Every time my fellow classmates and I talk about our work, I remember that one of the things I love most about being a Waldorf teacher is that it is a profession that is dedicated to the growth of the human being. I love that my workplace is an institution that is committed to facilitating the growth of individuals — students, teachers, staff, community members — we’re all about giving each other opportunities for growth.

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There have been times in my work with schools when school leadership has been in a position to ask if a teacher or staff member is capable of the task that lies ahead. It is in these moments when we most need to remind ourselves of our commitment to fostering growth. The moment we question another’s capacity, we limit their potential.

And we are not in the business of limiting someone’s growth potential.

Growth Mindset at the Waldorf School

Quite the opposite, actually. Our mandate is to foster the growth of others, and the best way to do that is to present them with challenges, ensure that it’s safe for them to take risks (and even fail), and let them go for it.

So, there are two factors under our control here:

1. Present challenges.
2. Create a safe environment.

And if we’re committed to fostering the growth of all individuals, we really need to think about doing these things both in our classroom and in the school as a whole.

Growth Mindset in the Classroom

There are plenty of ways I think about doing this in the classroom. I actually spend a good amount of time thinking about presenting just the right challenges and just the right environment.

I’ve posted a lot about this in the past, and even recorded some podcasts. But some basic ideas that I think about are:

• Use language that normalizes the struggle.
• Encourage kids to engage with challenges.
• Use the word “yet.” “You can’t do double-dutch, yet.”
• Demonstrate and celebrate mistakes.
• Tout the value of difficult tasks.
• Set goals.
• Praise hard work, not intelligence.

Okay, now imagine extending those ideas to the adult workplace. When was the last time someone celebrated a mistake that you made?

The truth of it is that as we get older we make fewer mistakes, so we get far less comfortable with allowing them to happen.

We adults are far more likely to think about our skills as accomplishments that are intrinsically tied to who we are, rather than what we do.

Growth Mindset in the School

So, if you’re truly an advocate for the growth of the human being — all human beings — I challenge you to demonstrate that commitment in all of your professional work.

What does it look like to cultivate a growth mindset with the adults at your school? Here are some ideas:

• Openly share your struggles and mistakes, instead of pretending that you’ve got it all figured out.
• Appreciate others for courageously taking risks, instead of silently judging them for getting in over their head.
• Encourage school leadership to hire teachers at different points on the career path, instead of insisting on hiring only experienced teachers.
• If you are one of the experienced teachers at your school, take on challenges you’ve never faced before. Beware falling into a rut and sticking with tasks and approaches you know work.

Even as I write those things, I’m asking myself, “Can’t it just be easy?” The honest answer is that no, it can’t just be easy. Growth is the human mandate, and growth ain’t easy.

And when it comes down to it, we’re lucky to be part of a profession and movement that recognizes the value and importance of encouraging human growth.

So dig in and do your best to appreciate the opportunity.

The post Growth Mindset at the Waldorf School appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.

Amazing Waldorf Students

First off, I was in complete awe of my students. I had so much reverence and respect for the individuals they were. I looked at their confidence, the compassionate way they interacted with each other, their enthusiasm for the work, and I compared them to myself at their age. I’m afraid I woefully paled in comparison.

But that’s not the worst part. This comparison caused me to truly doubt myself. I put my students on such a high pedestal, that I started to question my own authority. Who was I to be their teacher? They were clearly on their way to being adults who had their act way more together than I did.

Oh gosh. I wish I could go back and tell new-teacher-Meredith just how worthy she was.

Respect Thyself

This phenomenon led to the second dynamic. Due to this situation and some personal stuff I was going through at the time, I was feeling so low, and questioned myself so much, that I just didn’t respect myself. And, of course, if you don’t respect yourself, no one else will either. When students were disrespectful to me (or each other) I just tolerated it. To be honest, I didn’t even recognize it as disrespect. I excused poor behavior with the understanding, “They don’t really mean it.”

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Can I Really Control Anything Anyway?

The other big thing going through my mind at the time was the knowledge that when it really came down to it, I could not control my students. Ultimately, they could do anything! And I couldn’t do a darn thing about it. Honestly! I had visions of kids yelling at me, running out of the classroom, or completely blowing off whatever I told them to do. Of course, these things never happened, but I knew that if they ever did my powerlessness would be on full display.

