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 6
Lesson 1 / Waldorf Curriculum / Introduction Lesson 2 / Waldorf Curriculum / Grades 4 - 6 (Part 1) Lesson 3 / Waldorf Curriculum / Grades 4 - 6 (Part 2) Lesson 4 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Introduction Lesson 5 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Reading / Grade 6 Lesson 6 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Math / Grade 6 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 6 /AoT63Please study and work with the study material provided for this lesson. Use additional study material as wanted/needed. Then please turn to the following tasks and assignments listed below.
Summarize the study material in your own words and add comments and questions. Create 1 week of (main lesson) curriculum for class 6, using the following format: A. Class 6/Developmental Profile B. Class 6/Aims and Objectives Please send your completed assignment via the online form or via email. 
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Study Material for this Lesson
The Lower School: Classes 4 to 6
Curriculum in Classes 4 to 6
In Classes 4 and 5, when the pupils are ten and eleven years old, they enter a period that can justifiably be called the heart of childhood. They have left early childhood behind them but have not yet entered puberty. The intensification of self-consciousness, which began during the ninth year, continues into Class 4 and the teacher increasingly experiences the power of the group of young individualities emerging in the class. Each child appears as a strong personality with distinctive gifts, talents and challenges but this is still essentially childlike in its manifestation. The children still respond well to imaginative stories and well-formed rhythms in teaching. The teaching needs to be challenging and lively if it is to engage the strengthening will of the children. Physiologically the self-activity of the child strives to bring about a harmonisation of the relationship of the breathing to the blood circulation.
At the latest by Class 4 the children enter into a psychological situation that differs from that of the preceding three years. Their relationship to nature and to their fellow human beings has become more distant. The 'world of which they are a part' has become 'the world that is around them'. As Steiner put it:
The time after the completed ninth year is particularly important because it is a Significant turning point in the children's lives. Questions dart into their consciousness, you could say whole heaps of questions, all of which relate to differentiating on the feeling level between themselves and their environment, also between themselves and their teacher ... These questions need not necessarily be expressed, but they are there. In their feeling life the children question whether the teacher is skilful in the way he leads his life, above all whether the teacher has a firm foothold in life, whether he knows what he wants; above all they have a sure sense of the overall situation of the teacher's soul.'
Having lived hitherto in a totality of space and time, the children now want to begin to structure this totality in their thinking. They do this by differentiating both in space and in time. 'Before' and 'after' are more strongly felt and also related to one another and this reflects the child's growing ability to form independent mental images and recall them at will. Cognitively, the children are more able to understand questions and phenomena in a realistic and reasoning way, though the pictorial element in thinking remains important. Combined with greater capacity for empathetic feeling, this new clarity of thinking enables the cultivation of notions of personal responsibility and reasoned sense of right and wrong.
Around the age of eleven, the child attains a certain ease and grace of movement which is co-ordinated, balanced and harmonious. By Class 6 (age eleven to twelve) the children begin to undergo significant physical change commensurate with the onset of puberty. Growth usually begins to express itself in the skeleton, which becomes longer and heavier, leading to a tendency to awkward and angular movements.
These important physical changes are accompanied by a growing interest in the factual and sense perceptible world on the one hand and a psychological turbulence on the other. By about the twelfth year (Class 6) the moment will have arrived when the children no longer merely ask about causes, but actively look for them or actually create them in order to observe what effect they have. This applies equally to social relationships.
The trust shown up until now by children towards their teachers is now put to the test through challenging, silly and sometimes sharply critical behaviour. Peer values become increasingly significant in children's development, leading often to clearly distinguishable roles within the group, including leaders, bullies, victims, jokers, those who are deemed 'cool' and those who are marginalised.
The teachers must establish a new relationship to the class, one which can deal with the mood swings of the children and which can assert a new 'lawful' authority. Rules and parameters with clear consequences are essential at this age, though the teacher will also need to be able to defuse tension with humour.
In language lessons (both mother tongue and foreign) a new consciousness needs to be awakened for different linguistic qualities.
