Playing with Reverence
Guiding and being guided by the children: some memories of a primary school teacher striving to be a better oke
Some of you may be wondering why I've veered away from the fourth direction. Currently I am busy changing my perceptions of the west, so that can come later!
In the mean time, a different kind of journey, with childhood.
When I first taught in London it was in an inner city area of the run-down south-east, where kids of 11 years old were in a high school and being taught about literature and myth on a diet of Goosebumps stories and Ted Hughes's Iron Man and Iron Woman. There was something missing, some heart I could see these children weren't getting. One wild little child stuck in my heart: when I asked him what kind of stories he really liked he said 'ones with princesses and castles'. He certainly wasn't getting any of that kind of imaginative input from the school, let alone the council estates the kids were living in.
Fast forward to South Africa and a first day as a primary school teacher at Michael Oak Waldorf School. I have to say that working with young children was not my natural habitat. I myself was by then the father of very small ones, my eldest daughter just old enough to enter the school's playgroup, my youngest not yet walking. Six year olds had been through a lot already, they were big enough for 'class one', although there were lots of tears in the early weeks, quite a few from parents having to let go. I had by then had more experiences, practising in classes around the Cape, as well as teaching in a high school. One of the first things to go was a daily coffee shot: caffeine was far too focusing for me, when I needed a looser, more elastic energy to manage the little ones.
One feisty young thing exuded a wild confidence from the beginning. She came up to me during my first break time on duty with my charges, and demanded to know "What you looking at?" Some of the confidence led to bloopers that I couldn't disclose at the time - instead offering gentle, neutral correction - but had to laugh at later, such as a child recalling that a story had featured "the most wicked saucer in the whole university" or that octopuses have "eight testicles". It was an art to find challenges that would keep them busy. And this is the thing about these early years of childhood: that need for direction in their busyness, that awareness that minds and hearts might be stimulated but the most important stimulation is to bodies, like ‘learning gross motor skills’. We carved the letter B in great steps in the sand pit before ever attempting the fine motor control on the page. We gave the letter B (as with all the other letters of the alphabet) a relevant image, the Beautiful Butterfly with its upper and lower wings, and I crafted stories to make the image 'good and beautiful', part of the world that these children on the verge of losing milk teeth really needed to experience as a daily possibility. A world with the possibility of reverence.
And these stories were told, from memory, by me, as they were by the other teachers in other classes and assemblies. As such the children could use their imagination, helped by our characterizations. We taught them poems and chants too, all of which would be the beginning of some basic learning block, be it mathematical chants or scientific images of the changing seasons or just basic knowledge about how life is or just silly repeating rhymes because what life most needs to be is fun. Some of those early stories were of caterpillars talking to beetles, the children's break time garden explorations being matched by a little personification to get across 'biology' via story. There was song too: musical pieces which developed the memory and were given actions, but above all were joyful, allowing voices to express the miracle of breath.
Not that we stuck to joy always. Stories and poems and songs were rich in emotion: like other aspects of the day, we were taught as teachers to give our due to each of the four temperamental styles so that the children all felt met somewhere. One melancholic little girl related a story to her mother that I had told, from the fairy tale (featured in Women Who Run With the Wolves) where the girl lost her hands. The story has a resolution of course where the girl regains her limbs. But this melancholic child did not yet need to consciously remember that resolution: she needed to connect with how sad life was, so all she could consciously remember was this stuck piece. It took a while for the mother to be convinced that I hadn't left the story hanging in tragedy, and that others in the class had raced ahead in their hearts to the happy conclusion!
Other stories and actions were sweetly repetitive. Like a plodding phlegmatic farmer who added up his apples one by one, perfect for the quietly content ones who spent break time methodically eating. The four mathematical operations worked well to meet the children's preferred modes of being: melancholic children (who usually needed a little rescue remedy and sympathy, a few times a week) would relate more to the giving qualities of Molly Minus. And then there were the direct and bossy cholerics like the girl above (often delightfully destructive; the type of child who would love to play Loki, the Norse version of the fallen Lucifer, in one of the plays based on those tales, though who got the parts in plays was always a consideration based on who I thought would benefit most). The biggest grouping of children, though, were sanguine: flighty like the beautiful butterfly, upbeat but short of attention (and sometimes short on loyalty) because they were keen to experience the next wonder of the day, cartwheeling through the numbers like Thembi Times.
