Stronger, Brighter, Deeper: Building Meaningful Lives through Steiner Education “A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it… Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning the skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin
Steiner teachers make the souls of their students stronger, brighter, deeper. As the great fiction writer Ursula Le Guin puts it, they are like good writers who care about words, and how they shape the inner lives of their growing students. They embed creativity into the learning process, and imbue formal learning with a powerful artistry that helps the intellect to sing, and the heart to understand. This talk will explore the building of “cognitive feeling’ or heart thinking as it grows through the curriculum from Kindergarten to Year 12. We will survey some of the great stories of many great civilizations, and the teaching methods that enliven them with a passion that brings Spirit into matter, preparing a sense of meaning in our students’ lives, making them stronger, brighter, deeper.
W2
Ellen Fjeld-Köttker, Norway
The contemplative task of a Waldorf teacher, class management in 6th, 7th and 8th Grade.
Numerous studies reveal the tremendous impact teachers can have on student achievements. Class managing is a skill, but it also asks for an inner attitude of the teacher. Taking charge, establish control, being accountable, and teaching with confidence are dimensions of management, but so too are sensitivity, genuine observations, flexibility, and an ability to communicate and get on with people. Through a reflective and pensive approach we will look at these challenges.
W3
Henning Kullak-Ublick, Germany
The main-lesson blocks on Man and Animalsin class four and five as keys to Waldorf education
The ways, in which children experience, participate an understand nature, undergo some very thorough changes in the course of the lower and middle school. The children begin this journey on their first day of school, and in each class, the approach is different than before.
In the fourth and fifth grades, the children develop an increasing capacity to understand bigger coherences and contexts in nature, history, language, and geography. This goes along with a deeply felt understanding of beauty, which opens up in narratives, in the arts, in geometry or in the observation of nature.
In this seminar, we will persue the understanding of man in relation to the animals, as Rudolf Steiner suggested it to class-teachers. The course will lead us from man to some characteristic animals, and from there back to man. Waldorfpedagogy takes a very unique and artisitic approach towards teaching nature to children in classes four and five, which helps to develop an ecological understanding of the world, which goes far beyond mere preserving.
The course will cover theoretical aspects of the methods as well as practical examples and practices in putting it into practice.
W5
Dušan Pleštil, Czechia
Metamorphosis of Teaching About Nature What is the goetheanistic approach to teaching about nature in the lower and middle school? We will talk about the way how to transform our methods out of the understanding of child development.
W6
Claus-Peter Röh, Switzerland
To balance the work with the modern technical-digital world in school, the counterforce of beauty, esthetic and imagination is necessary. How can we perceive and build balance individually?
W7
Helena Sandell, Finland
Self-education as foundation and a tool for the waldorf teacher.
W9
Christof Wiechert, Netherlands
The art of child study: how to help students with a challenge. It is a tool to solve our problems ourselves and not outsourcing them. Practical and effective.
W10
Christof Jaffke, Germany
Imaginative Teaching. Language teaching in Waldorf education, especially in the middle classes.
W13
Noela Maletz, Australia
Parzival’s adventures, which lead him from simplicity through doubt to bliss, and from self absorption to compassion for others, offer students an opportunity to reflect upon the possibilities and necessities of greater awareness of self and the consequences of action in the world, and of the redemptive and healing power of love. Working with this myth in Year Eleven gives students a framework with which to work with their own life stories as they evolve, and to discover a sense of meaning and purpose in whatever comes to meet them as they move through their lives.
Over five days, we will consider “pictures” from the text of Parzival and explore their relevance to our own life experiences. Each workshop will be experiential and will use a variety of things, such as poetry, images, drawing, dialogue with partners, sharing in small groups and structured self reflection to give depth and dimension to your understanding of the text. This exploration of issues and experiences can help to understand the meaning and value of conscience and consciousness, and to understand the relationship between questions and quests, head and heart and what it means to “think, feel and do as one” in the context of daily life.
W14
Karla Neves, Brazil
How mathematics work on the constitution of the human being. The work with mathematics in a Steiner school has its starting point on the sensorial perception. There is an important underlying relationship between the learning of mathematics in a Steiner school and the human process of self-construction. Mathematics can help leading a person towards freedom when worked correctly, says Rudolf Steiner. The role this subject plays on the constitution of the human being as an individual, when worked on such a way, can contribute to moral formation.