Before their ninth year children have an entirely emotional relationship to language. However, they would be unable to develop an awareness of themselves if we did not bring an element of thought into language. That is why it is so important to bring in the thought element by means of grammatical rules, sensibly taught, mainly in the mother tongue but then also perhaps in a foreign language. However, the language must be learnt before the rules are introduced.'
For foreign languages, writing and reading in those languages must precede this.
The verb tenses bring an experience and understanding of how time is expressed in language. In English lessons the children learn about how the various parts of speech express different qualities and this responds to their increasing variety of inner experience. Declension, sentence structure, punctuation, prepositions etc. help articulate different standpoints and varying relationships, while distinguishing between direct and indirect speech or active and passive modes defines the speaker's own position (Class 5). In Class 6 comes the added facet of reality to be gained through using the subjunctive mode to indicate the difference between wish, intention and fact. Exercises in writing business letters brings in a further aspect of the real world and cultivates a sense for appropriate use of language in different contexts. The corresponding phase in foreign languages involves conversation exercises on situations in everyday life.
Music lessons now also involve the 'grammar of music: Linked to what is going on in arithmetic lessons in which fractions are introduced in Class 4, note lengths and time value are now added to the notation begun in Class 3. The intrinsic laws of music are not studied theoretically but by playing music. The relationship of the subsidiary keys to the main key leads to the discovery of the cadenza. In keeping with the need to link everything to the level of the children's emotional development the difference between major and minor is practised by using the major and minor third (this refers particularly to Class 6). In keeping with this, singing and playing in unison now leads to rounds in several parts and then to simple polyphony.
Eurythmy lessons must be seen in connection with language and music. In speech eurythmy the various grammatical forms are practised while in tone eurythmy the scales and (in Class 6) the major and minor moods are worked on. Stepping in different rhythms and beats links to arithmetic through the values of the notes, while moving in geometrical forms supports the introduction of geometry that begins in Classes 5 and 6.
In the arithmetic lessons of Class 1 the unit was taken as the basis from which to experience the different numbers. Now, in Class 4, a similar principle comes into play again. The unit, the totality, splits up, but the parts have a regulated relationship with the whole through fractions. In the music lessons analogous discoveries are made. Fractions not only depict a 'spatial' differentiation but can also be comprehended in a dynamic and temporal way. Via decimals (Class 5) the path leads towards a preparation for logical, causal thinking, to percentages and thus to the first mathematical discovery of causes.
Form drawing now gains a strongly constructive component in intertwining, interlacing ribbon motifs, particularly in Celtic knotwork and patterns. Beauty now combines with accuracy. Attentiveness and alertness are required. In Class 5 form drawing includes freehand geometrical drawing, initially without compasses or ruler. Having done form drawing for four years, the children have gained a thorough sense of the circle, the straight line and the angle. These components are now taken separately and drawn as accurately as possible. Only once hand and eye have had enough practice is compass geometry introduced in Class 5 to draw shapes and in Class 6 to construct geometric forms.
Cause and effect can be experienced in the observation of the play of light and shadow in chiaroscuro or black-and-white shaded drawing. In Class 6 this subject complements painting with watercolours. As with free-hand geometry, the children search for and feel exactly how a shadow falls before shading it in charcoal.
Thus geometry emerges out of form drawing, and drawing with charcoal emerges from painting with watercolours. In each case the process is one of continuity. In the same way the practical experience of nature and human work in farming and building lessons is now extended and differentiated both spatially and temporally. Local studies lead on to geography and history on the one hand, and to nature studies on the other. From Class 6 onwards the latter also involves the practical aspect of gardening.
In local studies (Class 4) the children learn about the geography and above all the economic situation of their immediate surroundings. They discover how much depends on the type of soil and the lie of the land and learn what influences have been brought to bear during the course of history. The children also learn to make the transition from pictorial drawing to symbolic representation in map-making. When regional geography begins in Class 5, the whole country is studied, including its geographical and economic relationships with other countries. Finally a brief view of the whole world is given. Even at this age it is very important to go into the social aspects of geography both with regard to how the different peoples live together and with regard to caring responsibly for the environment.