But these things never happened because I developed a strategy for making sure they wouldn’t. My biggest fear was that my students would reveal my powerlessness by ignoring me or doing the exact opposite of what I told them. So my solution was to avoid telling them what to do as much as possible.

Are you kidding me? A teacher not tell her students what to do?! No wonder they didn’t respect me!

Is This What a Waldorf Classroom Should Look Like?

I realize now that at the foundation of all this fear and doubt was the basic question, “Is this what a Waldorf classroom should look like? Am I doing it right?”

I had SO many fixed ideas of what the perfect Waldorf classroom was supposed to be like and every day I walked away from my work feeling like my classroom was somehow wrong. There are so many of these “shoulds” in the Waldorf world and I think they are the biggest problem with this movement.

• Waldorf teachers should talk to their students with a calm, sing-song voice.
• Waldorf students are calm and quiet.
• Waldorf classrooms are tidy and organized at all times.
• Waldorf teachers are artistic and create beautiful chalkboard drawings.
• Waldorf lessons include the perfect blend of movement, artistic work, and academic challenge.
• Waldorf teachers tell all their stories from memory.
• Waldorf teachers craft all of their lessons from scratch, designed to meet the unique interests of their students.

Honestly, I could go on. I can’t tell you how many of the items above were either not true about my classroom OR had me working LONG hours depriving myself of sleep and other basic needs.

Thank Goodness Those Days Are Behind Me!

Okay, now that my little therapy session is over . . .

Do any of you struggle with these things? I sure hope not! It was all so painful!

But I hear from enough teachers to know that I’m not the only one who has struggled with the expectations of this work. And the thing is, the job is already hard, and we’re making it so much harder by setting up some unrealistic and imaginary perception of what it should be.

It’s taken me some long, hard years of acceptance and experience to come to this realization, but my classroom and I are pretty far from the Waldorf aesthetic ideal, and, you know what? It’s okay!

• I talk to my students like an authentic human being. That sing-song voice just isn’t me.
• My students are LOUD. And they aren’t CALM, either. Sometimes they’re an overwhelming tide of activity that I truly can’t control. Sometimes all I can do is accept those moments, shake my head, and just wait for them to pass.
• My classroom is a disaster a good bit of the time.
• I haven’t had a drawing on my chalkboard since October (okay, I do feel guilty about that one.)
• Sometimes I read my stories instead of telling them.
• I don’t create all of my lessons from scratch. I get plenty of ideas from other teachers.

I’ve come to realize that none of these things truly matter.

The thing that does matter is how my students feel when they are in my classroom. If those kids are happy, having fun, working hard, and feeling good about it THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS.

And I guarantee that if I was stressing out about all of those “shoulds”, staying up late, feeling inferior, fretting that I wasn’t measuring up, my students would NOT be feeling so good. And heck, neither would I!

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So, I encourage you to ask yourself what are the Waldorf shoulds you need to kick to the curb? I encourage you to question those standards you’re setting for yourself and truly ask if those values are contributing to the overall health of your classroom organism.

And maybe you need to forward this post to a colleague? Maybe your school is in need of a culture shift. I’ve definitely seen schools that hold high standards on a particular metric (like silent hallways or chalkboard drawings) that ends up feeling oppressive and unobtainable for teachers.

Let’s remember what’s important. And do what we can to make this job easier, especially at this time when it is so very hard.

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I can think of so many times with my last class when I presented the class with a challenge, matched them up in groups, and let them start figuring things out. The productive hum that fell over the class told me that there was some good working and thinking going on.

Most teachers have some of those positive experiences of middle school group work and many of us are looking for ways to create that happy, social, and hard-working environment in our classrooms.

Unfortunately, we also have those experiences when group work didn’t quite work out. Because as great as social group work is, it can go horribly awry, as well. There are some pretty big challenges to overcome when creating a healthy group work environment. Let’s talk about some of those challenges and how the teacher can face them.

Are you up for it?

As satisfying as a group learning experience can be, it takes work to manage. And it’s loud. And, honestly, sometimes I just don’t have the patience for it.

And you know what? That’s okay! Far better for me to be honest with myself about my patience level and save the group activity for another day, than to set some great activity in motion, only to find myself annoyed and grumpy with my students (who are just doing what I asked them to do.)

