills and humanity, and you learn that every moment of every day is an opportunity to touch the divine by interacting with others in a way that nourishes body, soul and spirit. You are humbled by the idea of being entrusted with these children that come into your life for a brief time of their eternity of being, and if you can bring yourself to a point of deep understanding of serving them, you will enable them to be deeply touched. The Waldorf curriculum, essentially, so you understand, helps the children learn to place themselves in the cosmos. They learn over time that they are connected to all life and matter in time and space, and that they have a very significant and specific place in all this interweaving of bodily and spiritual experiences. What an awesome task, to inspire in children the awareness that they are here for a reason, that they are loved and that they have much to give. You begin to see how you can surround these children with kindness and understanding, with support for their development as unique souls having human experiences. You see how Chemistry class can become a vehicle to talk about fears of drowning, that being aware of and discussing feelings with a group of adolescents is an activity to be encouraged.

a few quick notes

I'm back! Sort of anyway. Here is my short story: Two weeks ago, I submitted an application that took me six weeks to prepare to a Waldorf Teacher Training college. Last week said college had their open house. We decided to combine the trip with a visit to friends and family and left town on Thursday. That night it started to snow. Open House was cancelled, but we showed up anyway on account of having been on the road when they called to cancel. Four of us showed up and we received a very private tour of campus, lots of time with the program director, and good amounts of time attending classes. I had my interview that day (the director had not had time yet to read my full application), and I was accepted into the program. So I'll begin my journey to train as a certified lower school class and foreing languages (German) teacher this summer.

Posting has been sparse as I am trying to find that elusive money tree. Also, serendipidy has had my by the scruff of the neck and events in the last two weeks have been threatening to give me whiplash. There has been little time to digest everything the universe is throwing my way, but I hope to share more with you as time goes on.

Okay, I will share one little story: Once upon a time I lived in a country on the other side of the world. I had a good friend in high school, one who came from a family of much instability. At the end of 10th grade said friend left and we had about another year of contact before she disappeared out of my life. Last night for some reason I felt compelled to google her very unique name. What came up is that she is working with anthroposophy, guiding people through biography work. Not that this is an outrageous coincidence, but if you get ten of these kinds of events in a week, it can make you wonder just a little.....

Time for schoolwork with eldest. More math board fun, today we'll be trying to recreate the stars from the board in our driveway.

Stunned

Heidi attends a Children's Garden class connected to a K-12 Waldorf School. There are about 300 children in the school, so it's a small and very close community. In the last two weeks, a student was killed in a car accident, and the father of another student is in a coma following a heart attack. Today we received news that one of Heidi's teachers passed in her sleep last night. These events have been devastating for this small community, and we were at a loss as to what to tell the children (who knew nothing of events prior to the last one), let alone what to think ourselves.

Heidi's other teacher called us with the news today, and I will be forever greatful to her for giving us the words to explain death to a 4 year old. In Waldorf circles, there is a story told to very young children about their birth. The gist is that the child was once in heaven with a guardian angel*. One day, the child had a dream or glimpsed a view of the earth, and a mother and father (siblings, dog, etc.) who seemed very loving. The child longed to be with these people, and one day the angel helped it get there via a bridge over the rainbow.

Heidi's teacher recommended we remind Heidi of the birth story (Heidi calls the angel her angel fairy) and then tell her that her teacher was called back to heaven by her angel, and that is where she is now. Heidi took this in, then wondered when she would see her teacher again. We explained that she wouldn't be coming back, so only one question remained: "How did she get to heaven?"

We are a bit numb, trying to take this all in. So we spend more time with our children, hug them tighter, and remember that our time together really is very short.

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* this story may make some folks feel a little uncomfortable. But if you buy into the idea that young children live in a world not ruled by intellect, giving them a loving story about their origin that conjures beautiful images, is actually very healthy. Whenever I've seen children hear this story, they all seem so completely settled and sated. This story tells children that the world is a good place, and there is love here for them. I can't see anything wrong with that, and it fills the children right up emotionally.