SAVE THE DATE! --- 2023 WECAN Early Childhood Conference

Dear WECAN conference goers, 

This coming year we are returning to an in-person conference for the first time in three years! We have heard from many colleagues of their deep desire for an in-person experience of keynotes and workshops, as well as opportunities to eat together, see old friends and colleagues, and shop in the vendor hall. 

We explored the possibility of a hybrid conference but realized that it would not be possible if we want to focus on offering a great in-person experience. However, WECAN will offer various online presentations and opportunities for conversation on the conference theme and other related topics during the coming school year. And several of our WECAN regions are planning smaller regional gatherings this year, which will be announced in our News Updates and on our website and WECAN Community Hub.

We will limit the number of participants at the February conference due to Covid considerations and will make every effort to make the conference as safe as possible for all participants. 

More information will be posted in the coming months on the WECAN home page at www.waldorfearlychildhood.org and shared on the WECAN Community Hub.

We hope that you will join us! 

with warm wishes from the Conference Team

With the potential threat of covid infections and other increasing health issues in our lives, we at Eurythmy4you invite you to check out our courses to strengthen your resilience, relax your nervous system and feel at home in your body: Prepare for Winter. 
​
We also recommend this international program, run by our certified ABSR Trainers in a multitude of different languages: Activity-Based Stress Release (ABSR) Program

Job Listings

***Click here to see hundreds of other jobs at waldorftoday.com***

Spanish/World Language Teacher
Berkshire Waldorf School, Great Barrington, MA

Co-Lead Grade Three Teacher
Corvallis Waldorf School, Corvallis, OR

First Grade Teacher
Living Oaks, Dripping Springs, TX

1-4th grades loop
Portland Village School, Portland, Oregon

Second Grade Teacher
Asheville Waldorf School, Asheville, NC

Flexible Early Grades Teachers
Maui Community Home School, Haiku, Hawaii

Third Grade Class Teacher
Green Meadow Waldorf School, Chestnut Ridge, NY, New York, NY

Kindergarten Assistant Teacher
Waldorf School of the Peninsula, Los Altos, CA

High School Physics and Math Teacher
Austin Waldorf School, Austin, TX

Grades Teacher
Woodland Charter School, Murphy, Oregon

School Director
Shining Mountain Waldorf School, Boulder, CO

Lead teacher 2nd Grade
Children’s Garden, Myrtle Beach, SC
​
***Click here to see hundreds of other jobs at waldorftoday.com***

As an initial introduction to my project, it is called The Alchemy Kids. This is a project dedicated to increasing access to Waldorf early childhood curriculum and enrichment, meant to be implemented in a home setting, but there is no reason that it couldn't be incorporated into a more traditional classroom setting. 

My mission is to create more access-opportunities, within the Waldorf sphere, and to empower and support parents to bring more rhythm, reverence and age-appropriate intention into their homes - if they want to!

I'm writing a Waldorf children's book series which is extremely unique and, I believe, important. Publication is in progress! 

instagram.com/alchemykids exists to find my audience and provide Waldorf resources by a trained-teacher

Jenny Buzzotta

From Sven Saar

Since September 2021, Alan Swindell and I have been leading the new seminar in Ringwood, South England, the largest course for aspiring Waldorf teachers in Britain.

In Great Britain almost all training courses are part-time and need to be financed by the students themselves. There is a long tradition here: especially the course at Emerson College and the London Waldorf Seminar have become known worldwide because of their international orientation.

Emerson College Education Course was replaced by the West of England Steiner Teacher Training (WESTT) at the beginning of the century, and the final students will graduate from the London course at Rudolf Steiner House this July. Both seminars are now closed.

The Waldorf Institute, standing on the shoulders of these giants, wants to offer a new beginning and an anthroposophically based, contemporary way out of the crisis for British Waldorf schools: modern Waldorf teachers must not only know the basics, but also be able to relate critically and confidently to traditions, in order to become innovative in the best sense.