I’ve definitely had days when I didn’t ask myself this question before getting rolling with the activity and I had to pep talk myself through it. I’ll find myself getting irritated with the noise and feeling ready to pump the brakes and tell everyone to just be quiet. When I have the wherewithal to do it, I try to stop myself and look around. Invariably, everyone is engaged and working productively. They’re just making a lot of noise while they do it. I try to take a deep breath and let it go.

Is everyone learning?

This was a big hangup for me for a long time. I mean, if they’re working in small groups, how do I know that everyone in the group really gets it? There are bound to be some kids who will happily sit back and let others do most of the work.

I worry about this most when we’re working on a hard skill — like a math concept. Everyone is responsible for understanding the concept, and it’s my job to make sure they do.

But having all students participate in the group is important no matter what the project is. The last thing I want is for one of my students to come away with the understanding that it’s just fine to sit back and let others do the hard work while they relax.

For awhile I rationalized it by thinking that the positive experiences they were getting by working together out-weighed the potential for missing out on that individual skill-building. I’m no longer so satisfied with this, though. Instead, I’m thinking that it IS possible for students to be individually responsible AND work in a group.

This is the question I’m currently grappling with as I put together a possible group project for my fifth graders. They’re a little young to be able to handle the responsibility of making sure they all participate equally, so I’m thinking about what kind of structure I can build into the project to make sure everyone participates.

I’m thinking I could have defined roles with clearly structured tasks. I know that this might frustrate some kids, who would be more than happy to complete all of the tasks themselves, so I guess it’s a good learning experience all around.

How much are we working and how much are we socializing?

When I was a new teacher, I remember getting my students ready for a group project and at the mere mention of the word “group” they were already looking at each other like, “Woohoo! Par-tay!” I hadn’t learned the importance of setting them up for success and making sure that those group project times were WORKING times. They just couldn’t help themselves and they got carried away with the social aspect of the experience.

In those days, when I stopped to look around to check that everyone was working, they definitely weren’t! And I didn’t really know what to do about it. (Oh how grateful I am to have some experience under my belt!)

Now, as I prepare my current students for their first real group project (possibly, this is still in the planning stage) I’m thinking about the ways I can build in checkpoints so I can be sure that they’re striking a good balance between socializing and working.

• We’ll start with a short group work session and build up to longer periods over time.
• At the end of each session, each group and each individual student will reflect and share what they accomplished.
• We’re starting when they’re young enough that pleasing the teacher and following instructions still wins out over having fun with classmates.

I’m hoping that by starting out with these things in mind, my students will establish some good habits about group work and we’ll have many successful years of group projects ahead of us.

Are you teaching middle school? You might consider checking out some of my curriculum guides. Many of them include instructions for projects that can be done in small groups, including my 6th/7th Grade Astronomy Guide and 8th Grade Physics and Meteorology.

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Today was one of those “tangent conversation” days. It started innocently enough. We noticed that the answer to a math problem was 537 — three prime numbers. That led to a conversation about our favorite kinds of numbers. I shared that my preference for even numbers goes back to when my sister and I took turns riding in the front seat (the even days were mine, odd days hers.) It was fun to find out that many of my students have a favorite times table (9’s were the most popular, but some even liked the 7’s!), favorite numbers, and some even associate colors with the different numbers.

I love these little random conversations, and I have to be careful that we don’t spend too long getting lost in the sharing (it takes a long time to give everyone a turn!). This is especially true now that half of our lessons are happening on Zoom. So usually, when I notice that we’re straying too far from the lesson plan, I pull us back on task. But for whatever reason, today, I let the conversation wander. I’m glad I did.

“The number I hate the most is 13 because March 13 was our last day of school. Friday the 13th is truly a bad luck day.”

I heard a little bit of a quiver when she said it, and it felt like an opening.

“You know, you all have had to be really strong this year. I’m sure it hasn’t been easy. Do you want to talk about it?”

I was so surprised to see that that was all they needed. Hands shot into the air and kids started talking. It was quite sweet. And their comments were very 4th grade.

“You guys might make fun of me for this (“no we won’t”), but I get really stressed out about school and I want to help my family so much, at least once a week I just cry for no reason.”

“My parents got a divorce right before covid and the only thing that was normal and stable for me was school. Without school I have emotional breakdowns all the time.”

“Listening to you all and thinking about this I feel like I could cry. I won’t, but I feel like I could.”

What struck me most about their comments was how vulnerable they were. These poor kids! As if dealing with the challenges of covid wasn’t enough, they’re also worried about their peers judging them (and judging themselves!) for how they handle it. Almost all of their comments came with a little apology or disclaimer.

