Waldorf CurriculumIntroduction
A curriculum could be compared to the list of ingredients
for a recipe. However good the recipe, the quality of the ingredients is crucial
but to make a start the components also need to be available. When they are to
hand, the next question is whether the cook is skilled enough to combine and
adjust flavors so that each item plays its part without overwhelming the others.
An experienced cook may be able to substitute one ingredient for another, even
to improvise in such a way that something new is created. But we should not
forget that emotion, even love, goes into the preparation of food and this will
influence how it is received. And, of course, the expectations, health and
culinary experience of the diners also makes a difference.
A curriculum guides an entire learning process. It should not, like a dish into which a chef has thrown every possible taste, explode in an overwhelming, sensation-bursting blowout; it should bring to the table ingredients that are well- balanced, digestible and nutritious, that promote health and stimulate, not stupefy, the senses. Over time, as with diet, a curriculum can introduce items that may not be immediately appealing, stronger tastes or more subtle and complex ones: intellectual chillis, subjects initially sour or astringent, as well as flavors, textures and scents that help to educate the palate. A primary school curriculum, in particular, sets out ingredients for the hors d'oeuvres of lifelong learning. Of course, many school curriculums share common ingredients, but the distinctive qualities of the Steiner-Waldorf curriculum framework are, we believe, unique:
Course OutlineSophia Institute Waldorf Courses: The Art of Teaching Waldorf Grade 2
Lesson 1 / Waldorf Curriculum / Introduction Lesson 2 / Waldorf Curriculum / Grades 1 - 3 (Part 1) Lesson 3 / Waldorf Curriculum / Grades 1 - 3 (Part 2) Lesson 4 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Introduction Lesson 5 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Reading / Grade 2 Lesson 6 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Math / Grade 2 Lesson 7 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Chemistry / Introduction Lesson 8 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Physics / Introduction Lesson 9 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Life Sciences / Introduction Lesson 10 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Geography / Introduction Lesson 11 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Geography / Grades 1 - 8 Lesson 12 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Gardening and Sustainable Living |
Tasks and Assignments for Art of Teaching Waldorf Grade 2 /AoT28Please study and work with the study material provided for this lesson. Then please turn to the following tasks and assignments listed below.
1. Study the material provided and look up other resources as needed and appropriate. 2. Create examples of curriculum that addresses the learning method and content appropriate for the young child in grade 2. Curriculum examples should include outlines and goals, activities, circle/games, stories, and illustrations/drawings: Create 2 examples for grade 2. 3. Additionally submit comments and questions, if any. Please send your completed assignment via the online form or via email. 
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Study Material for this Lesson
Physics/Introduction/Kindergarten/Lower Grades
The main aim of science teaching is to grasp the core of science that is relevant to the human being as well as presenting it in an imaginative way to appeal to the emotions. This means developing a faculty of observation for the real gestures of nature. Indeed science lessons begin at the age when the child gains an ability to see the world causally and they must serve to cultivate this thinking faculty. Indeed this can occur in such a way that a qualitative thinking is developed that continually considers the changing connection between the human being and the world.
Through the limiting of science to size, number and weight (as Galileo did), that is, to the purely quantitative, the question of the being of natural phenomena has been lost. During the rise of the modern age, man began to ask how he could control nature, and finally to see this control as what is essential. This trend has been connected with the development of causal and theoretical model views, because it is only possible to have absolute mastery over natural processes when you can explain them causally. If this is not initially possible, phenomena are reduced conceptually to explainable processes.
The danger is that these concepts of imposed quantitative and particle-like models of nature are taken up by pupils as objective reality. From this experience for example a curriculum formulated in 1977 already has this warning:
It is essential to use models which are not too perfect when beginning teaching. There must be elementary phenomena which cannot be explained by the models used. Only by this means do the pupils altogether gain the insight into the principle of the insufficiency of models.
What is more valuable from a pedagogical point of view are however the following principles:
* 1. In place of models which cannot be experienced, should be thought processes which have their basis in real perception.
* 2. Initially an emotional connection to the phenomena must be awakened in the child. This must then be raised from the subjective level in order that the intrinsic qualities can be grasped in cognitive activity.
* 3. Thereby science teaching in the Waldorf school takes its departure from the sense qualities. Indeed it can in this respect even be described as an extremely sense-orientated method. This plays an important role and has a hygienic-pedagogical aspect. The lively joy in cognition is healing for the student aged between twelve and fourteen years, and can even possibly lighten the tendency towards all- too-strong self-pre-occupation.
The phenomenological world view, the creative forming of thought connections with natural events requires, however, even more. It should not only be done out of an honest pedagogical endeavour towards a human-centred acquisition of knowledge. Rather it involves a epistemological discussion of the basic ideas of the empirical method of science.
The active participation of the individual person in the world characterises Rudolf Steiner's theory of knowledge. In his basic books on this subject A Theory of Knowledge and The Philosophy of Freedom', Rudolf Steiner described the connection between sense impression and thinking.
Our whole being functions in such a way, that it flows in reality towards the elements of each thing observed from two sides; from the side of perception and from that of thinking.
Science teaching in the Waldorf school seeks to do justice to this basic rule.
Through the limiting of science to size, number and weight (as Galileo did), that is, to the purely quantitative, the question of the being of natural phenomena has been lost. During the rise of the modern age, man began to ask how he could control nature, and finally to see this control as what is essential. This trend has been connected with the development of causal and theoretical model views, because it is only possible to have absolute mastery over natural processes when you can explain them causally. If this is not initially possible, phenomena are reduced conceptually to explainable processes.
The danger is that these concepts of imposed quantitative and particle-like models of nature are taken up by pupils as objective reality. From this experience for example a curriculum formulated in 1977 already has this warning:
It is essential to use models which are not too perfect when beginning teaching. There must be elementary phenomena which cannot be explained by the models used. Only by this means do the pupils altogether gain the insight into the principle of the insufficiency of models.
What is more valuable from a pedagogical point of view are however the following principles:
* 1. In place of models which cannot be experienced, should be thought processes which have their basis in real perception.
* 2. Initially an emotional connection to the phenomena must be awakened in the child. This must then be raised from the subjective level in order that the intrinsic qualities can be grasped in cognitive activity.
* 3. Thereby science teaching in the Waldorf school takes its departure from the sense qualities. Indeed it can in this respect even be described as an extremely sense-orientated method. This plays an important role and has a hygienic-pedagogical aspect. The lively joy in cognition is healing for the student aged between twelve and fourteen years, and can even possibly lighten the tendency towards all- too-strong self-pre-occupation.
The phenomenological world view, the creative forming of thought connections with natural events requires, however, even more. It should not only be done out of an honest pedagogical endeavour towards a human-centred acquisition of knowledge. Rather it involves a epistemological discussion of the basic ideas of the empirical method of science.
The active participation of the individual person in the world characterises Rudolf Steiner's theory of knowledge. In his basic books on this subject A Theory of Knowledge and The Philosophy of Freedom', Rudolf Steiner described the connection between sense impression and thinking.
Our whole being functions in such a way, that it flows in reality towards the elements of each thing observed from two sides; from the side of perception and from that of thinking.
Science teaching in the Waldorf school seeks to do justice to this basic rule.