They need resilience and high professional standards to withstand the scrutiny of inspectors and enable their schools to survive and have a healthy economic future. Modern students are seeking a new orientation, transforming themselves and learning their craft, but they also want to be active co-creators of the process.

The Waldorf Institute sets itself high standards, developed and challenged not least through its international network and undogmatic approach to curriculum: its experienced tutors regularly offer online courses in Asia, and mentor new and established schools in many countries.

More on the website: www.waldorfinstitute.uk

Annette Park had a love and appreciation for Waldorf education and the dedicated teachers, parents and communities that nurture and support Waldorf schools. In 1996, as an entrepreneur and Waldorf mother of five, Annette developed this mission for a business:

• To aid in the teaching of the arts of painting, drawing, handwork and creative play by providing instruction, materials, and resources, in harmony with Waldorf education.
• To provide the best possible products and services, in the most socially conscious, economical, and personal way, to teachers and parents working out of the Waldorf School philosophy and curriculum.
• To work toward the development and implementation of associative economic principles in our business practices.

We sincerely love our products, and we strive to continue our own education at Paper Scissors Stone every day: we roll wool, we pack paint, we cut felt and dye silk, and best of all, we play with our products, challenging ourselves to explore the sense of wonder that comes with creating colorful things with beautiful supplies.

Annette treasured the opportunity to learn with her children. In her own words, “The more I enter into painting and wax modeling and knitting and coloring and playing music and playing with silk – the more I understand the value of the education of my children. When I try to bring beauty and truth and reverence into our home, I give a gift, and I also receive the gift of my own education.”

​Paper Scissors Stone promotes quality, American and locally made supplies, values our employees and community, and offers the most environmentally sound products we can find. In 1996, Paper Scissors Stone sent out its first catalog, with a small, yet thoughtfully curated selection of beautiful, high-quality items that fit into the Waldorf home and classroom and introduced new, American-made alternatives to Waldorf staples such as paint, paintbrushes, crayons and main lesson books.

Since then many things have changed; more items have been added and our catalog is now this online store. We’ve seen the Waldorf movement expand to include the ever-growing Waldorf Charter schools and Waldorf homeschooling community. 

Our warehouse and store is located in the small town of Viroqua, Wisconsin, nestled into the rolling hills of the Driftless region. We are just one block from the main-street business district and two blocks from Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School and Youth Initiative High School. All of our employees have been involved with Waldorf as students, teachers and parents. 
​
Paper Scissors Stone, although small, has a huge heart. We care about what we are here to do, and we care about how we came to be. We value our roots being firmly secured in the Waldorf community, in the schools that inspired our founder to form this business, to the community that helped build and support its vision, and to the people along the way that took the hand we offered and expanded our network outward.

We share in decision-making and prioritize the well-being of our employees. We consider all of YOU – teachers, parents, artists, crafters and suppliers – in the choices we have to make as a small business in the ever-changing economic climate. We strive for fair prices and shipping rates, to be responsive to your inquiries and concerns, and to use the twenty-plus years of experience and understanding this business has to support you in your journey in education and play.  

Visit Paper Scissors Stone here.
Free Shipping on Orders $200 and up
When shipped to the contiguous United States

Wisdom, Wonder and Enchantment Puppetry Conference Starting July 28th, 2022. ​It's almost here! Have a peek at the in-person workshops and join us at the Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School (or online)! Take a moment to learn about the in-person offerings at the summer conference here!

As early as 100 years ago, progressive educators were concerned with allowing children to be children, not integrating them into the supposed necessities of adults. Thoughts on free play and religious tolerance in Waldorf Kindergartens.