It really made me think about our classroom culture and wonder what I can do to help kids share those vulnerabilities without worry and how I can help them learn how to support each other through them.

The Social-Emotional Classroom

Social-emotional work is such an enormous part of what we do as Waldorf teachers. I’ve never considered myself very strong at actively meeting and guiding those conversations directly. I tend to address emotional stuff through the back door, but this is one aspect of teaching that I want to learn more about.

In many ways, we Waldorf teachers are lucky. There is something about being with the same group of students for so long that ensures the development of a healthy social-emotional environment. I’m grateful for the strong connection I have with my students and their families, but I want to learn more about how to help my students grow through those challenging moments.

The Five Components of Social Emotional Learning

Usually, when I think about social-emotional learning, I think about helping students get along with others. Building relationship skills is one of the most challenging things we do at school and, really, our greatest opportunity for growth. But social awareness is just one part of social-emotional learning. Students need to learn so much more, and if you ask me, those other aspects are a bit less tangible and require more intentional guidance. These are the five core competencies of social-emotional learning.

• self-awareness
• self-management
• social awareness
• relationship skills
• responsible decision-making

There’s so much to be said about each of these, and I want to explore all of them eventually, but I want to make sure this post includes some solid implementation strategies, so let’s focus on the first one — self-awareness.

Self-Awareness: The First Social-Emotional Skill

According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), self-awareness is the ability to accurately recognize one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior.

When I first considered the idea of self-awareness, I thought of the 3- or 4-year-old who has a tantrum because they’re over-tired or hungry. They might be able to identify how they’re feeling, but they don’t understand how that feeling is influencing their behavior.

But truly, self-awareness goes far beyond this kind of scenario. Self-awareness also means exploring one’s identity, understanding emotions and their impact, examining prejudices and biases, having a growth mindset, and developing a sense of purpose. Clearly, self-awareness is a life-long journey. The struggle is real — and not just for the 4-year-old.

There are many ways that we can help our students gain greater self-awareness, but, as always, I find it helpful to actively plan experiences that I know will address learning goals — even those in the social-emotional realm. I can’t imagine creating a set of self-awareness benchmarks, like a handy little list of tick boxes that we can mark off when complete. But we can make sure that we’re providing our students with activities and experiences that address this development.

This set of self-awareness skills comes from the CASEL website. They’ve got a great interactive tool that lays out a full framework for social-emotional learning.

• Integrating personal and social identities
• Identifying personal, cultural, and linguistic assets
• Recognizing and identifying one’s emotions and their impact
• Demonstrating honesty and integrity
• Linking feelings, values, and thoughts
• Examining prejudices and biases
• Experiencing self-efficacy
• Having a growth mindset
• Developing interests and a sense of purpose

As I look at this list, right away ideas for classroom activities, conversations, and stories come to mind. Putting together a social-emotional curriculum could be as simple as sitting down and generating a list of activities that would give students practice working with all of these. CASEL has put together this document that gives sample activities to support the development of some of these core competencies. They even have outlined four different approaches.

1. Free-standing lessons that explicitly teach students skills across the five core competencies.
2. General teaching practices that work towards establishing a classroom and schoolwide culture that supports social-emotional development.
3. Integration of SEL skills with academic curriculum.
4. Establishment of school policies and organizational structures that support SEL.

For the sake of my own planning, I’d like to focus on the first two. I know that I need to work with greater intention towards building my students’ social-emotional skills. Though I’m sure there will be opportunities to integrate this learning into our academic lessons, I’ll allow those moments to arise naturally. It’s the intentional work that I want to focus on.

Social-Emotional Lesson Planning

So let’s start by looking at one of the skills and think about some activities that can help strengthen it. These ideas are inspired by the CASEL chart you can find here. I highly recommend reading through this chart and seeing what ideas come to mind for you and your students.

Recognizing One’s Own Feelings and Thoughts and Their Influence on Behaviors

We want students to be able to state how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking and how these thoughts and feelings impact their behavior. Part of this is understanding that their thoughts and feelings will change, that they have an impact on themselves and others, and that it is possible for behavior to have an effect on emotions (including improving them.)

