15 Nov 2018 | Education, Primary, Uncategorized
Necessary material: a stick, a balloon, two sheets of tissue paper (they can be of different colors), lana, flour, Water, a candle with a plastic cup about 5cm high
1) Catch a balloon, puff it up and draw a line
2) Prepare a flour and water paste by mixing hot water with flour. Break up the lumps little by little with a fork
3) Cut the tissue paper into strips
4) Support the balloon in a bowl or a cup
5) Begin to spread paste with your fingers on the bottom of the balloon. Always put a paper and another crossed.
6) This part must be reinforced well because that is where the candle will go
7) You have to put several layers and also reinforce the part where the part has been made. There you will put the wool to hang them.
8/9) Let it dry for a couple of days.
10) Puncture the balloon
11) Trim to leave a bowl
12) Make a couple of holes on all four sides. Pass the wool from one side to the other
13) Stick the candle in the ass with silicone
14) And finally put the stick
11 Oct 2018 | Education, Primary
Our Waldorf school has beautiful playgrounds. Children play in gardens full of trees, with grass, flores, sandboxes, … A patio this green does not appear by itself. And less in Alicante, where we enjoy a lot of sun, and very little rain. Each playground is in the hands of the fathers and mothers of the school, who each year dedicate their time, love and effort to gardening.
This Sunday it was time to add to that effort and that affection, some brute force, to relocate two trees in the Primary courtyard, the youngest yard, that still has to adapt to the great influx that it has on a daily basis, with now more than 80 boys and girls full of energy.
We leave you some photos to give you the opportunity to feel part of this moment, when together we manage to give a new place to two trees, and thus open more space so that our sons and daughters can continue enjoying nature in motion.
Thanks Charles, Call, Denis , Elisa, Johanna, July, Lis and Ricardo for your time and effort! And thanks to the kids for cheering us on and helping where they could!
Liesbet Bex
13 Feb 2018 | Anthroposophy, Education
To talk about childhood, let's invite memory to approach the sea on a sunny summer day, where on the beach the waves reach the end of their long journey. Images of children with their parents, grandparents, friends, waiting for this gift from the sea; laughing, Playing, receiving the waves with a jump, front or back, with eyes open or closed, fill the landscape with a unique joy, Of an ease and almost primordial innocence. there everyone, with and through children, we become children, we laugh with the wave and let it, in its roundness, push us, hit, find the acune. I have seen many adults acquire the lightness of childhood in these moments. It is the magic of the sea, with its constant curved line and its perpetual motion, inviting us to free ourselves from our rigidities and psychic structures that are too anchored, bringing out the child we were, the child that lives in us.
childhood is vitality, movement, play, laughter, smile, rhythm. The sea also smiles in the fullness of the wave, that rhythmically comes to play on the beach. Sea and childhood have a lot in common, let's learn from them.
The heart of childhood asks us for rhythm, play, movement, confidence, humor, art… all wrapped up in the clear image of what child development is, its evolution within the framework of human biography. Does this exist in classrooms? Do we offer children a learning space where they feel confident to unfold their potential when it has to flourish?? Do we teachers have the necessary perception to discover this inner dynamic of the child?? Does an educational system give us the necessary flexibility and freedom to accompany the child according to the perception we acquire of him?? Is the test battery, always looming on the horizon, a good criterion for evaluating the child? How much imagination and creativity does it take to assess based on exams? What is more appropriate for teaching in Primary, imagination or abstraction, the definition or characterization of the matter we present? a child of 4 O 5 years has to learn to read and write, one of the most demanding learning that the human being has to face, Or would it be more appropriate for him to use his time and strength to acquire other faculties appropriate to his age?? I have had students go through a process akin to torture when 4 and the 5 years were taught to read and write, they couldn't stand it, that is to say, they got sick. They came to the Waldorf school and were offered a space in the Kindergarten to continue growing as children.. There they regained confidence in the teachers and, later, in Primary, resumed the process of learning to read and write from the imaginative artistic, acquiring these skills without major difficulties. Where is the essence of the sea in the classrooms?
