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Waldorf Curriculum 2

Introduction

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:
  • The curriculum unfolds over time, is wide and richly experiential: not merely designed towards narrowly-defined 'achievement', but intended to promote capability for the art of living
  • The curriculum is really only a series of 'indications', as Steiner described them, pointers inviting interpretation and free rendering, i.e. it calls on and encourages the creativity ( or artistry) of teachers
  • The importance of content is fully recognized (young people need certain skills and useful knowledge), but as a creative framework, the Steiner- Waldorf curriculum is embedded within a developing practice and method. The curriculum outline takes its cue from the development of the child: subject, or content, provides a medium for a meeting and collaboration of teacher and learner. Thus, since meaning and knowledge are built over  time, this is co-constructive learning in which understanding unfolds as a process of learning to learn encompassing both students and teacher
  • Subject content and necessary competence are always relative to the child: the curriculum is midwife to the emerging individuality, rather than suit of clothes into which the child must be made to fit
  • The shaping principles of the curriculum are extraordinarily robust and resilient. Many independent educators recognize this fundamental coherence, which has stood the test of time and many generations of children
  • The creative freedom within the Waldorf curriculum framework enables it to be successfully adapted for a variety of settings, languages and cultures. Schools founded on the principles and example of the first Waldorf School (Stuttgart 1919), can be found around the world, including every inhabited continent. What started as a central European curriculum has been modified by applying its essential principles to the education of children in -the Americas, many parts of Africa, the Middle East, India and the Far East, as well as most of the rest of Europe.

Course Outlines

Waldorf Curriculum 1
Lesson 1: Introduction
Lesson 2: Preschool and Kindergarten
Lesson 3: Grades 1 - 3 (Part 1)
Lesson 4:
Grades 1 - 3 (Part 2)
Lesson 5:
Grades 4 - 6 (Part 1)

Waldorf Curriculum 2
Lesson 1:
Grades 4 - 6 (Part 2)
Lesson 2: Grades 7 and 8 (Part 1)

Lesson 3: Grades 7 and 8 (Part 2)
Lesson 4: Grades 9 - 12 (Part 1)
Lesson 5: Grades 9 - 12 (Part 2)
​
Lesson 6: Evaluations and End of Year Reports
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    Submission Form for Waldorf Curriculum 24

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Tasks and Assignments for Waldorf Curriculum 2.4.

Please study and work with the study material provided for this lesson. 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 curriculum examples that address the developmental profile, and aims and objectives for one sample class, for instance grade 10. Create 1 week of sample Waldorf Main Lesson curriculum plans or 1 week of sample subject class using the info and template provided, and applying the following format:

1.A. Class 9/Developmental Profile
1.B. Class 9/Aims and Objectives

2.A. Class 10/Developmental Profile
2.B. Class 10/Aims and Objectives

Please send your completed assignment via the online form or via email.

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Study Material for Waldorf Curriculum 2.4.

The Upper School: Introduction

Rather than provide developmental profiles  for each Upper School class, we will describe  educational aims for each age group. This seems  more appropriate given the increasing individual  differentiation that occurs during adolescence.  Nevertheless one can identify an overall progression  through the years of the Upper School that can be  characterised as follows.
The Class 9 student (fifteen years old) has reached  a point in his or her development when the inner  life of feeling in its search for independence can take  extreme forms. Steiner once characterised the feeling  life of the fifteen year old as akin to having been 'spat  out' of the spiritual world. That means a radical  distancing of the individual not only from the sense  of being embedded in a secure world of certainties  provided by family as much as by childhood  innocence, but also from what that individual  has learned. It requires the inner equivalent of re-  learning how to walk, talk and think.

Thinking, feeling and willing as activities are  often entirely at odds with each other. This can  manifest in great clarity of intellectual argument and total inability to act out the consequences  of those ideas; fierce assertion of emotional  independence (don't tell me what to do, think or  feel!) with an almost childlike dependency and  need for emotional comfort.

On the other hand there is a strong will to  engage in life, which needs equally strong ideals  as orientation. The Class 9 age student seeks and  welcomes clarity of explanation, sympathetic  understanding from the adults around them and  much open-hearted humour, the balm which  smooths and makes bearable the inconsistencies of  life. We can summarise the situation of the student  on entry to the Upper School as follows:

* The awakening of a stringent logic and thinking  potential that requires distance from one's own  self and other people
* The search for balance between intellectuality  and the realm of passion and urge-driven will.  * The experience of the emergence of a higher  ideal humanity
* The search for a new harmony with the world,  but one that should not be gained at the loss of  the new-found and still tentative identity and  personal freedom

The Class 10 age student (sixteen years old) often  appears after the summer holidays as different in  marked ways. The often tumultuous nature of  Class 9 has given way to a desire to know outer  facts, information and details, which requires of  them a new intellectual focus. Previously students  have mostly been satisfied to know how it is, now  they wish to know how we know how it is. In other  words they seek not only information but insight.  Thus behind every question of what, is the question  of how, of origins. How have things come to be as  they are? Above all the students want to know how  facts relate to them personally.