Lesson Ideas for Recognizing and Articulating Feelings

• Vocabulary work. Make a list of words for the week and let students role-play using the words. Post charts of the vocabulary words—brainstorm lists of emotional vocabulary words with older students. Integrate into academic work by using a thesaurus or dictionary. You can also do word searches and fill-in-the-blank activities.
• Drama. Ask students to act out how they might feel in different situations. You can have the entire class act it out by using only facial features or body language. You can also call on individual students to stand up and act it out using words.
• Reading. Use a piece of literature with a difficult, relatable scenario and have a class discussion about times when students have had similar feelings and how they handled them.
• Art. Have students create a watercolor painting or free-drawing that depicts a particular emotion.
• Class conversations. Ask students to describe a time when they felt a particular emotion. Let students share how they felt and what they did about it. Brainstorm things students can do to improve the way they feel. Create a list of these activities and post them on the wall. Have these conversations as a full class or in small groups.
• Stories. Any Waldorf teacher knows the power of a good story. Find stories and characters that allow you to explore the realm of feelings. Ask students how they would have responded in a similar situation.

Ongoing Teaching Practices

Of course, managing a classroom is much more than creating specific lessons. There are plenty of ways to set up your classroom practices to help students strengthen their ability to recognize and work with emotions.

• Create a space in the room that is dedicated to reflecting and processing feelings.
• Listen and reflect when students talk about their feelings.
• Talk about emotions and the physical and emotional cues that tell us how we’re feeling (“You must be really excited about recess. I can see you’re jumping up and down.”)
• Talk about your own feelings, how you recognize them, and how they influence your behavior.
• Encourage students to journal or draw about their feelings.
• Ask students how they’re feeling and what they can do to change their emotions.
• Encourage pretend play that allows students to explore feelings.

Social-Emotional Learning Recommendations

I imagine coming back to this topic in the future and exploring some of the other core competencies that we want to help our students develop. Until then, here are some recommendations, if you want to learn more.

• Kimochis. This is a website with tools and downloads to aid with social-emotional learning. I can imagine their tools useful for both parents and teachers.
• Responsive Classroom. I’ve been recommending Responsive Classroom for years. Their trainings are fantastic and they’ve got lots of articles, videos, and books to support teachers in developing a healthy classroom culture.
• Teaching Children to Care. By far, my favorite teaching book. I give it to new teachers all the time.
• Fly Five. This is a SEL curriculum I came across in my research that looks pretty good. It reminds me of Responsive Classroom so I think I’ll be taking a closer look. Speaking of which . . .
• They’re offering a free introductory webinar on Tuesday, May 11. It looks like this webinar is an overview of the Fly Five curriculum. I’m excited to learn more.

I hope you’ve found this helpful and that you’ll explore how you can implement some social-emotional learning practices in your classroom. I think we Waldorf teachers sometimes feel that because of our multi-year relationship with our students that we’ve got the social-emotional realm covered. But our students will benefit if we address this area of their learning with direct, intentional instruction.

What social-emotional learning challenges have you faced in your classroom recently? Share in the comments. Let’s learn from each other.

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Me: My faculty and I are talking about how we could teach Waldorf remotely.
Calvin (24): That’s actually hilarious.
Me: I know. Waldorf via Skype?
My sister: Oh, Skype is the worst!
Calvin: Well, with it being Waldorf, I’m surprised they’re not using AOL chat.
Me: Smoke signals?
Alice (21): Morse code?
Calvin: No! CARRIER PIGEONS! That’s what Waldorf should use. You know, because it’s animals and nature-y.

We had quite a chuckle. Oh, those were the days.

3 weeks ago. Back when distance learning was a theoretical conversation. Little did we know how quickly we would be thrust into a real-world consideration of how we could teach our students from a distance.

My school is currently on our 2-week spring break. We had just one-week of home lessons before the break and now we’re all grateful to have some time to figure out how to proceed. The timing actually worked out perfectly. We had a week of experimentation — a chance to try some things — and now we get to solidify our approach.

What I’m Doing

I have heard from so many of you — teachers who are figuring this out with me, parents who are suddenly home with your children. The questions I’ve received have been wide-ranging, and they’ve all contained a bit of desperation.

• What did your take-home packet include?
• What supplies did you send home with your students?
• Are you using Zoom with your students?
• How are you delivering new content?
• Can I use your take-home packet for my child?
• What digital tools are you using?
• What are you doing about families who don’t have access? Or what about parents who still have to work?
• Can I pay you to create lessons for my 3rd grader?
• Why don’t you have any 3rd grade curriculum guides on your site? That’s what I need!

