A Waldorf seventh grade has a block unique to Waldorf Schools, a writing workshop where the content is explicitly the moods of soul: wish, wonder and surprise. Why should moods of soul be a part of a child’s education and why especially in seventh grade? Seventh grade lies just past the halfway point of a child’s K-12 education. The seventh grader can both look back to the childhood they left behind and forward to where a new world is dawning. Society would prematurely pull the young adolescent into this emerging world and rush them into consumerism, sensuality and more. The Waldorf curriculum attempts to bring to this passage a balance between new awakenings and old connections to the spiritual world. In slowing down this transition, we are not wishing to keep the child imprisoned in childhood, but instead are tending to the innate qualities of childhood which become strength of soul and character for their entire adult life. We can keep their wonder alive and still meet the child’s need for understanding with a careful scientific study of the world. We can be scientific not only in chemistry but also in how we bring writing and poetry, adhering carefully to the well crafted form of a sonnet or five paragraph essay. We choose subjects that arouse anew the wonder of life and amaze us. Through many guided writing exercises the students learn to “paint pictures” with their words.
Week one began by practicing “showing” with our words instead of “telling.” For example, a simple phrase such as, “The day was hot” was given as an example of “telling.” The students were then asked to expand upon this using their senses - to bring the heat alive. Fundamental to wonder is our power of observation and the students were then asked to observe an animal (pet study) and a person they admired (character sketch). Through paying attention, we can reawaken to the world around us and enkindle wonder.
Building upon our practice with description, week two’s compositions were infused with the mood of a wish. The students wrote compositions describing personal wishes. The class then made a wish and each student expanded upon it personally. Lastly they wrote a fairy tale with the theme of a wish. Expressing a wish gives the children an opportunity to articulate ideals. Within our personal ideals is the possibility of these “seed” thoughts and feelings becoming manifest. Our will is developed by taking impulses and raising them to the level of wishes and finally, when we have the inner strength and discipline, making them come true.
Week three’s theme was surprise. A surprise takes us out of our self – perhaps we laugh and experience joy. Amazement takes this a step further and adds to surprise an element of awe. The element of awe brings us back to ourselves with the possibility of being changed. Our minds have been opened and our opinions of the world and ourselves can expand. Surprises can take many forms. They experienced surprise when seeing pictures of their teacher in his twenties! The students experienced surprise in seeing two liquids mixed and result in the formation of a very long nylon thread. The telling of O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi gave them a taste of surprise endings. The students got to try their own hand at finishing a surprise ending to a Sherlock Holmes story.
Throughout the three weeks, we also wrote poetry. We touched on many different forms including: cinquain, acrostic, sonnet and free verse.
Next week, we will publish some of the Seventh Grade student's writing.
Submitted by Michael Seifert, Grade 7 teacher
Over the past few years, we have chosen to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. with service. Each class found some way to be of service for a portion of the holiday or at other times close to the holiday. For instance two years in a row, Ms. Shaffer's class (which graduated last spring) worked at the Bonner Community Food Bank prior to the service day, since it is closed that day. They thoroughly enjoyed stocking boxes and shelves and commented on how rewarding it felt to be of service. When the weather cooperated, other classes have shoveled out the driveways of senior citizens or the parking lot of the Sandpoint Senior Center. Still other classes have played board games with residents at assisted living homes or presented songs and verses to them. Each year for the past few years, older classes have helped at the Panhandle Animal Shelter. One year one of our kindergarten classes also went to the animal shelter to deliver catnip cat toys that they had made.
This year our service will have to look different, because we cannot visit many of these places. We will find other ways to be of service: the teachers will be discussing ideas this week, such as holding a food drive, writing cards to the residents in assisted living or nursing homes, and yes, if it snows, shoveling snow. If you have any ideas of ways we can be of service, please contact me.
Traditionally, our eighth grade class has offered a Martin Luther Kind, Jr assembly. As part of the history curriculum in eighth grade, the students study the civil rights movement. Anyone who was here last year will remember the stirring presentation of "I Have a Dream" speech that the eighth grade presented both at assembly and at an evening assembly. This year, however, we cannot gather in an assembly, so we will find other age-appropriate ways to honor Dr. martin Luther King, Jr.
It is good to remember as the entire world faces the challenges of these times this quote by Dr. King. "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stand in comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." My experience of our school community is that each one of us is discovering new ways to be flexible, to take on new tasks, to resolve conflicts, and in this case, to discover new ways to honor Dr. King and the work which he began that so urgently needs to be continued.
Submitted by Julie McCallan
Artwork created by our 2020 8th grade graduates last year.
The warm scent of melted beeswax is the smell of Christmas and the symbol of Waldorf education for me. Years ago when I was a freshman at Earlham College, my first roommate was a graduate of Green Meadows Waldorf School. She introduced me to Waldorf education and changed the trajectory of my life. She had the poise, confidence, and can-do attitude that is characteristic of many Waldorf graduates and taught me some of what she learned as a Waldorf student. She taught me to knit in our first month of school and from her descriptions, I was inspired when I went home for Christmas to build a bed and make candles. The first project had to be finished by my grandfather and ended my attempts to be a carpenter, but the second one became a yearly tradition.
Today leading the candle dipping with the Fourth and Fifth Graders, I was filled again with the wonder of candle dipping. Most people doubt that children have the ability to walk around in a circle for 45 minutes, dipping their wick once at each pass. However, they are fully immersed in the activity and many do not want it to end. They exclaim as their candles gradually grow bigger and they note the change in color. When the candle first emerges dripping from the hot wax vat, it looks like the pale, off white glaze on a donut. However, by the time the children have walked half way around the circle, the wax begins to harden and assume a deep golden color.