Astronomy also appears on the horizon! At this stage the approach is phenomenological, i.e. the children study what they can actually observe with their own eyes, especially the relationship between the earth and sun but also including the phases of the lunar cycle and visible constellations. Now the children come to understand that what they observe in the sky has a direct influence on the climate and vegetation all over the earth.
In the language lessons, mother tongue and foreign, the children have been writing business letters in the former and practising conversation in the latter. The same principle is brought to bear in geography, where, on the one hand, they study how human beings live together and, on the other, experience how we are all economically interdependent. In English the children learn how to write accurate descriptions of what they observe, as well as imaginative accounts of historical episodes they have heard about. In both the mother tongue and foreign languages there is an emphasis on accuracy of meaning through the correct use of words and declensions.
In nature study the animal kingdom is taken first because of its closeness to the human being. This aspect is emphasised through a comparison between the human being and various animal types. From an anatomical point of view, the human being is generalised and unspecialised, whereas each animal species has specific, one- sided anatomically based skills that have often developed at the cost of others, e.g. one particular sense, specialised locomotion and so on, involving specific organs (eyes, nose, teeth, limbs, etc.), The children learn about animals grouped by their chief characteristics in this regard, such as species with powerful metabolic systems (herbivores), animals that hunt and use their claws, strength and teeth (carnivores such as the big cats), animals with highly developed visual abilities (birds of prey) and so on. Human beings potentially have all these capacities, but each remains in balance with all the others, so that they can be seen as both synthesis and archetype of the whole animal kingdom. The children discover that humans have what animals are. We have technology and culture whereas they have specialised anatomy.
In plant studies the evolutionary path from lower to higher plants relates to the developmental stages of the child and young person. The sequence of plant forms growing ever more differentiated and expressive provides a visible image of the children's psychological development as more and more capacities develop. The children are shown how plants relate to the earth and sun, how they change during the course of the year and, in broad outlines, how they are distributed over the whole globe. In a manner comprehensible to children (but not in a childish manner!) the two important themes of evolution and ecology are thus present as an inner thread running through biology from the start. In nature studies in Class 6 the children enter for the first time the world of mineralogy in a block period devoted to this subject.
In the history lessons the children step out of the immediate present and imagine time processes in a concrete way with the help of vivid images from the past. The time for this falls between the eleventh and twelfth years. Psychologically the children are ready to move from myth and legend to history and biography. In Class 5, history involves giving the children historical images of Asian and Middle Eastern peoples i.e. the culture of Ancient India, China, Ancient Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece. The culture of these early civilisations is characterised through story material. With Greece myth becomes history. In Class 6 they are introduced to Roman history and the Middle Ages. They learn about cultural changes throughout history, e.g. what changes were brought about for Europe through contact with Islam. Here again the aspect of causality is taken into account. Europe lagged far behind the Orient. Then, thanks in part to contact with Islam and the East, new technological and industrial progress developed in European towns, particularly in Italy. The monastic settlements and the growth of urban cultures as well as the early influence of technology such as water wheels, building techniques, advancements in navigation and shipbuilding are important themes. The end of feudalism can, for example, be graphically characterised by events such as the Battle of Agincourt, which revealed a microcosm of social change.
Physics also begins in Class 6, and with it comes an experience of causality. The lessons are not yet concerned with the theories and hypotheses of physics: rather the children are helped to experience the basic phenomena of acoustics, optics, heat, magnetism and static electricity. Mechanics is held over for Class 7. Two of the reasons for this are as follows. Mechanics requires the study of gravity (unless you remain entirely in the neutral realm of theory), and it provides opportunities for the children to experience this force consciously. As the pupils enter puberty, they become 'ready for the earth: 5 The growth associated with puberty has the effect of literally burdening the youngster with a new sense of physical weight. They have a need to explore the new strength that comes with this muscle and bone growth though they often lack an orientation both in their movements and in their emotional instability. They can be helped by discovering how the force of gravity can be employed in mechanics and made serviceable in life.
