Synthetic learning challenged

WALDORF offers one of the best ways to educate a whole child, said Evelyne Lang, a retired senior art teacher from Australia, when she paid a two-day visit to a local family Waldorf kindergarten in Jida last Wednesday and lectured to parents at the other in Gongbei on Saturday.
Evelyne expressed satisfaction with the family kindergarten after surveying the gardens, classrooms and attending classes. “I can see that you have created this classroom with love,” she told the teachers. With self-painted pink walls, self-dyed pink curtains, small baskets, hand-made wooden toys, cotton and knitting dolls, and natural wooden tables and chairs, the classroom looks like a comforting, cozy home.
Wood, cotton, silk and other natural materials have their own fragrances, which help develop the child’s sense organs; whereas plastic and other manufactured materials, despite their colours and designs, all smell alike, she pointed out.
Whenever the children see teachers busy knitting, or working while singing in the garden, they learn to spend time doing things rather than wasting it, Evelyne noted. All lovely, meaningful actions of the mother or people around the child create healthy organs, while thoughtless actions create sick organs, she pointed out.
“The children basically teach themselves by exploring and also by observing. This observation makes intelligence,” she said.
Waldorf education is a teaching science based upon the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, founder of anthroposophy, which stresses spiritual development. Learning is interdisciplinary, integrating practical, artistic, and intellectual elements, and is coordinated with “natural rhythms of everyday life,” he asserted.
According to Waldorf pedagogy, learning from birth to 7 years old is largely experiential, imitative and sensory-based. The education emphasizes learning through imitation and examples.
Elementary school years, covering children aged between 7 and 14 and emphasizing development of “feeling life” and artistic expression, takes learning as artistic and imaginative.
During adolescence, to meet the development capacity for abstract thought and conceptual judgment, the emphasis is on learning through intellectual understanding and ethical thinking, including taking social responsibility.
This theory of child development is founded in turn upon the anthroposophical view of the human being, an expert pointed out.
“Waldorf education educates the whole child -- mind, body and heart, which is thinking, feeling and willing,” Evelyne said.
The first seven years are the most important phase in a child’s development. It’s essential for a child to build his/her life with a good foundation. If the time were spent in a creative, healthy way, it might help the child grow with creativity, imagination and satisfaction with true achievement, she explained.
“Waldorf students find a passionate way to fulfill what they want to do. They’re not competitive. They know everyone is unique in their own way. Instead, they accept other people’s abilities and enjoy others’ achievements. In the meantime, they’re confident with themselves,” she said.
A former music teacher of a mainstream school in Germany, Evelyne switched to Waldorf education because of her own child. When her daughter came home from school, she was unhappy and often slammed the door. However, after she transferred to a Waldorf school, she was happy and not angry any more. Evelyne also discovered that in a Waldorf school, the children feel in tune with the education. “I was at this time 35 years old, and I changed my whole direction,” she said. She became a dedicated Waldorf teacher and still works in a Waldorf school in Australia even after retirement.
When Evelyne made a crayon drawing during the lecture, she created a very tender, soft mood for the space so that the motifs, such as house, tree and image, could show up. She used patches of colour rather than clear lines to depict the sun, house, tree, mountain, chick, cat, child, grandfather, face in the window and so on. Although vivid, the scenery and images are not specific and clear. “Children have their own imaginations, and this kind of drawings stimulates them,” she explained.

Some examples of mis-education and Evelyne’s responses:
1. Children are kept away from the kitchen for being considered trouble makers.
In fact, the kitchen is a nice place where there are so many things to smell and so many things to do in the background of the sound of all the machines. It stimulates a child’s sense organs and gives a good chance to imitate the mother.
2. Children are provided with TV or video instead of allowed to do actions or activities.
The eyes of children who watch a lot of television start to lose their ability to see, as it’s not a natural way. They don’t smell what they see and they can’t taste it. It’s only visual and not nature. For example, when a 2-year-old watched the video on which a child was playing with a balloon, he ran to the video and wanted to catch the balloon, but it was a big disappointment for him, because there was no balloon. The video imprints a lie that makes children frustrated and disappointed, and makes them feel it’s not true. When children watch TV, they calm down; but after watching TV, they feel powerless, because they should imitate and explore the nature or the real world.
3. Children are taught intellectually at a very early age.
When the life energy known as “chi” is not fully available, too much intellectual work will damage the child. In other words, too early a formal education before age 7 will make the child weak. But at 7 years old, she or he has fledged inner organs and life energy that are then ready to be used to learn.
4. Children are required to learn musical instruments at an early age.
If members of the family play music or learn musical instruments, it’s a good way to stimulate the child, as the child listens all the time and wants to imitate. Otherwise, children should learn musical instrument when they are 9 years old, when they have the willpower to concentrate on practicing for a certain period of time each day.