We’re all trying to adjust to this new normal and it’s all a bit unsettling.

So, here are some answers to those questions.

What I Sent Home

Here’s a basic list of things that families took with them when they left school on Friday, March 13.

• Crayons
• Flute
• Pencils
• Main lesson book
• a reader
• a handwriting packet
• a “challenge” math packet
• a parent packet including a letter and an answer key to the math problems
• a daily lesson packet with our daily rhythm in checklist form and a times table practice page and a daily math practice page
• a reader (and instructions to read 20 minutes per day)

Technology I’m Using

Google Classroom

My plan was to send daily lesson plans to my families (to fill in the blanks on the “review” and “new content” portions of the daily rhythm checklist I sent them home with on Friday.) I knew that in a pinch I could just send it out via email, but a couple of our teachers already use Google Classroom, so I decided to check it out.

Ultimately, I thought that it was a good way to go for a couple of reasons.

• Assignments would be right there and ready for parents to access whenever they were ready, without needing to scroll back through their saved emails.
• The interface allows me to upload images and documents very easily and connect them with a specific day’s assignment.
• Parents can ask questions and “turn in” student work (including a picture, which I love!). Parents can even answer each other’s questions and connect with each other over the work.

So, though it was a big push, I set it up over the weekend and got almost everyone to sign-up by Monday. I sent assignments for Monday and Tuesday out via email as well, just to make sure everyone had what they needed.

Parents have been raving about the experience. They find the lessons to be laid out clearly and they know exactly what to do to guide their child to complete the work. Big win!

Recorded Audio

I was a little on the fence about this, but at the last minute, I decided to record myself narrating the new content for Monday’s lesson. I found that I enjoyed the process far more than I thought I would.

Our content for the week was about silk (we were in our fibers block), so though there was a true story, there was also some factual information to relay. Because of this, I didn’t just read a story. I reminded them about the other fibers we had studied, talked about how silk was the same and different, and then told a story about the discovery of silk.

Because the story took this format, it was much more conversational. I imagined my students as I talked about it and I felt like I was really talking to them. I threw in little things like, “I miss you,” and “I hope you’re being helpful at home.” Many parents shared that listening to my voice telling the story was comforting and reassuring for the whole family.

Just thinking about it brings a tear to my eye. I sure miss those kids!

Photographs

I did sample pages for all main lesson book content — including compositions and dictations, which are such habit by now that I don’t generally need to guide my students through the process. I figured that having sample pages would give a measure of security and confidence to their work.

Video

I have not yet recorded any video myself. I did, however, in my silk research, find a video of a silkworm spinning a cocoon. Ordinarily I would describe this process to them myself (which I did in the audio) but I would not share the video in class. But at the last minute, when I was putting the lesson together in Google Classroom, I decided to throw it in and let parents decide if they wanted to watch it with their children. I talked about it in my audio and tried to add a little bit of feeling to it. “If you want to watch a cute little silkworm building his cocoon, I sent your parents a video.”

I have been thinking a lot about recording video for the delivery of new content. I follow a fellow teacher friend on Instagram and she has been posting desktop videos of herself simplifying fractions. Finding a way to deliver brand new content is one of my biggest questions — especially when it comes to math — and I think that these desktop videos might be the best solution. I still have to teach long division before the end of the school year.

I sent her a message asking her to send me a picture of her set-up. This is it below. I ordered the tripod and ring light and I’m planning on figuring out how I might use them next week.

Zoom

This is a big topic of conversation at the moment at my school. We have been using Zoom to hold all of our usual meetings. Between my regular faculty, grades, section and board meetings, I’ve participated in a virtual meeting almost every day. These meetings have had varied levels of success, mostly depending on the number of participants.

My small section meeting felt good. I connected with all of those colleagues and everyone got a chance to talk. In our faculty meeting, which had over 25 participants, I just listened and didn’t contribute to the conversation at all. It also felt difficult to manage (background noise, the mute button, etc.) and did not give me the feeling that I was genuinely connecting with those colleagues.

The best meeting of the week was the Thursday night parent social that I set up. Though most parents said they didn’t really feel the need to meet and were doing just fine, when we got into the meeting, I could tell that they really craved companionship. It was actually quite sweet to see so many moms and dads, sitting side by side on the couch with glasses of wine in their hands. They’d had a hard week and deserved that relaxing social night. It was so much fun, we decided to make it a regular weekly event.