The second reason that mechanics is deferred until age thirteen is that it provides examples for the application of physical law to technology, the consequences of which one can see most clearly in the industrial developments during the nineteenth century. Practical applications of mechanical principles are the central theme. It is impossible to stress too strongly the importance of letting experience precede knowledge.
The practical subjects within the curriculum are now also expanded and differentiated. Gardening enables the child to encounter the consequences of work in a practical and necessary sphere of life. By providing opportunities to observe plant growth, gardening affords experiences of how time relates to space.
Three-dimensional space is now explored in handwork. The children knit gloves and socks on five needles and sew stuffed animals that require them to have a clear idea of the animal's shape when they design and cut out the pattern (the cause and effect aspect can also be seen here). The skills learned in cross-stitch are developed further to include the embroidery of interlacing ribbon motifs, such as those learned in form drawing.
'Soft' handwork is now joined by 'hard' craftwork, which is pursued by boys and girls alike. Working with wood provides a wonderful experience of what 'expertise' really means. Together, wood and tool are a unit when handled expertly. The skills of sawing, carving, rasping and filing are practised. In textile handwork, with the exception of leather, the resistance offered by the material is slight. Wood provides a considerably greater challenge so that form can be created by the practical activity of exercising expertise.
Gym lessons provide a similar theme. The movement games are now replaced by various kinds of running game, such as relay races, which have a specific aim. Achieving this is the challenge. The same goes for apparatus work, which begins now, as well as athletics and swimming. In each case the children have to learn to move using the appropriate technique in the given medium.
The themes chosen for the narrative content of the lessons during these three years help the children experience their own psychological and spiritual steps in development, through examples which span the transition from myth and legend to history.
Summary of Classes 4 to 6
During this period of development, in which the children begin to distance themselves from their surroundings, it is extremely important that their connection with the world be strengthened and renewed by means of direct and differentiated experience supported by understanding. To work in the world means to understand the world. The new subjects introduced during this phase make this possible. In working out of an understanding that has a moral foundation, the children learn to work in service for the sake of the world. Turning towards the world in this way can also be described as loving it in an active and concrete way. Class 6 marks an important transition in the class teacher period. With the onset of puberty the children are ready to develop a causal understanding of the world, yet given the emotional and subjective nature of their experience, it is important that this causal aspect be clothed in imaginative and pictorial language.
In Classes 4 and 5, when the pupils are ten and eleven years old, they enter a period that can justifiably be called the heart of childhood. They have left early childhood behind them but have not yet entered puberty. The intensification of self-consciousness, which began during the ninth year, continues into Class 4 and the teacher increasingly experiences the power of the group of young individualities emerging in the class. Each child appears as a strong personality with distinctive gifts, talents and challenges but this is still essentially childlike in its manifestation. The children still respond well to imaginative stories and well-formed rhythms in teaching. The teaching needs to be challenging and lively if it is to engage the strengthening will of the children. Physiologically the self-activity of the child strives to bring about a harmonisation of the relationship of the breathing to the blood circulation.
At the latest by Class 4 the children enter into a psychological situation that differs from that of the preceding three years. Their relationship to nature and to their fellow human beings has become more distant. The 'world of which they are a part' has become 'the world that is around them'. As Steiner put it:
The time after the completed ninth year is particularly important because it is a Significant turning point in the children's lives. Questions dart into their consciousness, you could say whole heaps of questions, all of which relate to differentiating on the feeling level between themselves and their environment, also between themselves and their teacher ... These questions need not necessarily be expressed, but they are there. In their feeling life the children question whether the teacher is skilful in the way he leads his life, above all whether the teacher has a firm foothold in life, whether he knows what he wants; above all they have a sure sense of the overall situation of the teacher's soul.'
