Waldorf Curriculum 1
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:
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 |
Tasks and Assignments for Waldorf Curriculum 1.5.
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. Use the following format: 1.A. Class 4/Developmental Profile 1.B. Class 4/Aims and Objectives 2.A. Class 5/Developmental Profile 2.B. Class 5/Aims and Objectives 3.A. Class 6/Developmental Profile 3.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 Waldorf Curriculum 1.5.
The Lower School: Classes 4 to 6
Class 4 (age nine to ten)
Developmental profile
In Classes 4 and 5 when the pupils are ten and eleven years old, the mid-way point of the class teacher years is reached. The transition from early childhood is complete, the transition towards puberty has not yet begun. This centre-point of the class teaching period coincides with the middle of the second seven-year period of life, and is referred to in Steiner-Waldorf pedagogy as the 'heart of childhood: The self-activity of the child brings about a harmonising of the relationship of the breathing to the blood circulation. Confidence in their new state is expressed in a quality of vigour and an eagerness to look at and learn about the world. A start is made on natural science with a phenomenological study of the animal kingdom in relation to the human being from a morphological point of view. Also a thorough study of the local surrounding and developing the process of map-making.
Aims and objectives
The aim of Class 4 is first and foremost to channel positively the powerful energy which ten year- olds bring to the classroom. Pupils need to be challenged and stretched in every possible aspect of their work. 'Work, work and lots of it' is the best motto for Class 4. The teachers aim to meet, through imaginatively presented lessons, the growing interest of the children in more concrete areas of knowledge and to provide them with opportunities for more independence in their work. Individually the children need to find a new relationship to their work, to their peers and teachers. The narrative content of the lessons aims to respond by offering stories in which a multiplicity of personalities contributes to the social whole (e.g. stories of the Norse Gods) and in which darkness and evil become more concrete. The children should begin to identify individual 'badness' in contrast to social or communal 'goodness: The children should form a sense of where they are in relation to their environment, in both a social and geographical sense.
Class 5 (age ten to eleven)
Developmental profile
At this age the child attains a certain ease and grace of movement intrinsic to the age. Movement that is co-ordinated, balanced and harmonious is a key- note of the developmental phase. Psychologically, the T Iworld differentiation develops, the individual 'will' element begins to grow, the awareness of 'self' strengthens and socially, a powerful group dynamic can surface within a class, although the individual ego is very much a fledgling. Cognitively, children are more able to understand questions and phenomena in a realistic and reasoning manner. The pictorial element in thought processes remains an important element in the child's consciousness, although the understanding and formulation of concepts are beginning to depend less on the development of individualised images and thought pictures and more on the development of a faculty for comprehending clear, matter-of-fact, sense-free concepts. Out of the growing memory powers, the sense for time has developed. Memory allows for looking back and planning the future and, combined with deepening feeling, for the emergence of conscience and responsibility. This age is a time of rapidly flowering capacities. The child experiences a growth in length; sustained physical effort is within his or her group. Musically, a child has the capacity to master a musical instrument. In the basic skills of numeracy, literacy and linguistics pupils exhibit the emergence of independent creativity founded on a confident group of the basic rules, processes and structures.
Intellectually and morally the child is ready for new challenges. Foundations for the basic skills in numeracy and literacy have been set down by the tenth year. Elementary notions of personal responsibility and a faculty for understanding 'right and wrong' in a 'reasoning' spirit may be grasped from this age. This year marks the pivotal point between childhood and puberty and for a short moment each child is poised at the crest of the wave, marking the end of the first part of their school years. They reach standards of work hitherto never dreamed of. They identify totally with their work, they spend time embellishing it, bringing it closer to perfection. They are often proud of their work, whereas in Class 4 they could easily be dismissive about it. Towards the end of this year the teacher will begin to experience her pupils' emergent intellectual faculties, ready to be used more consciously. They bring with them a new detachment and their accompanying critical standpoint. The harmony is lost, to be found again at the end of the Upper School years.