At this age young people experience their "I" strongly in harsh judgements of sympathy and  antipathy, especially the conventional world of  parents, authorities, routines and rules. The facades  of 'bourgeois' existence need to be torn down to  expose what lies naked behind them. They can  be rigorous in their pursuit of perceived injustice.  Class 9 students are rarely quite so ready to fight  and argue and yet the individual is never so prone  to being hurt as at this age. Dialogue with adults  acquires a sharper, more existential tone. It is no  longer merely an intellectual sport, as in Class 9.  Now it is for real.

Class 10 students become in many ways  the modern equivalent of medieval knights or  warriors. They adopt many elaborate rituals in  their behaviour, their clothing becomes their  armour. Depending on fashion, this can be quite  literal with the tendency to leather, chains, pins,  studs, insignia, motor-cycle helmets, heavy boots,  layers of clothing etc. These warriors are, however,  not graced with the arts of chivalry. There is often  a sense of imprisonment in their own inner lives,  with a corresponding urge to break out. There is  deep pain to endure and slow-healing wounds to  bear. The clothing is not only protective armour,  it is camouflage, disguise and mask. There is  a heightened consciousness, a kind of double  awareness that the adolescent is quite aware of what  he does, how it appears and just how transparent  the disguise is.

The sheer unbridgeable gulf between appearance  and reality is often experienced as truly tragic. This  age is highly prone to suicide and other lesser acts of  self-destruction. They seek groups in which to hide  among those who feel the same way, speak the same  language, enjoy the same irony, who understand  each other. If Class 9 was still lit by the remaining  glow of the class teacher period, by Class 10 the  light has entirely faded. This is one of the most  decisive points in the whole maturation process.  The individual has arrived and is in grave danger of  diffusing. The temptation to flight in inner or outer  'emigration' is strong, to run away from the world  of challenges, to hang onto childhood's certainties,  to blot out the light of day.

Two powerful new forces, that of burgeoning  sexuality and that of physical power, now further  destabilise inner uncertainty. These tendencies have  been there for a long time, for some individuals since  Class 7. Yet in Class 10 most students have arrived  at a certain low point in their overall development. Anthroposophical psychology recognises the  significant 'Rubicon' experience of the child in his  or her ninth year. This is taken account of in many  ways through the curriculum. A further significant  Rubicon challenge occurs in the sixteenth year,  in Class 10. The students are confronted with a  Significant threshold experience in their inner  development. Those who successfully negotiate  the transition over this threshold will have taken  a major step in the individuation process. Those  who don't, run the risk of falling prey to their own  unredeemed soul forces. Much adult behaviour that  we deem anti-social and immature is a reflection of  these unredeemed adolescent forces perpetuated  into adult life in often pathological ways. In men  this generally takes outwardly threatening forms,  in expressions of power. In women, it often takes  the form of dependency and self-denial, even self-  destruction. The gender differences have many  cross-overs.

The question of the 16 year old is 'who am I?'; it  will find an answer when the individual discovers  that who I am is not solely determined by what I  have inherited and what has happened to me in my  life so far, but also by something that has to do with  me? The Class 10 student can begin to explore new territory using the new powers of judgement that  can be developed during this year.

Life begins at 17. This popular conception  certainly highlights the fact that this age marks  a significant new beginning. If the interest of  the Class 9 student is strongly directed outwards  into the world, and the interest of the Class 10  student is strongly focused internally, the Class  11 student's interest is a synthesis of both these  directions, namely in insight. The young person at  this age wishes to understand the inner principles  that determine not only the human being's inner  life and configurations but also those of the wider  world. It is a question of finding the balance  between inner and outer.

This balance is especially critical in social  life. Social conscience awakens with the ability  to empathise with the other person. What has  previously been acutely experienced within one's  own soul can be recognised in the other. Deeper  dimensions to life now begin to reveal themselves.  The young person has to find an inner orientation  between appearance and reality, between what is  said and what is meant. Above all the seventeen  year old is called upon to find his or her own way, to  make personal and binding decisions, to consider  the full consequences of their actions. Polarities  in life have to be resolved, have to find a higher  synthesis to a new oneness. The choices to be made  highlight that most characteristic experience of  this age-doubt. Throughout the curriculum, the  question of polarities requires an inner engagement  from the student.

The student in Class 12 seeks an overview in  which to reconcile two opposing forces that have  become increasingly apparent through all he or  she has learned, namely the tension between  increased individualisation and ever growing  global consciousness. These two trends will have  become apparent through studies of science, the  humanities and through practical experience. The  curriculum has led the students to find inner and  outer connections and correspondences between  important phenomena in the world. Hopefully  they have learned how to make an inner personal  connection to that which they have learned. Now  the question is turned round. The question is no  longer how does the world affect me in my life,  but how can I influence the world? This question  needs to be asked in very concrete terms, in terms  of economics, in social and personal life, in politics  or in science. Am I a pawn or a King, a performer  or a spectator? Where is my position in the world?

School has to become a place in which the  student can find his or her own place in the world  and actively cultivate it. The students should at last  have the opportunity to define, create and live their  own learning space, not alone but in partnership  with fellow students and teachers. The emphasis  should be on self-determination of objectives and  pathways towards those objectives. This level of  independence will be denied most individuals  once they have left school for many years of further  professional training or career-building. Perhaps  some will never again have such freedom and at the  same time such youthful geniality, untrammelled  by life's responsibilities. It is a moment when  students can give back to their education freely  of themselves. It is fatal to the cultivation of  true individuality if this twelfth school year is  determined by the wishes of teachers or parents, or  indeed society at large in the form of examinations  and the like.