When Emmi Pikler opened her pediatric practice in Budapest in the early 1930s and had her first child, Hungary’s politics were dominated by a right-wing government under Miklós Horthy, who passed anti-Semitic laws and brutally persecuted dissenters. It was in this context that Pikler began to elaborate her take on infant pedagogics. At its core is the idea that free initiative is the most important thing for child development: «It is essential that children discover as many things as possible on their own. If we help them solve all tasks, we deprive them of the very thing that is most important for their intellectual development.»1


At exactly the same time in Berlin, music educator Heinrich Jacoby developed revolutionary pedagogical approaches in a joint effort with movement therapist Elsa Gindler. The revolutionary aspect referred to the need for adults to change their behaviour in regard to education instead of constantly harassing children: «The mentality and behaviour of the teaching adults should change. Children’s development is disturbed by rules, inappropriate questions, and premature assistance; they lose the ability and courage to try things out for themselves, to improvise, and spontaneously allow their own expressions to arise, whether in the fields of music, movement, or linguistic expression.»2 Jacoby had to end his collaboration with Gindler in a rush and flee to Switzerland. He knew that otherwise, he would end up in a Nazi extermination camp, like all Jews and people who professed freedom.


When Maria Montessori gave a speech on Peace and Education to the League of Nations in Geneva in 1932, she emphasized that only an education oriented towards freedom and autonomy would lead to lasting peace,3 Fascism was also on the rise in Italy. From 1934 onwards, Mussolini turned against the institutions of his great contemporary, who tirelessly emphasized: «Children have an irresistible urge towards freedom. It is not like a vase being filled, but like a spring left to bubble.»4


Just like Montessori institutions in Italy, Waldorf schools in Germany were tolerated for a few years at this time before they too had to close. Rudolf Steiner had already set the revolutionary pedagogical tone in 1919: «The task then arises for us not to want to teach children all kinds of things using our will, but […] to exist in their environments in a way that the children can imitate the matter in question».5 Above all, the development of the young child is promoted through the self-education of the educator. The most important thing is to give them time and space for free play in an environment designed according to their needs.


Learning Programs, Tests, and Safety RegulationsAlthough renowned authors never tire of emphasizing that suppressing individual initiative permanently disrupts young children’s will to learn and develop, one can get the impression that many countries’ educational policies intend to finally reverse the educational revolution that began 100 years ago. Free play initiated by children themselves is neither suspect nor better: it is tolerated as a sympathetic-romantic phenomenon, but it is not given any significant role in pre-school education. Today, it is not totalitarian regimes that ban institutions from implementing this basic pedagogical idea. It is concerned parents and officials in education ministries who think that children have no chance in the job market if they do not spend their time in preschool from the age of three onwards focusing on learning steps programmed and controlled by adults. In France, the book by the Canadian educationalist Catherine L’Ecuyer ‹L’émerveillement et la curiosité naturelle de nos enfants› (The Wonder and Natural Curiosity of our Children) is a bestseller – at the same time, compulsory education from the age of three is introduced and the legal status of kindergartens is abolished. Yet the book, which has also sold well in Spain, the UK, and the USA, states: «When we overwhelm young children with external stimuli, we paralyze their innate capacity for amazement and stifle their self-motivation.»6 In the UK, learning programs, tests and safety regulations make free play in preschools largely impossible. At the same time, the well-known journalist Sue Palmer publishes on her website: «Research connects starting school prematurely to long term mental health damage›.7



Space For AmazementFor decades, Waldorf Kindergartens around the world have provided a natural, artistically engaging environment that encourages self-guided activity, amazement, and learning – ideal for free play. Here and there, however, one can hear and read concerned voices objecting that freedom of thought is not guaranteed in these institutions because Rudolf Steiner is known to have had a spiritual worldview, which is transmitted to children in a roundabout way via educators.8 Even if one points out that Steiner repeatedly emphasized that Waldorf institutions should in no way teach religion or a particular worldview, nor Anthroposophy as described by Steiner,9 this concern remains for some since spirituality and religion have been associated with strict rules and with ideas represented as dogmas for centuries. If you obeyed the rules and believed in the dogmas, you belonged to a certain group; if not, you were excluded.