W15
Peter Elsner, Finland
The basic concepts of metamorphosis These will be approached in 3 ways. One direction will be Johann Wolfgang Goethes idea of the plant metamorphosis to show which new methodological way Goethe used to enter the organic world. The other direction will be Rudolf Steiner philosophical point of view in connection to Metamorphosis. Which inner activity has the human consciousness to develop to come to an experience of the inner laws of the living world (Plant, animal and human)? As a third direction we will handle how the concept of Metamorphosis is appearing in the artistic activities (Form drawing, painting and modeling) in the education plan of the Waldorf school.The transition from Feeling to Thinking - History Teaching in Waldorf School from class 6 to class 8
Afternoon Workshops
S1
Shiori Ando, Japan
Music in the Waldorf school – transition of Middle to Upper school
During middle school –as each child becomes more and more individual- how can we help children to reinforce a healthy sense of togetherness, while encouraging them to develop their own sense of individuality at the same time ? After the early years of “learning through imitation”, can children learn intellectual aspects of music (ie: notation, harmony theory, etc.) not in agony but with joy? How can such experiences lead them towards a deeper connection and understanding in the upper school? Also, how can we cultivate relationships with the music of our own culture ? In this workshop, we approach these questions through experiential activities. Please bring a musical instrument if possible, such as a recorder, guitar, or any other instrument you may have.
S2
Jutta Rohde-Röh, Germany
“From the Sense of well-being as an I myself” How is Eurythmy teaching able to contribute to awakening and caring with and for the world? Exercises and Examples for the developmentally appropriate unfolding of basic eurythmy elements for children and young people
S3
Peter Elsner, Finland
Basic form elements of organic design The modeling exercises will enter an artistic methodological path into the basics of dynamic organic design and metamorphosis. The questions are: What are the universal laws of form in nature? What are the inner holistic laws of J.W. Goethes color circle and the form circle? Which form phenomena are creating a dynamic floating design? In which classes of the Waldorf school the modeling exercises can be used?
S4
Noela Maletz, Australia
Water Colour Painting Experiences Painting with watercolour is both challenging and exciting, as painters are working in a creative space between form and freedom. These five workshops will explore just that, using techniques and exercises that are suitable at different age levels in a school. There will be a brief explanation of how each exercise “fits” the developing child/adolescent, and then painters will try the exercise themselves, with the support and guidance of a teacher.
S5
Porn Panosot, Thailand
A Goetheanistic Painting of Plants in the Landscape: The Interweaving between the Art and Science. In this workshop, we will observe plants in the surrounding using the Goetheanistic approach. We will, then, create a painting of plants in the landscape with a combination of wet-on-wet and veil painting techniques as the class 11 students of Panyotai usually do in their Botany camp.
S6
Molly McIntyre, USA
Strengthening the child’s incarnating process through speech. Age-appropriate speech exercises can help the child become aware of his own self. We will practice various speech exercises to help children come to themselves so that they can express their own being properly.
S7
Jorinde Stockmar, Germany
Movement for children
S8
Jeong hyun, Lee (Rosa), Korea
Songs and rhythmic exercises for class teacher I will share songs and movements which you can use in the morning lesson(main lesson) from class 1-8, and many games and rhythmic exercises for class teacher. Please bring a song to share each other. We can use these songs for our geography lesson.
S9
John Chalmers, Thailand
Transformative imagination: narration to dramatic art in the Waldorf curriculum Lively imaginative presentation is an important aspect of Waldorf teaching, but it needs to be crafted differently by the teacher as the child develops.. We will work with the pedagogical aspects of lively storytelling and lower school play presentation and how it unfolds into the dramatic work of the upper school, keeping a keen eye on child/student development in transition from 5th grade to 12th grade. We will examine drama less as emotive expression and more as a process of authentic presence, reverence and realization.
S10
Henning Kullak-Ublick and Claus-Peter Röh
Drawing and blackboard drawing for class teachers
S11
Kathryn Carpenter Perlas, Philippines
The Arts in the Kindergarten Years from 0-7
This workshop is for anyone who wants to know and understand what to do & how to be creative with children under 7 years old. We will explore drawing, painting, color, sculpting, music, singing & movement games, as well as simple doll making, puppetry & storytelling. How these arts nurture the foundational senses of the young child will be experienced.