Gaining an overview is a last chance to remain  a generalist before plunging into the specialisation  that profession and university life entails. A  balance between independent working, choosing  themes and projects which express a personal interest and seeking the linking, integrating  overview between all fields of knowledge and  experience is the challenge the eighteen year old  demands. Recognising, even at this relatively  young age, something of one's individual destiny  is the corollary of recognising the global aspects of  the destiny of humankind. Ultimately the Class 12  student wants a useful answer to the question, can  the world be changed and am I worthy of being an  instrument of change?


Learning to form judgements

The periods leading up to and following puberty  (Steiner's own phrase erdenreife means 'being  ready for the earth') tend to make one want to look  at puberty as a separate phase in itself. The nature  of puberty has to be understood in the context  of what goes before and comes after it. It makes  itself known in advance both psychologically and  physically, culminates in an obvious physiological  process that is often felt to be quite dramatic,  and then continues to have after-effects. These  after-effects are not limited by the achievement of  biological maturity (which has already passed its  culmination as soon as the capacity to reproduce  has been attained) but include the process of  psychological maturation that goes hand in hand  with it.

Steiner summarised this process as a 'new, third  birth', the birth of the independent body of soul  forces (the sentient body) in the individual. The  first birth is the one we normally regard as such, the  beginning of the path of life. The second is when the  organic development reaches a culmination at the  change of teeth, when the forces hitherto used to  build the body become free to form and structure  memory and imagination.

 Prior to this 'third birth', feelings were the source  of the child's inner life, but from now on they reach  a new stage of independence. An individual's inner  life confronts the outer world in a relationship  that still has to find a form. Among other things,  this relationship is created by the capacity to form  judgements. The content of all lessons should  respond to this need by challenging it and by  providing a context in which the individual can  develop his or her faculties. This means that the task  of education is to provide learning opportunities in  which objective laws that are accessible to thought  can be experienced and made conscious. Real  judgement can only be based on recognition of the  true nature of phenomena.

This also provides a basis for doing things that  are recognised to be necessary even if the personal  part of one's feelings doesn't feel like it. This is where  duty as a voluntary act can be discovered, together  with responsibility for one's own actions. Adopting  one's own standpoint becomes important, as does  finding one's own voice, both of which lead to  having one's own opinions. Once the first stages of  this process have been achieved both physically and  psychologically, and when the often tumultuous  phase has died down, the young person achieves a  new plateau of development.

By the end of the sixteenth year the crisis or  transition of puberty can be regarded as completed.  Bodily proportions reach a new harmony. There is  a greater inclination for serious work. On the other  hand there is also a danger of becoming eccentric:

In all modesty, the young person assumes  that he has a significant part to play in saving  humanity, and plans his life accordingly. 11

Teachers can help in such cases by setting an  example of how judgements are formed. The youngsters must learn how to handle judgements  in an appropriate way. It is clear that they are feeling  and seeking for 'ideals', in their own selves as well  as in others and in the world.

What they find in their search rarely comes  up to expectation, and their comments are all too  plain and often merciless. They can easily become  sceptical. The science the teacher presents must be  seen to have been successful in the steps it has taken  towards knowledge. Pessimism about knowledge  is not good for young people's psychological state  at this age, though what they themselves say often  expresses it. When they do this they are actually  challenging the adult world to 'show me that this is  not so: There is an entirely objective tragic element  in young people of this age, for only rarely do  they find others living in the way they seek to live,  namely as self-determining adults.

School is no longer acceptable if it is felt to be  running alongside rather than within real life. It  must offer possibilities that lead to surefootedness  in the here and now. The pupils will detect  anything speculative or masquerading as reality.  Their search for authenticity and truth is a more  concrete version of their search for an unattainable  ideal. It is the teachers' task to provide positive  experiences in this search. If they fail, the young  people will not find a foundation for their existence  which can give them firmness and direction. They  will remain empty, standing without a foothold  in the stream of time. Adolescents who find only  inadequate answers among their teachers and the  adults around them may, later in life, struggle to  overcome selfishness and insecurity. As adults  themselves, they may be unable to find the altruism  and confidence a healthy society needs.


Values: meeting real needs

An education that takes its orientation from life  questions of this kind can never be value-free.  When the children were younger it was the task  of the teacher to assess and choose what he or  she told the children. Now the teacher must let  the youngsters experience the teacher as a person  with real questions. What encourages and develops  the young people now are not results but rather  the processes of the teachers' own self-education.  Those teachers will be successful who can lay aside  their own ingrained attitudes and remain 'life-long  learners' themselves.

The third seven-year period does not end  with Class 12 or even Class 13. The urge to enter  professional or other specialist training makes  itself felt. Aims become clearer. Faced with  external influences such as the pressure to gain  places in higher education or the possibility of  unemployment, young people may become restless  and gradually lose the will to learn. The challenges  of public examinations can, in their one-sidedness,  lame initiative and narrow the scope of interest.

The real needs of modern society for people of  initiative, energy, flexibility, creativity and social  competence, demand that Upper School students  learn to learn, learn to work, learn to transfer skills  from one realm to another, develop problem-  solving abilities, be creative and above all have a  fine sense of social responsibility.