But anyone who reads Steiner’s work more closely can find that he thinks similarly about ideologies as he does about the role of initiative in education: just as children under six develop best through initiative and free play, so too does every adult in relation to spirituality and worldview issues. Constraint, rules, codes of conduct, and dogmas are yesterday’s world; an open and free-spirited atmosphere invites experimentation, exploration, and amazement and encourages development – in adults and children alike. Whether children have a huge urge to move and are constantly running, jumping, and wrestling, or whether they are contemplative, constantly asking questions, or building huts, there is space and time for their initiatives in Waldorf kindergartens. Whether parents are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, atheist, interested in yoga or basketball, at Waldorf Kindergartens, teachers strive to work with all parents to create a suitable environment for the children’s free play. Education towards freedom and tolerance are among the most important ideals of the Waldorf Kindergarten – and of Anthroposophy: «It is a question of trying to break free from dogmas precisely because human beings are becoming more and more individual and individualistic. In our time, more and more tolerance must arise, especially with regard to thoughts of religious life.»

Illustration by Ella Lapointe

Footnotes

1. https://erzieherauge.blogspot.com/p/zitate.html.
2. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Jacoby.
3.  «If children are subjected to oppression and constraint during this precious and tender period of their lives, the seeds of their future life will be unfruitful and it will not be possible for them later, as adults, to accomplish the great tasks which life imposes upon them.» Quoted in French at http://journaldecole.canalblog.com/archives/2014/11/10/30931216.
4. M. Deny, A.-C. Pigache, Le grand guide des pédagogies alternatives. Eyrolles, Paris 2017.
5. Rudolf Steiner, Soul Economy. Body, Soul and Spirit in Waldorf Education 7th lecture, GA 303, Dornach 1987.
6. Catherine L’Ecuyer’s website in English: https://catherinelecuyer-eng.com/thewonderapproach/ In Spanish: https://catherinelecuyer.com/2016/07/06/la-importancia-de-educar-en-el-asombro-y-en-la-realidad/.
7. https://www.upstart.scot/research-connects-too-early-school-start-to-long%c2%adterm-damage-to-mental-health.
8. For example, in the French magazine ‹Le Point›: https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/je-suis-la-cible-d-un- harcelement-des-pro-ecoles-steiner-02-10-2019-2338941_23.php#xtmc=steiner&xtnp=1&xtcr=1.
9. “These general human qualities […] must be particularly expressed in the principle of Waldorf schools in that a Waldorf school does not convey religious or philosophical convictions or a particular worldview in any way. […] It was necessary […] to work towards the fact that Waldorf Schools are far from […] becoming, for instance, an Anthroposophical school.” Rudolf Steiner, Education, and Modern Spiritual Life. Lecture on the 15th of August 1923, GA 307, Dornach 1986.

by Philipp Reubke​

The Lei Chuan Waldorf School in Taichung has been intensively rehearsing since May, and on June 8, 2022, the first performance of ‹Parzifal› in Taiwan took place in the city’s theatre. How did this come about?

Six years ago, «We wanted to find out whether this story we had heard about helps our students in their development.» The first attempts were made for an epoch in the 11th grade, which was further developed every year. The Parzifal story also had a place in teacher training and in parent seminars. In 2021, a colleague saw an advertisement from the state school authority to promote an artistic-pedagogical school project. The project ‹Parzifal› was approved and promoted.
This resulted in a collaboration between a set designer, a costume designer, a playwright, and a composer. In an intensive process with the students of the 12th grade, we reworked the present theatrical version. Of course, it was performed in Chinese. The 9th, the 10th, and the 11th grade were involved in the orchestra, choral singing, and various smaller stage tasks. For the fight scenes, a former student was hired as a choreographer. In three scenes, the students developed eurythmy forms together with the eurythmist. Some scenes were also sung.
​

Already during the rehearsals, the power of the ‹Parzifal› text became apparent. Many questions about the struggle of the personality for the harmonious path, for the understanding of a spiritual, life-supporting orientation accompanied the work. When we paused in the process and asked ourselves how to achieve a coherent presentation, the Parzifal images and their backgrounds gave us new insights and new strength for the rehearsal work.

More joergpeterschmidt@web.de
Image ‹Parzifal› performance in Taiwan. Photo: J. Peter Schmidt – Translation: Monika Werner