I learned to knit, in time to help the handwork teacher with managing the children. The first Waldorf schools a century ago were way ahead of their time in making sure all boys and girls had to tackle all tasks, and it was very sweet seeing how proud boys were of their knitting (or later, girls of their woodwork).
My take on Rudolf Steiner is that he spoke a lot, many of his words and lectures being written down and then published without his direct input, probably because what he said was so extraordinary to European listeners of his day and they felt they must capture every word. He also spoke with a kind of extreme confidence which it seems must have swept many people along, and yet he spoke a lot in pictures (and advised teachers to do so). Rarely were they supposed to be taken as unshakable literal truths, though they absolutely drip with surprising truth and call for careful chewing. He often invited another, more visionary kind of seeing. The age we're in seems to have lost that even more: we are stuck in materialist frameworks, just as his clairvoyant side warned we would be.
Sometimes people have got much too stuck on taking Steiner literally. Perhaps this is understandable because he was so far ahead of his Zeitgeist. The constant task of a Waldorf teacher is to revisit Steiner's words and get at the spirit rather than the letter, and use our individual and collective creativity to forge new tracks. At least, I'm sure this is what he would have wanted, as a man with a vision for humanity (though living in a time when he did not leave Europe, and thus being as limited as other Europeans in some respects as to his thoughts about other cultures. I gave a talk a number of years ago pointing out how his intellectual ideas on India, China or Africa were shaped by Hegel's, as were those of pretty much every other German philosopher of the time - such as Karl Marx, whose supposedly progressive vision of human evolution is actually pretty shockingly Eurocentric on the Hegelian model. When you strip away the geographical centring from Hegel, Steiner's ideas on history can become much more palatable and unexpected, much more holistic and generally applicable as pictures, than most mainstream history).
But I digress. Children, do you remember what happened in our story yesterday? We had all had a night to sleep on it. The importance was always allowing the children to take the day's images into the dream life, to work on them further with the help of unseen forces. This respect for the imaginal realm was so alien to conventional education but seemed to me to be exactly what was most missing in it: a deep respect for Imagination that allows us to co-create with the unseen forms of consciousness in nature, as referenced by so many indigenous perspectives. We began the day with a verse of reverence for all those invisibly conscious forces that blessed and inspired our day: such as the Sun and the Earth, forces of above and below, as well as God, though the concept and nature of God was a living question throughout the curriculum. (Perhaps worth pointing out that 'belief in a benevolent god' has been identified by researchers as a key factor in those with a successful approach to life. So while I absolutely believe in freedom of belief, you would never get me to agree that 'not believing in a benevolent unseen' is a useful teaching option for developing children! Much better to present 'thanks to the divine aspect of life' in a ceremonial verse, without dogmatic reinforcement or doctrinal limitations. Atheism has often seemed to me to be attractive to certain adolescents rather than little ones.)
Balance in our moving through space; and Breath, the equivalent in the move forward through time. Breath could be that breath between day and night, between the beats of the song, between the straight line and the curved line at the basis of all other forms. At the under and over of the knitting needle. In the passing of a bean bag from right hand to left. In keeping our painting water colours pure or exploring the boundaries where yellow and blue might form a green.
All of these activities gave the children a healthier sense of self in relation to others and the world. I loved to teach them circle dances, working eventually towards the challenge of the may pole in class 4. By this point most children would have gone through the '9-year old awakening', recognising themselves as individuals with agency in the world. And thus their bodies would be ready for crossing the midline, working with drawing "3D" Celtic or Angolan knot formations, with cross stitch embroidery, with long division and with using may pole ribbons to create intricate patterns as they danced in and out between each other. Only one boy struggled - an only child who watched too many cartoons, and who was still clumsy despite his artistic and verbal gifts. The class and he learned to work together, learned a little more of the importance of watching out for each other, of the struggles of community.
I can't say it was an easy task. We were encouraged as teachers to spend a few moments dwelling on each individual each night and asking ourselves for night time support from spirit. A parent of one little boy came to help me get painting boards ready for the first painting lesson of class 1. She left saying she was exhausted - what a hectic job! And indeed staying present, loving and boundaried in an appropriate way with these young beings was a constant challenge. It needed different levels of connection according to their age. Younger ones were still drawn back from chaos by a related, well known song or rhythm. Older children needed a different kind of appeal and I didn't always get it right.