For this reason many Steiner- Waldorf  schools have developed integrated Upper School  programmes offering a variety of practical training  in such fields as carpentry, environmental studies,  electronics, metalwork, design and clothing,  catering, child care and so on, alongside the usual  range of subjects. There is an emphasis on project  work and this is combined with a range of practical  work experience opportunities. Such activities  cultivate transferable skills in learning through  making, team work and social competence. School  in this sense becomes a real preparation for life if  it provides opportunities for individuals to become  free personalities capable of recognising and  accepting the tasks life presents them with and  whose soul faculties of thinking, feeling and willing  are integrated by the activity of their T

In countries such as the UK, where the public  examination system permeates the whole Upper  School, or even into the Middle School, the question  of life skills and developing real engagement and  motivation is often subsumed by the narrowing  effect of exams on the young person's horizon.  Such schools work hard to find the right balance,  not least in the consciousness of the students,  who too often see the exams as the 'real' task. The  challenge to awaken genuine ideals should not be  underestimated. The real task of a Waldorf Upper  School is to work with adolescents in such a way  that they can ask: what do I need to do to be useful  in society? rather than asking: what do I need to do  to get what I want?

There are several aspects to this task. The young  people must:

a)    become familiar with the world and the tasks it  sets them;
b)    develop a range of skills that equip the  individual to be creative and adaptable in fields  beyond what they have specifically learned;
c)    discover their own individuality;
d)   develop powers of judgement and discernment;
e)    develop a moral and ethical will based on  insight.

Prepared in this way, young people will be  able to contribute freely and responsibly as self-  dependent individuals to the society and the times  in which they find themselves, learning to take part  in shaping the future.


Educational competence

Steiner- Waldorf education aims to combine  schooling the intellect with caring for imaginative  qualities and character building. Therefore artistic  and practical activities are seen as being of equal  value to the provision of knowledge. Each of these  fields of experience should be integrated. Education  is not solely a matter of intellectual training: it is a  holistic process. Nor should education be restricted  to specialist knowledge but should seek to engage  the whole human being. Both pupils and teachers  can regard themselves as 'successful' if they succeed  in developing intellect, a rich emotional life and  will in equal measure and if they bring about a  feeling for freedom, equality and fraternity. People  will then not reject the challenges life offers, nor  will resignation be their reaction to crisis. Instead  they will help to find meaning and seek and follow  new ways. Shaping every lesson will be an 'art of  education' which presupposes a creative teacher  who is him or herself continuously in the process  of developing. Education in this sense means  teaching the right subject in the right way at the  right time.

If the teachers succeed in working with and  understanding the laws of human development,  then they will become capable of 'reading' the  human being. The various physiological and  psychological phenomena that occur as a young  person matures need to be linked with the overall  human being. Comparison can be made to the  plant whose totality can only be observed in the  whole sequence of its life cycle. When a person  has learnt to read the human being well enough to be able to base their educational actions on this  insight, thus helping young people in the whole  of their being, then he or she can be said to have  gained educational competence. They can take  on full responsibility for education in school. The  curriculum is then no longer merely a syllabus  to be ticked off item by item, for the curriculum  then arises out of the conditions necessary for  development at each specific stage.

The Upper School: Classes 9 and 10 - Curriculum

Class 9

In history, attention returns to the period spanning  the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. The aim  is to make the pupils acquainted with the leading  ideas of this period. Great ideas and ideals bring  about new developments (the French Revolution,  the American Wars of Independence and  Constitution, the Russian Revolution). Ideas can  also be powerful instruments of evil, as the history  of the Third Reich demonstrates. These exemplify  the problems young people themselves have at  the Class 9 stage: that the journey from ideal to  realisation presupposes a perception of reality, that  violence and failure can be a consequence of moral  rigour and fanatical idealism.

The last 'blank spots' disappear from the  European map of the world, and consciousness  begins to encompass the whole globe. This history  main -lesson is intended to awaken the youngsters'  interest in the world. They also need to understand  the historical forces that come to expression in  the current global situation. At the start of a new  millennium, the end of the Cold War and its  proxy conflicts in Asia and Africa as well as the  lingering forces of disintegration that followed  the end of Colonialism have left a complex world,  one in which the young person needs to find an  orientation. The globalisation of both the world  economy and communications systems is creating  a new phase in world history, one for which the  students have a keen interest. Their increasing  familiarity with electronic media and in particular  the internet needs to be put in a global context.

Important aspects of human invention and  discovery are treated in physics, including the  steam engine, locomotive, combustion engine,  electric motor, light bulb, telephone, calculator,  television, laser and computer (some of these may  be dealt with in Class 8). The pupils in Class 9 come  to grips with the rationally planned technology of  the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many of  these technologies have revolutionised people's  mobility and ability to communicate. The  relationship between the machines themselves  and the kind of consciousness that accompanies  their use is an important topic. The impact such  inventions had on everyday life is important, as  is their replacement through even more modern  tools and systems. The post-industrial age is the  world the students are growing into and this needs  to be put into perspective.

It is also important for the pupils to get to know  the individuals whose ideas and intentions led to  specific inventions. Through such examples they  can grasp technology as human thought which has  become actual reality. A glance into the workshop  of these thought processes and into the biography of  the inventors provides the pupils with pictures that  can rouse their enthusiasm while as yet avoiding  the moral implications and cultural pessimism of  today.