Having lived hitherto in a totality of space and time, the children now want to begin to structure this totality in their thinking. They do this by differentiating both in space and in time. 'Before' and 'after' are more strongly felt and also related to one another and this reflects the child's growing ability to form independent mental images and recall them at will. Cognitively, the children are more able to understand questions and phenomena in a realistic and reasoning way, though the pictorial element in thinking remains important. Combined with greater capacity for empathetic feeling, this new clarity of thinking enables the cultivation of notions of personal responsibility and reasoned sense of right and wrong.
Around the age of eleven, the child attains a certain ease and grace of movement which is co-ordinated, balanced and harmonious. By Class 6 (age eleven to twelve) the children begin to undergo significant physical change commensurate with the onset of puberty. Growth usually begins to express itself in the skeleton, which becomes longer and heavier, leading to a tendency to awkward and angular movements.
These important physical changes are accompanied by a growing interest in the factual and sense perceptible world on the one hand and a psychological turbulence on the other. By about the twelfth year (Class 6) the moment will have arrived when the children no longer merely ask about causes, but actively look for them or actually create them in order to observe what effect they have. This applies equally to social relationships.
The trust shown up until now by children towards their teachers is now put to the test through challenging, silly and sometimes sharply critical behaviour. Peer values become increasingly significant in children's development, leading often to clearly distinguishable roles within the group, including leaders, bullies, victims, jokers, those who are deemed 'cool' and those who are marginalised.
The teachers must establish a new relationship to the class, one which can deal with the mood swings of the children and which can assert a new 'lawful' authority. Rules and parameters with clear consequences are essential at this age, though the teacher will also need to be able to defuse tension with humour.
In language lessons (both mother tongue and foreign) a new consciousness needs to be awakened for different linguistic qualities.
Before their ninth year children have an entirely emotional relationship to language. However, they would be unable to develop an awareness of themselves if we did not bring an element of thought into language. That is why it is so important to bring in the thought element by means of grammatical rules, sensibly taught, mainly in the mother tongue but then also perhaps in a foreign language. However, the language must be learnt before the rules are introduced.'
For foreign languages, writing and reading in those languages must precede this.
The verb tenses bring an experience and understanding of how time is expressed in language. In English lessons the children learn about how the various parts of speech express different qualities and this responds to their increasing variety of inner experience. Declension, sentence structure, punctuation, prepositions etc. help articulate different standpoints and varying relationships, while distinguishing between direct and indirect speech or active and passive modes defines the speaker's own position (Class 5). In Class 6 comes the added facet of reality to be gained through using the subjunctive mode to indicate the difference between wish, intention and fact. Exercises in writing business letters brings in a further aspect of the real world and cultivates a sense for appropriate use of language in different contexts. The corresponding phase in foreign languages involves conversation exercises on situations in everyday life.
Music lessons now also involve the 'grammar of music: Linked to what is going on in arithmetic lessons in which fractions are introduced in Class 4, note lengths and time value are now added to the notation begun in Class 3. The intrinsic laws of music are not studied theoretically but by playing music. The relationship of the subsidiary keys to the main key leads to the discovery of the cadenza. In keeping with the need to link everything to the level of the children's emotional development the difference between major and minor is practised by using the major and minor third (this refers particularly to Class 6). In keeping with this, singing and playing in unison now leads to rounds in several parts and then to simple polyphony.
Eurythmy lessons must be seen in connection with language and music. In speech eurythmy the various grammatical forms are practised while in tone eurythmy the scales and (in Class 6) the major and minor moods are worked on. Stepping in different rhythms and beats links to arithmetic through the values of the notes, while moving in geometrical forms supports the introduction of geometry that begins in Classes 5 and 6.
In the arithmetic lessons of Class 1 the unit was taken as the basis from which to experience the different numbers. Now, in Class 4, a similar principle comes into play again. The unit, the totality, splits up, but the parts have a regulated relationship with the whole through fractions. In the music lessons analogous discoveries are made. Fractions not only depict a 'spatial' differentiation but can also be comprehended in a dynamic and temporal way. Via decimals (Class 5) the path leads towards a preparation for logical, causal thinking, to percentages and thus to the first mathematical discovery of causes.