So, with all of these experiences in mind, I’ve been contemplating the role that Zoom will play in my instruction. In the end, it feels problematic.

1. With a large class, the only way to make sure instruction is effective is to limit participation. This means managing students with the mute button, which doesn’t feel great to me. Also, if you take away the participation aspect, you’re removing the primary benefit of Zoom. I might as well just record video.
2. Quite a few of my students are shy about using the phone — let alone this video platform. I know that those students would not access lessons delivered in this way.
3. Some families are very careful about screen exposure — even in this social context. I know that there are some families who would not access it for this reason.
4. Zoom is distracting. When you’re on a Zoom call, you spend a good amount of time looking at yourself. I think the self-awareness that this activity brings is not age-appropriate for 3rd graders. They would also be so distracted by looking at themselves (or each other) that they would have trouble paying attention to the content of the lesson.

As of right now, I don’t imagine Zoom being a regular part of how I will deliver content to my students. I’m pondering having a brief Zoom social time with them, but I need to give it more thought before deciding.

A couple of notes:

1. AWSNA (the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America) has been hosting Zoom calls for teachers, parents and administrators who are figuring all of this out. I attended a call dedicated to grades 1-3 and none of the attendees were planning on using Zoom for instruction. It felt good to know that I wasn’t alone in my apprehension.
2. I am feeling this way because of observation and intuition about how my students will learn best. I am not avoiding Zoom because of a dogmatic belief that all screen-time is bad. If I believed that my students would learn best with regular Zoom content, I would be on it in a heartbeat. As with all of my teaching decisions, my students’ learning is at the center. This is not about some “thou shalt not consume media” belief.

What Can I Share?

I have been hearing the call, loud and clear, to share with you some of the material I’m putting together. Unfortunately, as you might be able to tell from my description above, most of what I’m creating is highly specific to my students. So I can’t simply send it out to others.

But, I do have lots of curriculum guides on my website. I encourage you to take a look through the offerings and see what might work. You might consider adjusting your block rotation so your students can take advantage of the home environment.

• Astronomy — Stay up late and observe the stars.
• Botany — Plant a garden (thank goodness it’s spring!)
• Geography — Create an itinerary for a trip to South America (next summer). Write letters to tourism departments in other states. Take a culinary tour of Asia.

Spring is a good time for those outward-facing blocks, and though your students can’t actually go anywhere, there’s plenty they can do around home.

When we return from the break, we’ll be heading into our Farming block. We’ll study the grains, do some cooking and hopefully some growing too.

And it’s true, I do not have any 3rd grade materials on my site. My rhythm is that at the end of the school year I sit down with my lesson books and re-digest the content and generalize it so it is accessible to a wider audience.

But, I’m going to do my best to put our last block — Fibers — together in a curriculum guide for you. I know that many 3rd grade teachers study fibers after spring break, and I think it is a good block for home learning, so it works out nicely that we happened to go through it before spring break. I’ll try to put all of it together asap.

Other than the actual content, my strongest recommendation is to develop a very familiar and comfortable routine. At this point in the school year, my students are at ease with our weekly and daily rhythms. They know that on Tuesday it’s likely that they are going to write a composition and that every day they are going to have a dictation. I have never been more grateful to have such a regular rhythm (I can thank my phlegmatic temperament for that one!)

Questions I Have

There is so much left to figure out about this situation. We’re being told to prepare for distance learning through the end of the school year. If this ends up being the case, there are some pretty big problems we’ll need to solve.

Accountability and Assessment

So far, all of the messages I’ve been sending parents about my lessons have been about taking it easy. I suggest that they find a good routine, but also to not stress out over it. If their child is balking about doing home lessons, let things go. Read a little, draw a little, get outside and enjoy each other. Some families appreciate clearly formed lessons with steps that their children check off as they go, but others find that stressful.

And I totally get it. In many ways, this whole situation is an opportunity to slow down and enjoy the lives that we’ve created. But, if this is going to go on until June, I feel nervous about my students not participating at all in the lessons. What is the right balance of supporting parents who never signed up to be their child’s teacher, but still making sure that skills progress?

And when the end of the school year comes around, how do I assess my students’ skill levels and write end of year reports?