In mathematics, equations right up to probability  calculations take centre stage. This provides good  practice in formal, logical thinking. All kinds  of quadratic equations and surface and volume  calculations are done.

In geometry, Platonic solids with plane surfaces  provide the opportunity to make inner pictures  of processes before drawing them. The manner  of depiction is chiefly that of diagonal section  with vertical parallel projection which is easy to  construct and easy to see spatially. Conic sections  now also make their appearance. This is new as  compared with Class 8. Ellipse, parabola and  hyperbola are developed using dynamic exercises.

In biology, the subject begun in Class 8 in  human biology continues; the human skeletal  and muscular system and the sense organs, i.e.  those systems by means of which human beings  experience themselves in physical existence.  Carrying on from Class 8, the pupils can now be led  much further into the shape and functions of the  bones. Taking hold of these and overcoming gravity  with them is what young people are unconsciously  occupied with the whole time. The whole theme  of uprightness has a central place at this age. This  complements the experience of the sense organs.  These enable the young person to reach out beyond  his or her own body, which is often experienced as  being 'too small:

In geography in the Upper School an  understanding of the earth as a whole entity begins  in Class 9 with the study of the earth's mineral  crust. The students' newly awakened but as yet  disorderly personality forces and the growing  capacity to form judgements are directed towards  geological phenomena. A thorough understanding  of the physical ground on which our existence  is built with its tectonic and geomorphological  processes can provide orientation and a sense  that the structure of the landscape is the result of  largely subterranean dynamic forces. The contrast  between imperceptible yet inexorable processes  of erosion and the dynamic of volcanic activity  offer the students a picture of extreme forms of  change. The levelling and up-building process of  sedimentation offers a stabilising middle between  these two poles. The extremes of forces and time  scales are polarities which mirror the young  person's way of experiencing the world.

In chemistry, the way substances come into  being is studied: combustion processes, results  of carbonisation, the decomposition of organic  matter leading to the formation of humus, how  fossil fuels are formed and metabolic processes in  plants. Distillation allows the pupils to experience  how substances evaporate and then become  tangible once again, a process of clarification  and purification like those they are experiencing  inwardly at this time.

The study of art becomes a subject in its own  right in the Upper School, and is very important  for Class 9. It provides a balance for the inorganic,  lifeless worlds of physics and chemistry with their  strict laws, showing the pupils a different world,  one in which human beings are free to create their  own order. Getting to know great paintings and  sculptures will awaken their enjoyment of art and  teach them that it is a realm in which human beings  can experience freedom. In European schools,  the origins of the Western tradition are explored  from Ancient Egypt, through Greece to Rome and  Early Christian art leading to the Middle Ages  and the dawn of the Italian Renaissance. The main  theme is, art as a reflection of changing human  consciousness.

Drawing is now exclusively chiaroscuro, black-  and-white (possibly also lino cutting and printing),  which mirrors the polarity in which Class 9 pupils  find themselves. By dealing with this polarity  consciously in shaping their work they experience  what their soul now needs. Particularly important  are the exploration of the transition from dark to  light and the crucial transitional 'grey areas' of life.

English studies also involve two main  elements." One main-lesson period is concerned  with the origins and history of drama and theatre.  From sacred beginnings both tragedy and comedy  have their spiritual aspects. The transition from  sacred to secular and profane is an important one  to experience at this age. Drama should have both  a theoretical, historical aspect and of course be a  practical skill to be learned, in drama workshops  and plays. Shakespeare is a high point of this study.  Key elements in studying Shakespeare are on  the one hand his theatre and the structure of his  dramas but on the other the quality of the language.  Shakespeare's leading characters provide studies in  personality of the highest order. In wrestling with  Shakespearean language the students discover the  many levels of subtlety and meaning in the images  and metaphors, which open them to the whole  meta-level oflanguage and human thought. In this  they are able to make an inner connection to the  spirit of language and thus consciously re-form  a connection to spirituality which puberty has  clouded or even separated them from entirely.

Humour is another theme. The subj ect of humour  enables the pupils to stand back a little from their  situation and see things from a variety of different  perspectives. This involves an exploratory study  of human nature and psychology. It also reduces  to a bearable level the sharpness of criticism and  self-knowledge. Laughter is an individual's way of  beginning to cope with what happens to one. The  varying emotions of empathy, compassion and  weeping, laughing at and laughing with, can also  be discussed from a social and psychological point  of view. When these soul qualities are stimulated  in an aesthetic way, Class 9 pupils can experience  the all-pervading tension of polarities and the  possibilities of resolution and redemption.

Finding their own voice requires practice, as do the practical skills of literacy. Book reports, study  skills, essays, use of syntax and style all help the  students master their written and oral skills and  find a new conscious relationship to language. The  process of distancing oneself from one's cultural  environment also involves the mother tongue. This  can lead to an 'in' -language or slang amongst young  people in which expressions taken from other less-  than-obvious lexical sources are often preferred.  The shock effect of such language on adults is very  much part of the process.

