20 Apr 2013 | Primary
The first Waldorf School was founded in 1.919 and Stuttgart (Germany), by philosopher and professor Rudolf Steiner , which, after the First World War he called for the social and cultural reconstruction of Europe, that found echo in a group of industrialists of the city of Stuttgart.
At that time he gave evening classes to the workers of the Waldorf cigarette factory- Astoria.
The owner of the factory dedicated a part of the profits for the education of the children of the workers of the same and they entrusted Rudolf Steiner with the task: This formed the team of teachers, developing the methodological and didactic bases of this pedagogy.
The pedagogical foundation of this method is in the study of man developed by Rudolf Steiner and embodied in what he defined as Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy gives a knowledge of man as a physical being, psychic and spiritual. It is a science of the spirit that provides a method of knowledge that allows man to develop the capacities so that every human being can consciously unite with the spiritual world from which he comes.
When man is conceived as a spiritual being who joins matter and progressively enters his own corporality, a new vision of man and his evolutionary stages emerges, and if you want to educate according to that nature, a new pedagogy emerges, Waldorf pedagogy.
We are now going to deal with one aspect of this pedagogy: the one referring to the evolutionary stages of the child and the essential aspects taken into account when educating in relation to these stages.
First let's look at Newborn child in his early years, completely given to the world, totally relying on the adult, Tender, soft, malleable in the broad sense of the word.
All his organs are still incipient, they are not fully configured yet, innocent, observant and sensitive, tremendously sensitive. We could affirm that the whole child is an organ of sensory perception and that perceptions go through him to the depth of his body.
The spiritual being of man is slowly and progressively incorporated into that physical body that in the first place comes from heredity.. The newborn has to make that body his own, penetrate it, form it, conquer it and throw out everything inherited. All this activity is externally manifested through childhood diseases and culminates with the change of teeth..
During the 6 -7 years of life that is the primary activity in which the child's being is. It is born given to the world with total confidence, it will gradually rise, will speak and spin the first sentences, will go from an undifferentiated chromatic world to global difference, the tree will be a whole unit, will not enter into the differentiation of the parts. After capturing the space, it will begin to capture the activity as a new quality, he will take over time, differentiating yesterday from tomorrow and today.
His activity at first motivated or fundamentally moved by vital functions will become motivated by everything he sees, by instincts and appetites. And his soul life, which at first was like a sensory organ where the world penetrated without it being able to act, will then go on to a confrontation with the environment, (appearing that period of denial and rejection towards 3 year old).
It will gradually awaken an inner world of its own, when the creative fantasy appears in him. This fantasy will induce the child to take action in new games that he himself will create, no longer motivated only by external appetite.. This creative fantasy will awaken the child's pictorial imagination, stories will be living images for him. An inner world of its own has arisen.
After this overview we have to stop at two very important aspects: one is that his whole being is immersed in a constructive and formative activity, the other is that all perception (experience) penetrates to its physical organization.
The result of these two principles is the child's disposition towards imitation and example..
These innate dispositions of the child are the basis, at this stage of 0 a 6-7 years, for education.
It should penetrate deeply into the adult that the only means of education for these years is through imitation. This is the threshold for this age.
And now we are going to see the qualitative pedagogical aspects involved in educating through imitation.. The key is that the educational influence of adults depends on what they are, not what they say..
What should education offer for this stage?: Help and collaborate in that training activity that is being carried out in the child, in order that it be carried out harmoniously and secondly it should also promote the development of creative fantasy.
How is this done in Waldorf education in the early childhood education period??: Via:
- The teacher's self-education:
- Your moral attitude, consequence, veracity.
- The classroom environment (decor).
- Carrying out activities that allow the use of natural materials:
- Lana, modeling waxes, natural wax dowels for painting, diluted watercolor paints, toys with natural materials lacking rigid defined shapes, wooden dowels, cotton fabrics, ragdolls.
- Working the rhythm:
- Through songs and songs, experiencing the rhythm within the course of the day through the structure itself, the weekly rhythm by introducing a characteristic element each day. And the great annual rhythm through the seasonal table and the festivities of the year.
In this way, the child grows and breathes healthily in an environment that feeds its processes in a healthy way., and is heading to the next stage, where his internal world opens to the outside and an interest is awakened in him to know that outside world.
The creative fantasy is going to confront little by little with the external reality, and from this encounter will emerge admiration for know-how and from it will arise respect for the adult who knows.
The child becomes susceptible to authority and enters the new stage of 7 to the 14 years.
20 Apr 2013 | Primary
An Approach to Waldorf Pedagogy
Our world has made great progress in all fields of technology.. Fifty years ago many of the elements that we have today were almost unimaginable and thanks to which tasks have been greatly facilitated, have been refined and made faster and much simpler.
All these creations have helped man in his relationship with the environment and also in his relationship with others and have been spreading in all fields of life..
The technology, the world of technology and science have revealed their ability, its worth and its inexhaustible potential. Without underestimating in all this the imagination of man who is always the driving force behind all these creations.