Aims and objectives
In this year the aim is to make the transition from myth to history and its emphasis on the individual. The children should develop a greater consciousness of the interrelatedness of life and environment - particularly through the study of botany. There will be an emphasis on the original Olympian ideal in which group distinctions are subservient to the greater whole and in which qualities such as beauty are as valued as speed and distance. The children should be encouraged to strengthen their memory by learning such things as vocabulary and by visualising spaces through the use of maps.
Class 6 (age eleven to twelve)
Developmental profile
Class 6 in the Steiner-Waldorf school is the equivalent point of entry into Key Stage Three in the English National Curriculum guidelines. In the mainstream this age constitutes the first year in secondary education. There is a clear difference in methodology between the Steiner-Waldorf curriculum and the English National Curriculum as regards the age that it is appropriate for pupils to be introduced to the conscious development of deductive thinking, logical thought processes and analytical-critical faculties. In Steiner's pedagogical indications there is common ground with the work of Piaget, Vygotsky and others, in the understanding that abstract thinking, or 'formal operations', begins around the thirteenth year, and not in Key Stage One. Generally, the child's growth begins to express itself in the skeleton. The limbs begin to lengthen; the child develops a tendency for awkward, angular movements. The twelve year old experiences the strength of gravity through the skeleton. The physical change is accompanied by the first experience of causation in the thinking realm, while psychologically, the child enters a phase which may be characterised as the 'changeling' period. The twelve year old witnesses what may be described as the death of childhood and the birth- pangs of the individual. In the final third of the second seven-year period, the child begins to anticipate adolescence. In the various curriculum topics indicated - sequential, recorded history, the geography of Europe, formal geometry, business maths, phenomenological science, gardening, woodwork and organised games - the child's changing physical, psychological and cognitive make-up is acknowledged and tended.
Aims and objectives
At this age the teacher aims to work with the children's growing orientation towards the outer world. Their dawning critical faculties should be directed towards observing the natural world from a scientific standpoint and their increasing interest in social relationships should provide many opportunities for the children to take responsibility for their own class community. The aim is to forge a new social relationship between each other and their teacher. As new capacities for thinking emerge, the children can be led to understand causal relationships at work in the world. The children's awareness should be directed towards the world they will live and work in as adults. The pupils should be challenged and are capable of high standards in their school work.
Developmental profile
In Classes 4 and 5 when the pupils are ten and eleven years old, the mid-way point of the class teacher years is reached. The transition from early childhood is complete, the transition towards puberty has not yet begun. This centre-point of the class teaching period coincides with the middle of the second seven-year period of life, and is referred to in Steiner-Waldorf pedagogy as the 'heart of childhood: The self-activity of the child brings about a harmonising of the relationship of the breathing to the blood circulation. Confidence in their new state is expressed in a quality of vigour and an eagerness to look at and learn about the world. A start is made on natural science with a phenomenological study of the animal kingdom in relation to the human being from a morphological point of view. Also a thorough study of the local surrounding and developing the process of map-making.
Aims and objectives
The aim of Class 4 is first and foremost to channel positively the powerful energy which ten year- olds bring to the classroom. Pupils need to be challenged and stretched in every possible aspect of their work. 'Work, work and lots of it' is the best motto for Class 4. The teachers aim to meet, through imaginatively presented lessons, the growing interest of the children in more concrete areas of knowledge and to provide them with opportunities for more independence in their work. Individually the children need to find a new relationship to their work, to their peers and teachers. The narrative content of the lessons aims to respond by offering stories in which a multiplicity of personalities contributes to the social whole (e.g. stories of the Norse Gods) and in which darkness and evil become more concrete. The children should begin to identify individual 'badness' in contrast to social or communal 'goodness: The children should form a sense of where they are in relation to their environment, in both a social and geographical sense.