This tendency to become estranged from one's  own inherited language can come as a bonus for  foreign languages. The pupils get to know ways of  thinking and expression that are not customary in  their own language, and they enjoy being able to step  back from things by this means. Texts for reading  can be biographies of inventors, engineers, artists  and other great personalities of the era with which  the history lessons are concerned. In admiring  individuals who have gone ahead of their fellow  human beings along the path towards conquering  the earth, the young people gain a degree of maturity  in their own ideals and aims. Learning about the  issues facing other cultures also helps broaden  adolescents' perspectives. Indeed in our times the  need to understand the other person, the foreigner,  the refugee from another culture, gives the teaching  of foreign languages a special significance. The  entire cultural aspect of modern language teaching  is very important at an age when youngsters are  especially drawn into their own folk soul element,  adopt more strongly their local regional accent, and  begin to identify with the 'laddish' tendencies that  come to expression in the adolescent culture that is  often anchored in local prejudices, support of the  local football team and so on.

Grammar is repeated systematically in a broad  overview, and elements the pupils have been  practising, open the way for new possibilities of  comprehension. The path in foreign language  learning has moved from immersion and imitation,  through usage and learning by heart and has now  led to the need to understand. Thus a systematic  review of all aspects of grammar in Class 9 is very  much from the aspect of consciously working with  rules, structures, comparison of idiom and so on.  This is the age when a grammar textbook becomes  a useful tool in teaching. Earlier, such textbooks are  more useful as points of reference and reminders  of things already learned. Now the systematic,  tabulated, abstract structure of a good textbook  really comes into its own. As in the English lessons  a balance of humour, biographies, everyday useful  usage and exactness of expression is needed. It  is crucial that language lessons remain at heart  experiences of orality in language. Literature and  grammar both serve the primary aim of providing  resources to support the students speaking and  communicating in the foreign language. This is a  major challenge for teacher and student alike but  one that is amply rewarding when successful, and  tedious when not.

Music lessons take their departure from a similar  viewpoint. By getting to know the biographies of  great musicians the pupils begin to develop an  interest in their immortal compositions. It is a  good idea to place two great composers side by side  e.g. Mozart and Beethoven, or Handel and Bach for  Baroque music. Listening to the works of the great  composers can lead to discovering the differences  between the Baroque and Classical styles. In  working through such compositions, either  vocally or instrumentally, the pupils are guided to  discover not only new depths of feeling but also the  'grammar of music's language', to hear and show  how keys modulate, and thus to understand the  metamorphosis from the Baroque to Classical style.

 The youngsters are willing to understand anything  to do with metamorphosis, and if this is coupled  with art, it can help them find clarity in their own  'rebuilding process'. From Class 9 onwards the  pupils sing in the Upper School choir and/or play  in the Upper School orchestra.

In eurythmy, through poems and musical  compositions from the twentieth century and  contemporary artists, Class 9 pupils are led into  movement and choreography in a thoughtful and  businesslike way. The students should become  conscious of the formal elements in eurythmy,  learn how to choreograph appropriate forms  for the different styles of music or poetry, for  the grammatical and linguistic elements, for the  different keys and so on. There should also be the  opportunity to experience other forms of dance,  including both formal ballroom dancing, Latin  styles, jive, line dance, folk and morris dancing  as well as contemporary dance. In all this the  youngsters must be fully aware of the artistic  element, and a good leavening of humour should  also be included. For eurythmy to really engage  the students there must be regular opportunity  to see professional performances as well as being  motivated by regularly seeing Classes 11 and  12 students performing to a high standing. The  students should be able to experience that other  people take eurythmy seriously.

Gardening in Class 9 can either take the form  of a long main-lesson or project block (work  experience on the land, landscaping, laying paths  and building flights of steps, putting up fencing  etc.) or lead to a practical period of agricultural or  forestry work. For two to three weeks the pupils  live with farming families and share whatever work  is going on in farmyard and field. Apart from many  other new things, they experience nature as the  element that shapes each day and the whole of life.

The tasks depend on the locality and opportunities  available to the school. The important element  is the encounter with real physical hard work  and the necessary practical wisdom of tools, the  work and safety procedures and the teamwork  that accompany such activities. The economics of  farming are an important topic too, not least in  revealing the true value of work and stewardship of  the environment.

In carpentry and joinery, simple joints are  studied and applied. In dressmaking, the pupils  make their own patterns and then sew skirts,  jackets, etc. Copper beating and basket-making  lead to similar objects by very different means of  manufacture, e.g. bowls or vases on the one hand  and baskets of all sorts on the other. An inner space  is created from the outside by hard work. In all  these crafts, the student learns to experience the  nature of the material, how it is won, processed  and worked. The economic and ecological aspects  of craftwork should always be integrated into the  practical work and especially the link between  landscape, raw material and work process. Above  all, objects should be produced that meet a real need  in the world and not merely be a demonstration of  practice pieces. The same is true for information  technology. All pupils should learn basic word  processing and use this for practical purposes such  as the presentation of work, designing and laying  out magazine pages and so on.

Pupils who do not participate in the full aca-  demic programme for some reason are offered al-  ternative lessons of a practical and social nature.  Such students should be given the opportunity to  develop a specialist interest with specific responsi-  bilities within the school. This may include help-  ing in the kindergarten, kitchens, maintenance  department, school theatre and so on. Whatever  programme the school is able to offer, it is important that the students experience that their work  is valued and that they are increasingly to take re-  sponsibility for it.