If we recreate a little in the observation of this image of a technological and scientific society, it becomes evident to us that it is an adult society, abstract, intellectual and mechanical.
These elements beat in our society and surround us, although unconsciously and little by little, they leave their mark on us.. So our way of acting, of thinking and feeling is impregnated with these elements, causing others to fall into oblivion; helping it lack of time.
If we now analyze the repercussions that these elements have had (adult society, abstract, intellectual and mechanical) in the field of education and more specifically in the periods of infant and primary education, we find ourselves in tremendous situations of misunderstanding.
We find ourselves before two opposite worlds unable to communicate. One part is made up of children., boys and girls with their own qualities of admiration, fantasy, imaginative and full of life, who live in a natural world that is unknown to them but causes them great interest.
The other part is made up of adults and teachers, all of them imbued with that adult and intellectual conception of the world..
Throughout the school period both worlds coexist, one trying to educate the other. Never before has this coexistence been so tragic, and it is that never before have these worlds been so opposite.
It will be up to the adult to change if he wants to establish an educational contact with the child. And more specifically, the educational community must consider an authentic educational reform. Get rid of the intellectual thinking typical of the adult being, move away from all mechanical and dead tendencies, lacking in imagination and creative fantasy, and impregnate oneself with emotional and artistic life in such a way that the conceptual ceases to be abstract.
Only if the adult world, parents and teachers, carry out a pedagogical transformation in this direction, it will be possible to re-establish the pedagogical activity between the two parties.
For years a different pedagogical method has put its roots working in this direction to restore the educational bridge: Waldorf Education.
The fundamentals of this pedagogy give the teacher and the adult the necessary bases to accompany the child in his future.. To be able to create, on the one hand, a concrete and clear image of the child and, on the other hand, a living and artistic image of the natural world and thus awaken in the teacher the creative capacities that allow him to build the bridges of union stripping him of the intellectual tendency typical of the adult being.
In our modern civilization this is what we lack. we have theories, but not a vivid view of the world, nor of man.
The important thing now is that we don't keep sleeping, above all in the educational and teaching field; that we recognize the importance of an education that focuses on man integrated by body, soul and spirit.
20 Apr 2013 | Primary
Sunset. Water paint. Author: Rocio Bravo
Dear parents and friends of our Alicante Waldorf School:The Cloister, the Council and the parents who work to light the Waldorf primary school in our School see it as important, so that this can be carried out, publicize the qualities of Waldorf education both in its infantile stage and in primary school.
For this reason the idea arose to publish a collectible on Waldorf education entitled: Education based on human nature.
The person in charge of the publication is Mario Ramón Rubio and the content of the articles is extracted from the books and conferences that its founder, Rudolf Steiner, offered publicly, as well as articles and books written by Waldorf teachers. The bibliography will indicate the titles of the books used.
Every Wednesday of the school year an article will be published and, in this way, We will discover the characteristics of each seven-year period and the way of working in each of them.
We hope that these publications serve to awaken the interest of knowing in depth this pedagogy, as well as to revive the spirit and the will to expand Waldorf education in Alicante to primary school.
The board of directors
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20 Apr 2013 | Primary
Little story of a tour, for the future…
A new impulse is moving us to start elementary school in Alicante, so that boys and girls, henceforth, keep growing with the seeds you received in the nursery school.
A Waldorf teacher, co-founder of the primary school in Madrid, She encouraged us to undertake this project by telling us about her own adventure… She will return to live in Alicante and she will be able to help us…
Rafa, a Waldorf teacher from a primary school in Barcelona, visit us regularly to help us in this project, with the desire to come to live in Alicante… and maybe, be the first teacher…
Other Waldorf teachers “helpers” are also working to give this project strength…
An inspector suggested viable alternatives to legally face this beginning…
The world and the economy are changing… We are in contact with a trainer who will present us with the possibilities of “tri-forming” the school so that it is viable and healthy both in its pedagogical aspect, as economic and legal, as recommended by Rafa.
Something fundamental: the infant teachers of our "Alicante Waldorf School Association" support the project, remembering the importance of promoting meetings where we can immerse ourselves in the fundamentals of Waldorf pedagogy, forming a stable group of fathers and mothers.
how do you see, no missing signs; there are many signs that lead us to feel this impulse towards primary school.
Until the present, these fathers and mothers have met in two great "primary meetings" (june and september) where we have always had the experience of a teacher who, after a little artistic activity, has helped us to discover from experience the deep foundations on which rests the pedagogy that we wish to offer to children, to the growing society.
But we want to inform you that together with the "experiential training" firm steps are also being taken, concrete, that we will always share at the end of each new “primary meeting”: there are four teams in charge of advancing pedagogically, the infrastructural, the juridical-legal and in the dissemination of each advance given, of each challenge to conquer.
We will publish a “weekly collectible” on Waldorf education: some sheets that will deal with pedagogical issues as practical as the way in which reading is taught and learned in primary school, writing, the maths, and others that we are yet to discover ...
Encourage yourself to participate and contribute any contact or capacity with which you think you can help to realize this impulse.
Always, Thank you.