Form drawing now gains a strongly constructive component in intertwining, interlacing ribbon motifs, particularly in Celtic knotwork and patterns. Beauty now combines with accuracy. Attentiveness and alertness are required. In Class 5 form drawing includes freehand geometrical drawing, initially without compasses or ruler. Having done form drawing for four years, the children have gained a thorough sense of the circle, the straight line and the angle. These components are now taken separately and drawn as accurately as possible. Only once hand and eye have had enough practice is compass geometry introduced in Class 5 to draw shapes and in Class 6 to construct geometric forms.
Cause and effect can be experienced in the observation of the play of light and shadow in chiaroscuro or black-and-white shaded drawing. In Class 6 this subject complements painting with watercolours. As with free-hand geometry, the children search for and feel exactly how a shadow falls before shading it in charcoal.
Thus geometry emerges out of form drawing, and drawing with charcoal emerges from painting with watercolours. In each case the process is one of continuity. In the same way the practical experience of nature and human work in farming and building lessons is now extended and differentiated both spatially and temporally. Local studies lead on to geography and history on the one hand, and to nature studies on the other. From Class 6 onwards the latter also involves the practical aspect of gardening.
In local studies (Class 4) the children learn about the geography and above all the economic situation of their immediate surroundings. They discover how much depends on the type of soil and the lie of the land and learn what influences have been brought to bear during the course of history. The children also learn to make the transition from pictorial drawing to symbolic representation in map-making. When regional geography begins in Class 5, the whole country is studied, including its geographical and economic relationships with other countries. Finally a brief view of the whole world is given. Even at this age it is very important to go into the social aspects of geography both with regard to how the different peoples live together and with regard to caring responsibly for the environment.
Astronomy also appears on the horizon! At this stage the approach is phenomenological, i.e. the children study what they can actually observe with their own eyes, especially the relationship between the earth and sun but also including the phases of the lunar cycle and visible constellations. Now the children come to understand that what they observe in the sky has a direct influence on the climate and vegetation all over the earth.
In the language lessons, mother tongue and foreign, the children have been writing business letters in the former and practising conversation in the latter. The same principle is brought to bear in geography, where, on the one hand, they study how human beings live together and, on the other, experience how we are all economically interdependent. In English the children learn how to write accurate descriptions of what they observe, as well as imaginative accounts of historical episodes they have heard about. In both the mother tongue and foreign languages there is an emphasis on accuracy of meaning through the correct use of words and declensions.
In nature study the animal kingdom is taken first because of its closeness to the human being. This aspect is emphasised through a comparison between the human being and various animal types. From an anatomical point of view, the human being is generalised and unspecialised, whereas each animal species has specific, one- sided anatomically based skills that have often developed at the cost of others, e.g. one particular sense, specialised locomotion and so on, involving specific organs (eyes, nose, teeth, limbs, etc.), The children learn about animals grouped by their chief characteristics in this regard, such as species with powerful metabolic systems (herbivores), animals that hunt and use their claws, strength and teeth (carnivores such as the big cats), animals with highly developed visual abilities (birds of prey) and so on. Human beings potentially have all these capacities, but each remains in balance with all the others, so that they can be seen as both synthesis and archetype of the whole animal kingdom. The children discover that humans have what animals are. We have technology and culture whereas they have specialised anatomy.
In plant studies the evolutionary path from lower to higher plants relates to the developmental stages of the child and young person. The sequence of plant forms growing ever more differentiated and expressive provides a visible image of the children's psychological development as more and more capacities develop. The children are shown how plants relate to the earth and sun, how they change during the course of the year and, in broad outlines, how they are distributed over the whole globe. In a manner comprehensible to children (but not in a childish manner!) the two important themes of evolution and ecology are thus present as an inner thread running through biology from the start. In nature studies in Class 6 the children enter for the first time the world of mineralogy in a block period devoted to this subject.