Educational aims for Class 9

By the end of Class 9 the students should begin to:
* show self-motivated interest in the world  around them; acquire knowledge about what  interests them through independent gathering  of information and facts;
* show structure in their thinking and be able  to make logical, causal deductions; move  from judgement based on feeling (Class  8) to judgement based on observation and  understanding. Apply analytical processes to  an overall nexus and discover the underlying  principles;
* know how to make the transition from idea  to ideal, and from ideal to applied practice  and move from discovery (Classes 7 and 8) to  creation and invention. Engage their will in the  realm of ideals;
* appreciate technology as the 'fifth kingdom',  the kingdom of culture, created by the human  being; discover in technology the thought  become worldly reality;
* understand the transitions between polarities  in many different realms of life and especially  the arts;
* understand that art and science reflect  historical changes in cultural consciousness  and that artists and scientists have world views  that are expressed in their work;
* learn to work and be able to learn through  work. Have hands-on experience of as many  areas of practical life as possible;
* be able to work in a team and to solve problems  together.


Class 10

How does a Class 10 differ from a Class 9?  Personalities become more individualised through  the work. Steps need to be taken so that the  pupils' own activity helps them find themselves.  Clarity of thought and an increasing ability to  form judgements should help pupils extricate  themselves from the unstable nature of the forces  of emotional sympathy and antipathy. Hence the  effort to come to grips analytically with laws that  can be understood through thought.

Steiner's curriculum suggestions for biology  were:

To make the human being as a Single entity  comprehensible ... The physical human being  with his organs and organic functions in  connection with soul and spirit. 13

The point of departure is morphology, from  which a physiological and psychosomatic  consideration of the organs can follow step by  step. This could include a comparison of the brain  and nervous system with a study of the heart and  circulation. The brain's relationship to perception,  thought and memory provides a basis for discussing  consciousness and moral aspects of conscience.  The relationship of the heart and circulation  system to emotional experience is important. In  this way the young people come into contact with  a part of themselves where there is interplay of  those developmental processes to which they are  so intensely exposed at this age.

In geography the holistic view now expands to  include the earth's mantle of water and air and also  the climatic zones and further spheres including  the earth's core and the outer spheres, together  with their varied interactions and movements. In this way we continue to build a foundation for an  understanding of the biosphere and ecology. The  aim is to enable the pupils to become more aware  of the earth as a living organism that reacts with  the utmost sensitivity to interference in its rhythms  and cycles.

In gardening, cultivation and propagation now  come to the fore. If gardening as such is given in  Class 10, then the mysteries of grafting are taught.  But just as in Class 9, where a practical period in  agriculture can take the place of gardening, so  can Class 10 have a practical forestry period. This  period need not necessarily be regarded as an  alternative; it can equally well be complementary  to gardening, deepening understanding. It is also  important at this age that the students have direct  experience of work in a variety of professions. A  period of practical work experience may replace  the forestry practical.

The history main-lesson brings to the fore an  aspect that is obviously linked to geography: human  and cultural evolution governed by the earth and  the landscape. This is an opportunity to explore  human prehistory, from the emergence of modern  homo sapiens and the Paleolithic Revolution  around 40,000 years before the present. This can  include a study of the high culture of Ice Age art,  followed by the Mesolithic period of transition at  the end of the last Ice Age. The development of  agriculture and the founding of the first permanent  settlements shows not only a major shift in the  economy of prehistoric peoples but a fundamental  shift in human consciousness. From there, the  establishment of the urban civilisations, with their  theocracies, temples, use of writing, bureaucracies,  laws and hierarchical social structures, can be  described. Significant developments in technology  as well as the consequences of urbanisation, such  as the transference of diseases from animals to humans can also be discussed. The main focus of  these studies should be a comparison of the specific  ways the various cultures reflected their natural  geographical circumstances, and the ways in  which complex human societies were structured.  The links between human beings and the earth are  experienced, as is the evolution of the human being  who increasingly becomes an individual emerging  from the group, be it clan, tribe or nation.

The English main-lesson has similar aspects to  the history in handling the transition from myth  to literature, from pre-literate cultural forms such  as myth, saga, and religious ritual to the origins of  literature with its shift from collective to individual  experience. Another theme combines linguistics  with poetic diction and aesthetics, in which both  the origin and structure of language are explored.

The study of art has so far involved mainly the  visual arts. Now poetry and language as an art, is  added thus shifting the emphasis from art in space  to art in time. The formal laws of poetry - rhythm,  sound, and image - are investigated and practised  in epic, lyric and dramatic examples (the 'poetry  and metre' main-lesson). A second main-lesson  can be devoted to a continuation of the study of  painting with a discussion of art to the north of  the Alps (from Durer, Holbein, Grunewald, van  Eyck to Rembrandt). Overall, formal composition  and principles of shaping a picture come to the  fore, to correspond with Class 10 pupils' need to  grasp things with their understanding. In practical  art, painting is reintroduced with colour exercises  designed to develop a vocabulary of colour and  then developed into motifs in which atmosphere  and mood can be expressed. Print-making can also  be fruitfully explored at this age. The logic involved  in planning pictures or designs that may need to  be drawn in mirror form, or in which a composite  picture is built up using several plates or blocks, challenges the students' powers of thinking as well  as the precision involved in the work. Print-making  can be applied in a range of media.

Eurythmy supports poetry and the use of  language through the use of suitable examples  in which the group moves as a whole. The pupils  should work out their own eurythmy forms.