Watching the candle change color reminded me of how teachers get to know their students or how any of us really come to know another human being. At first, there is only the initial impression; like the glaze on the candle, we are only seeing a superficial outer aspect. However, as time passes, especially if we provide a loving space and feel reverence for what we are beholding, the many, many layers of the person are revealed and the rich colors of who they are shine forth, just like in the candle the many layers of wax create the deep rich golden color.
The children have much to teach us about reverence, about being present in the moment, about finding wonder in simple tasks like candle dipping. I took a lesson home with me today from our candle dipping: we can call forth the light in each other by beholding each other in reverence, especially in the dark of winter and in these troubled times.
Submitted by Julie McCallan
A culture of care
How a Sandpoint school survives and thrives in a pandemic
· SEPTEMBER 24, 2020
By Ammi Midstokke
Reader Contributor
At a Sandpoint Waldorf School board meeting in mid-August, a group of faculty, parents and board members tried to have a civil discussion about the future of their children. They also tried to talk about the livelihood of the children’s parents. And the health risks posed to elderly members of their family or the community. And masks. And the financial viability of a private school during a pandemic.
For so many tender subjects to be placed on the same table in the same moment seemed to pose perhaps the greatest health risk. No punches were thrown, no names called, no arguments had. Perhaps it was because everyone was there for the same reason: To do their best to ensure a safe learning environment in which the students, staff and families could thrive.
Waldorf teacher Christopher Lunde instructs eighth-grade student, Isadora Gilchrist, on observing the physical properties of water. Photo by Ammi Midstokke.
To this end, the school created a COVID Task Force in the spring. The task force spent the summer months researching, problem solving and calling every single family in the school to ask for their personal input, concerns and needs when it came time to return to school.
The responses from families were everywhere on the spectrum from demanding a more sterile environment to refusal to wear masks. While the task force knew it would not be possible to meet all needs, the common thread of keeping the children in school would become their priority. They took the information they had carefully collected and created a plan.
As it is with COVID-19 policies, they generally mandate Plans A, B and C because the scenarios are complex, often require urgent response, and must consider diverse and changing needs of a community. Their plan was created with the shared intention of keeping students in a classroom and group learning environment as much as possible, while also preventing the spread of the virus through the school and larger community. This meant determining ways in which to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Panhandle Health District guidelines on social distancing while simultaneously educating an entire school of pre-K through eighth-grade students.
It is fair to say that this community has a unique demographic spread in which its members’ values are widely different, if not sometimes in opposition. As the plan developed, the conversations about implementing the plan were interwoven with a delicate sharing of opinions. Delicate, because opinion-stating can seem rather a dangerous act these days.
Something different happened in that meeting, though. Parents lamented raising children in fear. Administrators worried about the social and emotional development of children associating mask wearing with shame. The task force responded with the theme of creating a “Culture of Care.”
A Culture of Care is an idea that has been used in the corporate world to improve employee relations throughout a hierarchical organization. It was arguably a shift in consciousness when statistics and research pointed out what we inherently know as humans: If you take care of people they are happier, have improved work performance and ultimately they care about the organization thus making the business more successful.
This isn’t new to Waldorf education. In fact, much of Waldorf education theory is based on the importance of the individual within the community, where a Culture of Care is not second nature, but fundamental. A verse read at assemblies states it with gentle lines:
The healthy social life is found, when,
In the mirror of each human soul,
The community finds its reflection,
Care is, or should be, all-encompassing and one must not meet particular criteria, political sway, age or ideology in order to be deserving or worthy of care. The extreme division that we see in our current socio-political and economic climate requires more care. This is expressed when consideration and interest in those humans, value systems and needs takes place, and then manifests into a culture of inclusion.
Thus the Sandpoint Waldorf School applied its mission to its foundational Culture of Care and came up with a plan that considers the emotional well-being of students; their educational development; the health risks of teachers, parents and the Sandpoint community; the financial implications for families staying home to educate; and more.
We can see the result of this in the back field of the Litehouse YMCA, where the organization has allowed the school to install an outdoor learning lab for students. The classes, small in number, are spending their days in rather romantic white structures where colorful silk scarves blow in the late summer breeze. The odd potted palm tree rustles. Wooden benches with bright pillows spaced widely apart remind one more of a decadent tea party than a classroom. Were it not for the clean chalkboard, teacher’s desk and occasional row of beakers, one might mistake the classroom for a humbly decorated wedding venue.
The children sit happily in their pods, remaining with their classroom throughout the day, and free from the burden of wearing a mask — unless they are required to be in the school building, where all staff, students and visitors are required to wear them. (Indoor schooling, for example, was necessary this week due to the pall of wildfire smoke blanketing the region.) The students laugh and play, sing and learn together as they always have, only the setting is far more picturesque — perhaps even fairytale-esque.
The curriculum has been carefully adapted to allow for distance learning should students, classes or teachers have a need for quarantine. The first weeks of class in the upper grades have included additional typing and technology lessons to enable students to easily transition from a classroom to a home environment. Additional teacher assistants have been acquired to help students who are educating from home to ensure a successful learning experience for all.
The creativity, effort and collaboration that has gone into keeping the school a viable option for the community is a testament to a Culture of Care. It demonstrates both the flexibility and adaptability needed as a nation struggles to respond to a pandemic. Most of all, it is a refreshing reminder of how caring about each other can be the foundation of a solution to a seemingly unsolvable problem.
Ammi Midstokke is an author and columnist for the Sandpoint Reader, The Spokesman Review and other publications. Her daughter attends eighth grade at the Sandpoint Waldorf School.