Class 5 (age ten to eleven)
Developmental profile
At this age the child attains a certain ease and grace of movement intrinsic to the age. Movement that is co-ordinated, balanced and harmonious is a key- note of the developmental phase. Psychologically, the T Iworld differentiation develops, the individual 'will' element begins to grow, the awareness of 'self' strengthens and socially, a powerful group dynamic can surface within a class, although the individual ego is very much a fledgling. Cognitively, children are more able to understand questions and phenomena in a realistic and reasoning manner. The pictorial element in thought processes remains an important element in the child's consciousness, although the understanding and formulation of concepts are beginning to depend less on the development of individualised images and thought pictures and more on the development of a faculty for comprehending clear, matter-of-fact, sense-free concepts. Out of the growing memory powers, the sense for time has developed. Memory allows for looking back and planning the future and, combined with deepening feeling, for the emergence of conscience and responsibility. This age is a time of rapidly flowering capacities. The child experiences a growth in length; sustained physical effort is within his or her group. Musically, a child has the capacity to master a musical instrument. In the basic skills of numeracy, literacy and linguistics pupils exhibit the emergence of independent creativity founded on a confident group of the basic rules, processes and structures.
Intellectually and morally the child is ready for new challenges. Foundations for the basic skills in numeracy and literacy have been set down by the tenth year. Elementary notions of personal responsibility and a faculty for understanding 'right and wrong' in a 'reasoning' spirit may be grasped from this age. This year marks the pivotal point between childhood and puberty and for a short moment each child is poised at the crest of the wave, marking the end of the first part of their school years. They reach standards of work hitherto never dreamed of. They identify totally with their work, they spend time embellishing it, bringing it closer to perfection. They are often proud of their work, whereas in Class 4 they could easily be dismissive about it. Towards the end of this year the teacher will begin to experience her pupils' emergent intellectual faculties, ready to be used more consciously. They bring with them a new detachment and their accompanying critical standpoint. The harmony is lost, to be found again at the end of the Upper School years.
Aims and objectives
In this year the aim is to make the transition from myth to history and its emphasis on the individual. The children should develop a greater consciousness of the interrelatedness of life and environment - particularly through the study of botany. There will be an emphasis on the original Olympian ideal in which group distinctions are subservient to the greater whole and in which qualities such as beauty are as valued as speed and distance. The children should be encouraged to strengthen their memory by learning such things as vocabulary and by visualising spaces through the use of maps.
Class 6 (age eleven to twelve)
Developmental profile
Class 6 in the Steiner-Waldorf school is the equivalent point of entry into Key Stage Three in the English National Curriculum guidelines. In the mainstream this age constitutes the first year in secondary education. There is a clear difference in methodology between the Steiner-Waldorf curriculum and the English National Curriculum as regards the age that it is appropriate for pupils to be introduced to the conscious development of deductive thinking, logical thought processes and analytical-critical faculties. In Steiner's pedagogical indications there is common ground with the work of Piaget, Vygotsky and others, in the understanding that abstract thinking, or 'formal operations', begins around the thirteenth year, and not in Key Stage One. Generally, the child's growth begins to express itself in the skeleton. The limbs begin to lengthen; the child develops a tendency for awkward, angular movements. The twelve year old experiences the strength of gravity through the skeleton. The physical change is accompanied by the first experience of causation in the thinking realm, while psychologically, the child enters a phase which may be characterised as the 'changeling' period. The twelve year old witnesses what may be described as the death of childhood and the birth- pangs of the individual. In the final third of the second seven-year period, the child begins to anticipate adolescence. In the various curriculum topics indicated - sequential, recorded history, the geography of Europe, formal geometry, business maths, phenomenological science, gardening, woodwork and organised games - the child's changing physical, psychological and cognitive make-up is acknowledged and tended.
Aims and objectives
At this age the teacher aims to work with the children's growing orientation towards the outer world. Their dawning critical faculties should be directed towards observing the natural world from a scientific standpoint and their increasing interest in social relationships should provide many opportunities for the children to take responsibility for their own class community. The aim is to forge a new social relationship between each other and their teacher. As new capacities for thinking emerge, the children can be led to understand causal relationships at work in the world. The children's awareness should be directed towards the world they will live and work in as adults. The pupils should be challenged and are capable of high standards in their school work.