In foreign languages humour also comes  into its own. It is fun to get the point through a  direct understanding of the language (without  translation). A study of humorous texts, jokes and  idiomatic expression can broaden the adolescents'  social, psychological and cultural horizons. The  pupils also begin to develop a feeling for style.  Unabridged literature is increasingly used. The use  of grammar as a tool can be appreciated through the  pupils' enjoyment of clear thinking. Comparative  studies of grammar using English and the foreign  languages can heighten awareness of how the  spirit of language expresses itself through the  genius of the different folk souls. The history of the  development of the various languages can enhance  this insight into the changing consciousness which  underlies language evolution. Being able to present  arguments for and against various propositions in  the foreign language calls for the ability to think in  that language.

In music lessons the endeavour is to give the  pupils a foundation on which they can develop  a genuine appreciation of music. Examples are  practised in choir work and a chamber orchestra.  Harmony is explored through musical examples.  Main-lessons in mathematics, physics, chemistry,  geometry and surveying have similar points of  departure. In physics the formative principle is  particularly obvious. Nowhere else are the laws  of nature so obvious or clearly followed as in  classical mechanics. The pupils can proceed from  experiment to observation and on to the laws, the formula and the calculation without loss of clarity.  Clarity in observing, logic in drawing conclusions,  the ability to relate cause to effect, and analytical  thinking are all schooled.

One of the aims for Class 10 is to enter into  practical life. The use of the right angle has wide-  ranging application in Class 10. The relationship  of the perpendicular to the horizontal provides  a conceptual framework for many practical  tasks involving both accurate observation and  common sense judgement. In surveying, the right  angle forms the framework for the theoretical  calculations, as it does in technical drawing. In  woodwork, as in most constructions, it provides  the concepts of plumb, square and true. In  dressmaking and tailoring all individual patterns  relate to the rectangular shape of the woven cloth.  Even in throwing a pot on a wheel, the process  of centring the clay requires an awareness of the  perpendicular in relation to the horizontal plane  of the plate. In metalwork the forging of iron and  the work at the anvil in transforming the metal  through the rhythmical application of the hammer,  into a range of shapes requires the exact application  of force and knowledge of the material.

The surveying main -lesson provides a wonderful  opportunity to come to grips with the earth - or a  tiny part of it - by measuring and drawing it. After  this one or two-week practical period, the pupils  know this 'tiny part' like the back of their hand!  Surveying requires three levels of measurement,  common sense estimation, ground measurement  using rods, chains and tape measures, and  theoretical calculations based on the readings  taken with theodolite and measures. All three  systems require to be integrated in order to create  a three-dimensional understanding that will be  expressed in a series of section drawings. Having  applied these technical skills to geography, they  know exactly what is there and have also learnt  how to work with accuracy. The main content of  the first mathematics main -lesson in Class 10 is  trigonometry, which is applied in surveying. The  cosine also belongs to physics when calculations  are needed.

Further work on mathematical laws is given  by rhythmical calculations, raising to higher  powers and logarithms. In Class 10 mathematics  should be related to practical matters of everyday  life. The realm of irrational numbers and  incommensurability, from which the law of the  Golden Mean can be derived, points to a different  type of formative law applicable to the human  being, and is more appropriate for Class 11.

In chemistry the pupils work on the polarities  of acid and alkali and on the crystallisation of  salts. This main -lesson is directly related to the  geometry main-lesson in which the regular and  semi-regular solids and their laws of symmetry are  worked out and drawn.

In technology the transition from raw material  to processed material to product is explored,  for example in the path from fibre via thread to  textile. This principle applies also to wood, where  the whole timber cycle from tree planting and  cultivation, to felling, sawing, drying, planing etc.  comes to a culmination in joinery in Class 10. As  in surveying and the other practical subjects, the  objects the students make correct the pupils simply  by being objective proof of what they have done. It is  important that useful objects are made. In addition  many other technical applications in practical life  can be discussed, e.g. the gears of a bicycle, how  the toilet flush works, vehicle maintenance and  information technology. Class 10 is the best point  to explore the technology of recycling in which the  cycle from raw material to finished product begins  again.

Information technology is a part of technology  that needs responsible discussion of how these  things affect the human being. Understanding  what information is, how it is (and has been)  stored, and the social aspects of access belongs to  this theme. A brief history of the recorded word  and mathematical calculations is a part of this.  The basic principles of how a computer works are  described. On the basis of what they have learnt  in physics and mathematics, it is useful for Class  10 pupils to work with the basic building blocks of  circuits to produce adding machines in which the  principle of computer hardware can be learned.

A practical period in first aid fits in with the  pupils' need to be engaged in meaningful, practical  activities. Inner confidence grows when you can  react on the spur of the moment and know what is  the right thing to do.


Educational aims for Class
10 

The students should begin to:
* achieve objectivity and clarity in thinking;  draw conclusions logically and causally; be  able to form common sense judgements as well  as formulating concepts;
* recognise natural laws using analytical thinking;  apply conceptual tools to practical situations;
* understand how complex processes come about  by studying their origins and basic principles; 
* work with accuracy and apply what they have  learned to respond to the practical needs of  those around them;
* take increasing responsibility for their own  work and behaviour, and be able to make and  follow through choices based on their own  insight; form their opinions and be able to  explain and justify them.
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