Accessibility

Though all of my families are signed up for Google Classroom, they do not all have the resources to devote to completing the lessons. Many of them appreciate Waldorf’s low-tech approach and they just don’t engage much with the digital world themselves. Others are single parents or continuing to work or have older children who require more of their attention. There are a wide array of reasons why some of my students would not be able to access my lessons.

How do I support those kids? Especially the ones who were getting one-on-one support to make big strides in the home stretch of 3rd grade?

Continued Enrollment and Financial Hardship

My class is an amazingly strong community. I know that my families rely on the students and parents that have come together in this group. Parents, students and siblings are friends, companions and confidantes. Many of my families consider our school their primary social network.

For this reason, I know it would be a dire set of circumstances that would cause any of them to consider leaving the school. But, unfortunately, I have no doubt that those dire circumstances are bound to come to pass.

I’m grateful that our school is strong and we are committed to making sure that families who are experiencing hardship can continue to attend our school. I am determined that every child who left my classroom on March 13, returns, even if it’s not until September 2.

(I know that there are many causes out there worthy of our support right now, but I can’t resist inserting a link, in case anyone wants to support families who are facing hardship but wish to remain at our school.)

How are you faring through these uncertain days? After spending a few days laying low, and feeling even lower, I’ve remembered that the antidote to despair is action. I’m determined to spring into action to help however I can.

How can I help you? Reach out and let me know.

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Through the process of image-building, we come together as a group in the most beautiful, effortless way. We’re all (literally) on the same page. It’s so great!

But storytelling isn’t easy.

I have to confess, to this day, telling stories is the part of my preparation that takes the most time. There are lots of things that have gotten easier as I’ve become a more experienced teacher, but storytelling is still a challenge.

I mean, it’s definitely easier than it used to be. (I used to have to memorize my stories word for word. I definitely don’t do that anymore.) But through the years I’ve learned that there’s just no substitute for building images. I still have to read through my story the night before. I still have to write out (by hand) the images and events of the story. I still have to look over my notes just before telling, and sometimes as I’m telling. And I still get nervous about it.

And sometimes I just don’t have the time to put in the effort. And I know I’m not alone. I have visited lots of teachers’ main lessons and often those lessons don’t include a story.

I get it. It’s hard work, and even more difficult when there is a visitor in the room.

Reading instead of telling.

So, on those days when I feel pressed for time, I have sometimes tried to convince myself that reading a story is almost as good as telling it. Or at least, I figure, it’s better than no story at all.

Well, I’m writing this post on one of those days.

This week, the story of Ruth was on the docket for the 3rd grade. I LOVE this story. So much so that when I planned out the week, I knew I could tell the whole thing in one day, but I decided to savor it.

Yesterday I told the lead-in — Naomi and her husband moving to Moab. Orpah and Ruth marrying their sons. Naomi deciding to return to her homeland after the death of her husband and sons. Ruth staying by her side and returning to the land of Judah along with Naomi.

I told the story yesterday and even though the actual events of the story were minimal, we had that feeling of working together to build the images of the story.

Well, today was a day full of preparing to present our shelter projects and I was pretty sure we wouldn’t have time for a story. Sure enough, main lesson ended without a story.

But then, later in the day, I had some unexpected time with my class. I remembered what my mentor said about always reviewing stories — otherwise you may as well not have even told it. So, I decided to review yesterday’s story and read the next part of the story.

The review went just fine. Of course, because that image-building, group feeling was there yesterday, they remembered the story beautifully and I could see that the images were alive for them. Then I started to read.

Right away, I could tell the images just weren’t going to happen. I even said to them, “Pretend I’m telling you this story.” Silly teacher.

Still, I started reading. Every now and then, I stopped and said, “Did you hear that?” And I summarized in my own words. Ugh. They did their best, but it just wasn’t happening.

And then, the more I read, the more I remembered how much I LOVE this story. Finally, I couldn’t bear it anymore and I came to a stopping point (trying to make it seem natural — though they, of course, complained about it being a cliffhanger — this is their favorite complaint about my stories and I secretly love it.)

Thank goodness I realized it before I wasted the whole thing.

And thank goodness tomorrow is another day.

The moral of the story.

So the moral of my story about my story (so meta) is to TELL STORIES. It’s worth it. And it’s one of the things that makes Waldorf Education such a beautiful thing.

And if you want some tips on how to make storytelling easier, you might check out my course The Practical Art of the Waldorf Classroom. Storytelling is one of the topics we cover. It’s pretty great, if I do say so myself.

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