Besides which there was the interesting notion that we teachers should travel up the grades with the same group of children. This is a noble aim and I definitely felt I knew and loved them all deeply as time went on. But familiarity is a challenge and I'm glad I stopped when I did during the fifth grade, though it meant I didn't continue with a class right through their primary career. I'm not sure that's often a very good idea: one child at least will likely really benefit from a change in the teacher relationship.
And this brings me to a bigger questioning. The whole model of Steiner Waldorf education arose out of the desire of an enlightened factory owner to give his workers' children much more freedom in their education. But the framework was still a school room with desks. We are battling today with children who need more land work. An incredible remedial teacher I listened to years ago (Michael Schubert) spoke of the remedies of digging, of planting, of caring for domestic animals, each most relevant for a different kind of childhood challenge. More enlightened schools these days have been able to get much more back to nature. On our suburban school plot we had to find other ways and some came along in support.
Of course, we gardened in class 3, growing easy radishes and challenging wheat and maize. That grade of the curriculum is a wonderful change, and I loved talking them through this new world: a world where, for sure, the Old Testament stories were told (as literature rather than religion, Steiner was clear, and with plenty of wonderfully wild Apocrypha included) - the Fall from Grace, though with a stern Father still at the reins, but also the arrival of humans as able to operate and do things for themselves. Measurement, Money, Time - a perfect stage for the mathematical introduction of these concepts, along with enormously practical main lessons on Farming (with a first camp, three days on a biodynamic dairy farm), Shelter/House-Building, Crafts. And a perfect age for theatre: taking a story and turning it into spectacle, for the first time with solo lines to learn alongside the choral parts they'd previously tackled. The following year, other kinds of Creation myth were thrown into the pot, and myths where the gods even died, and African stories with unhappy endings; the messy stories of human history (and geography) being just around the corner.
The magical cycles of 7 years that appear so often in different traditions are very much present in the Steiner model of child development, or gradual 'incarnation' into this earthly life. And my work here was with the second seven, where children break free more from the intense connection they initially have with their primary caregiver. It took a while for me to accept that as a man and a father my time to connect with my children came in comparatively small doses compared to their time with their mother! One lecturer suggested that in the first seven years, in a traditional nuclear family setup, the child picks up 90% of its energy from its mother. She's the one that gave so much input in those precious months in the womb, and then breastfed for more time out of it, and was thus obviously more imprinted upon. The 'second birth' however, with the change of teeth, was potentially an opportunity for more healthy male input.
Yet I was the only male teacher in the primary school, and of course that's a pretty common occurrence. Which is why we set up camps where the fathers in the community could take on teaching kids for the weekend, they could hear other storytellers and singers round the fire, whittle wood and fish and look through telescopes at the stars and make nature art and rafts and go on adventurous hikes. They could be present with men managing things together, including being accountable and respectful and responsible in the ways we tried to model during the week as teachers. The value of the idea was so obvious it seems to have become an unstoppable annual force, long after my own children have grown beyond that phase. But the other benefit of such a camp was to break the children out of their age-based cliques. Traditional villages never had gangs of ten-year olds resenting the nine-year olds or the eleven-year olds, but too often that happens in our classrooms, where the opportunities for cross-collaboration are often few. Breaching these divides are so important, to create more wiggle room out of the factory line version of school. On the other hand the brilliance of a curriculum designed to meet the children's particular stage of incarnation/development was still a pleasure to explore and work with, watching that journey unfold. Many a parent I've met, including some I'm very fond of, have aimed their teachings way over the hearts and heads of the young ones they're aiming at. Sure, kids can absolutely learn their letters in an abstract way at the age of four - I did! But the question is, isn't there something richer they could be doing then, with their wonderfully busy bodies and creative souls? Finland's consistently high school achievements, despite no formal education being required before the age of six (my class ones), would suggest that Steiner might just have been onto something. One of the highest-flying young men that was once in my class, couldn't really be bothered with letters before the age of 10 or 11.
I think, when I look back now at that stage of my life, what I most learnt from the children was the importance of play, of meeting things constantly with fresh eyes. And of the forgiveness that came with each new day. When I'm in touch with my own child inside, I am recalling this. Playfulness, by the way, is another of those keys to later success, one which too many of us grumpy adults forget too often. I thank the children of that class for reminding me still of its importance; and I hope I helped them hold on to some of that themselves now in their adulthood!
The stories I wrote for my class ones learning the letters were later recorded as ‘Alphabet Tales’. You can hear them and download them at simricyarrow.bandcamp.com and you can read them (and see how I worked with them) either there or on this site, in the ‘Thickly Mulched Words’ section.