In the history lessons the children step out of the immediate present and imagine time processes in a concrete way with the help of vivid images from the past. The time for this falls between the eleventh and twelfth years. Psychologically the children are ready to move from myth and legend to history and biography. In Class 5, history involves giving the children historical images of Asian and Middle Eastern peoples i.e. the culture of Ancient India, China, Ancient Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece. The culture of these early civilisations is characterised through story material. With Greece myth becomes history. In Class 6 they are introduced to Roman history and the Middle Ages. They learn about cultural changes throughout history, e.g. what changes were brought about for Europe through contact with Islam. Here again the aspect of causality is taken into account. Europe lagged far behind the Orient. Then, thanks in part to contact with Islam and the East, new technological and industrial progress developed in European towns, particularly in Italy. The monastic settlements and the growth of urban cultures as well as the early influence of technology such as water wheels, building techniques, advancements in navigation and shipbuilding are important themes. The end of feudalism can, for example, be graphically characterised by events such as the Battle of Agincourt, which revealed a microcosm of social change.
Physics also begins in Class 6, and with it comes an experience of causality. The lessons are not yet concerned with the theories and hypotheses of physics: rather the children are helped to experience the basic phenomena of acoustics, optics, heat, magnetism and static electricity. Mechanics is held over for Class 7. Two of the reasons for this are as follows. Mechanics requires the study of gravity (unless you remain entirely in the neutral realm of theory), and it provides opportunities for the children to experience this force consciously. As the pupils enter puberty, they become 'ready for the earth: 5 The growth associated with puberty has the effect of literally burdening the youngster with a new sense of physical weight. They have a need to explore the new strength that comes with this muscle and bone growth though they often lack an orientation both in their movements and in their emotional instability. They can be helped by discovering how the force of gravity can be employed in mechanics and made serviceable in life.
The second reason that mechanics is deferred until age thirteen is that it provides examples for the application of physical law to technology, the consequences of which one can see most clearly in the industrial developments during the nineteenth century. Practical applications of mechanical principles are the central theme. It is impossible to stress too strongly the importance of letting experience precede knowledge.
The practical subjects within the curriculum are now also expanded and differentiated. Gardening enables the child to encounter the consequences of work in a practical and necessary sphere of life. By providing opportunities to observe plant growth, gardening affords experiences of how time relates to space.
Three-dimensional space is now explored in handwork. The children knit gloves and socks on five needles and sew stuffed animals that require them to have a clear idea of the animal's shape when they design and cut out the pattern (the cause and effect aspect can also be seen here). The skills learned in cross-stitch are developed further to include the embroidery of interlacing ribbon motifs, such as those learned in form drawing.
'Soft' handwork is now joined by 'hard' craftwork, which is pursued by boys and girls alike. Working with wood provides a wonderful experience of what 'expertise' really means. Together, wood and tool are a unit when handled expertly. The skills of sawing, carving, rasping and filing are practised. In textile handwork, with the exception of leather, the resistance offered by the material is slight. Wood provides a considerably greater challenge so that form can be created by the practical activity of exercising expertise.
Gym lessons provide a similar theme. The movement games are now replaced by various kinds of running game, such as relay races, which have a specific aim. Achieving this is the challenge. The same goes for apparatus work, which begins now, as well as athletics and swimming. In each case the children have to learn to move using the appropriate technique in the given medium.
The themes chosen for the narrative content of the lessons during these three years help the children experience their own psychological and spiritual steps in development, through examples which span the transition from myth and legend to history.
Summary of Classes 4 to 6
During this period of development, in which the children begin to distance themselves from their surroundings, it is extremely important that their connection with the world be strengthened and renewed by means of direct and differentiated experience supported by understanding. To work in the world means to understand the world. The new subjects introduced during this phase make this possible. In working out of an understanding that has a moral foundation, the children learn to work in service for the sake of the world. Turning towards the world in this way can also be described as loving it in an active and concrete way. Class 6 marks an important transition in the class teacher period. With the onset of puberty the children are ready to develop a causal understanding of the world, yet given the emotional and subjective nature of their experience, it is important that this causal aspect be clothed in imaginative and pictorial language.