Make 100 years, Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education, said that in education, at all times, you had to appeal to the feelings of the child. He also highlighted the constant and central presence of the artistic in teaching. These same principles are masterfully recalled today by Sir Ken Robinson in his educational work, where he denounces the rampant trend in recent decades to increase the scientific and academic content in the classroom to the detriment of the artistic field. It is art that marks the path to the inner journey in man, towards the experience, the experience, and with it the self-knowledge and the development of the personality. If we exclude it from the educational space we stop educating properly.
Rudolf Steiner told the teachers that they would have to accompany their class during the Primary journey. There would be no changes of tutor once the school year is over. There would be no textbooks, it would be up to the children and the teachers to create them. The first two hours of the morning would constitute a single block where they would be with the tutor teacher developing a theme throughout 3 O 4 weeks. there would be no exams, the teacher would be embarking on the journey of continuous assessment. The school would start by fulfilling the children 7 years. Teachers would have academic freedom and the ultimate responsibility to acquire a deep understanding of human nature and to be constantly creative in their classes..
Part of these basic principles of Waldorf pedagogy can be found today in an educational system that is viewed with respect and interest in its results.: finnish system. This has been occupying the first positions in the ranking of the PISA studies. The paradox is that while Finland is able to show the excellence of its system, in many countries that would have to change their principles and guide them in this direction, measures contrary to them are still insisted on: advance school age, don't abandon textbooks, do not extend the duration of classes, multiply the presence of exams and establish rigid programs, aiming at cognitive goals often unrelated to the child's age, regardless of the pace and experience aspect of learning. This road doesn't care about childhood, he doesn't take care of her, he does not perceive it in his nature, does not protect her, but it deteriorates it. Given these conditions, Is it still a surprise to talk about school failure?
What are the roots of this pathology, more and more present in our time, demanding too much educational content too soon, to force a rote mechanical learning where the experience is absent? Why do you insist on seeing the child as a small adult?? In what dark cellars was this toxic potion of nonsense uncorked?? What mind remote from the origin wants to reduce the sea to the size of a pond or a swamp?
The game of the waves will not fail to awaken the smile and joy in the child because it will touch their essence. The dynamics of education must succeed in respecting childhood, in unfolding in each individual the unique potential that he carries in himself, in educating so that the child becomes a citizen with his own thinking, attentive to the challenges of his time, aware of the profound dimension of existence. The Waldorf pedagogy works with these ideals and dedicates all his effort to them. There is no human enterprise that has higher goals than education.
Jesus Lopez
Teacher at the Waldorf School of Villafranqueza, Alicante.
Ken Robinson (Liverpool, England, 4 March 1950) he is an educator, British writer and lecturer. Doctor from the University of London, Robinson is considered an expert on matters related to creativity, the quality of teaching, innovation and human resources. Due to the relevance of its activity in the fields mentioned, especially in relation to the need to incorporate art classes into the school curriculum, was appointed Sir by the queen of England, Elizabeth II in 2003.
14 Dec 2017 | Anthroposophy, Education
"From the description we made, we know that, with the arrival of autumn, an inhalation takes place, truly spiritual inhalation of the Earth: are being sucked into the lap of the Earth, the elemental beings who have found their way out in the summertime, that then go back when Micael's party arrives, and they continue to recede further and further, until, in the height of winter, reach their most intimate link with the interior of the Earth.
From all of this, we can form the idea that, precisely in winter, Earth is a more contained entity, more closed in itself. From the universe he has collected everything spiritual that he had projected out during the summer. So, during the fullness of winter, is when the Earth is more Earth, when it reveals its true substantiality ".
Text taken from Rudolf Steiner's book of lectures :"Coexistence with the cycle of the year in four cosmic Imaginations"
Learning to see life and the celebration of parties from its external and internal part helps us to see how matter and spirit complement each other even though to the mind they seem like contradictions..
Where is life on Earth in spring? Outside, manifests itself on the outside of your Earthly Body. Has exploded the inner life, It has been launched outside and we can observe the manifestation of that explosion in the beautiful colors and in the greening of the plants.. And what happens inside the Earth?... that remains empty!!... and in the summer this emptying of vital forces culminates. Life, fullness outside. Death, empty inside.
Where is death, the empty, and life in winter? Outside everything is paralyzed, lifeless. In real winter areas this is more evident than in the Mediterranean. However inside the vital forces of the Earth fill it, are silently held within her, they await sheltered and protected the next spring demonstration; the interior is very active, full of life. A) Yes, matter and spirit are together in winter, when we celebrate christmas. Earth is more Earth.
The same process is also evident in humans. If we are totally out delivered to the light and nature, inside inside us, we are empty. Breathing out our inner manifestation we are left inside without spirit, we sleep inside ... but, How beautiful is the exhalation of our soul in summer, like the exhale of the earth! ... necessary for vital rhythms is that soul breathing ... and now in winter, In Christmas, how beautiful to inhale our soul, our soul life and our spiritual element, our individuality, our Self and live internally the non-material qualities of our Being.
A unique possibility offers us winter with the Christmas festivity, caring for and living in this time with inner fullness our highest ideals in human relationship ... because every year, in this winter time, at Christmas ... the Human Being is more Human Being.
For Mari carmen garcia.
08 Dec 2017 | Education
When I came to the Waldorf School I thought I was looking for a job. She was a disappointment. In those days I did not understand very well how my feet had led me there and it was much later when I began to understand that it was not what I was looking for., but what I needed.
There I met a lot of passionate people, people with a true vocation for what they did, who put school first and their own interests second. I remember many of the first words that Mari Carmen dedicated to me in that dining room, hinting that what he was doing was not deciding a job but a way of life.
I did not consciously seek the school, but she was waiting for me. From that day I knew that I had found what I wanted, and I decided to embark on the project with all my strength and enthusiasm. I studied and learned a lot, very much, with Ana, And every day he was showing me the way to be a little better and to realize how little I still know today and how much I still have to discover about the world of childhood and the accompaniment from respect in The education.
The Waldorf School of Alicante, has always been and will be part of my home, where I have left family and where it is always a pleasure to meet again and to help whenever necessary.
A 28 November 2017
For Ana Maria Martin. Waldorf Teacher at School (2004/2013)
04 Dec 2017 | Education
In Waldorf Pedagogy we learn to know the child, to every human being, through the various planes of your being. Thus we know that he has a physical body and that during the first seven years this little body is shaped by the individual inner forces of each child and also by the impressions he receives from the outside.. We know that from the 7 years or so until puberty is the vital or etheric body, with memory, rhythm, art… what creates the basis for your future; also that of the 14 until the 21 the soul or astral body, the body of emotions, thinking is increasingly individualized so that when reaching the 21 the Self can be master of itself and begin its path of development and self-education. Four “bodies”, four “planes” of your being: physicist, vital or etheric, psychic or astral and the I.
The human being as a physical organism is thus quadripartite.
Have you ever thought that every social organism made up of human beings could have the same constitution as its components??
For example, the family.
Let's put it with a capital letter because of the importance of this social organism as it is the cradle of every human being.. Whatever the “form” that the social organism of the Family takes, we have discovered that we can also distinguish in it the four planes of its being..
- a physical body: the physical facilities of the house, the furniture, outer space, the surrounding environment…
- A vital essence, etheric that manifests itself in the various activities and processes and in the formation of the community of life. This work of forces is manifested in the dominant temperament different from the temperaments of its members..
- A soul or astral element in which every feeling lives, will and thought. These qualities are provided by the members of the Family. It is the family “climate”.
- The I. The truly spiritual thing about a house, the ideals, that superior life that guides us in the earthly will, something very typical of each Family that gives it its individual nuance, its personality as a group different from all others.
It is very interesting to observe our Family as a living organism. Truly, the life of the Home can only be truly encompassed in all its being if we manage to unite in a conscious way with these constituent bodies..
In order to create an environment in which the person can be a person according to their individual being., Adults must know what elements must come together in the Home.. There is no right or wrong here.. The path is individual, there lies the revolution, patterns from outside are of no use to us. Adults in each Family must find what is appropriate for THEIR Family.
If we reflect on the house, the processes in it, the relationship between its members, your ideals... we will begin to walk an individual path Familiar, a path of Family consciousness.
We invite you to do so!
For Mari Carmen García Baños
