Back to School Waldorf Style – Part 1, The Classroom

Eva (on the right) and another second grader organize some of the classroom books they will enjoy reading in the coming year.

Though you can’t sense autumn lurking around the corner by seeing magnificent foliage or feeling a sudden chill in the air as you would on the East Coast, families and teachers at Highland Hall in Northridge, California, know the new academic year is about to begin by the flurry of activity on campus…even as temperatures soar. With the first day of school just over week away, parents, teachers and students work together to prepare our magnificent 11 acre campus for the year ahead.

A chalk drawing welcomes the new first grade.

My little one, Eva, is making the transition from first to second grade with friends she has met and grown to love over the past year and others she has known since her days in nursery and kindergartenat Highland Hall. She will also make the move with her beloved first grade teacher, who will now be her second grade teacher. For unlike other schools, where students change teachers each year, we keep the same teacher from first through eighth grade. The teacher, in this case, Mrs. Gray, and the children will all journey together through the grades until ninth grade, when the students move across campus to join the high school. The familiarity of friends and the security of knowing who Eva’s teacher is adds to her confidence in and enthusiasm for learning.

Beautiful chalk drawings, watercolor numbers…but first some dusting.

At the end of the school year, the whole class moves to the room next door. Changing grades resembles moving into an actual home, both in its appearance and in the loving way we care for it. Our classroom feels warm and inviting, with pastel-colored walls, curtains adorning the windows, and carpeted floors cushioning the feet and reducing the noise to the ears.  We have a kitchen, dishes, glasses and a broom. Colorful aprons, which have been hand-sewn by the parents, hang at the ready on wooden hooks for painting days; parent-made beanbags await their turn in baskets for when they will be rhythmically tossed to enhance math during main lessons.

Hand-made painting aprons add to the decor of the classroom.

From the beauty of the room to the tools which help to build and strengthen the neural pathways for learning, such as the beanbags and watercolors…everything in this room is chosen by the teacher to care for the senses, inspire the imagination and provide an optimal environment for the children to learn.

A chalkboard drawing reveals a day in the life of last year’s second grade.

But before our classroom home is ready to be inhabited, much work needs to be done. There are books to clean and dust, windows to be washed, walls to be painted…and in a Waldorf classroom, lazured.

At Highland Hall, the children play an integral part in preparing and caring for their new home. They wash the windows, clean the kitchen, organize books and even build bookshelves.

Students help with the cleaning and the classroom preparation.

When it is time to shake the class teacher’s hand and enter the classroom on the first day of school, the children enjoy a sense of pride in their accomplishments before the first bell has even rung.

And then there is the subject of desks! Just like those new school shoes, the chair and desk the child sits at needs to fit.

Mrs. Gray confirms the desk is the right height for every one of her students.

So, instead of rows of identical desks and chairs, as in most schools, each student at Highland Hall tries on, as it were, different chairs and desks. The teacher checks to be sure the child’s feet can squarely reach the floor and that they can sit comfortably straight and tall behind their desk.  A desk which matches the height of each student enhances the child’s proprioceptive development, and supports their ability to fully participate in class. No need to fidget, reach for the floor, or slouch down to get your elbows on the desk. Like Baby Bear in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” their seating has to fit “just right.”

A parent helps adjust the height of a desk to fit a student…”Just right!”

Adding parents to the work of readying the room completes the class community – a sort of extended family that will travel together from room to room for many years until the children graduate to the futures for which Waldorf education has so beautifully prepared them!

Each student shakes the teacher’s hand before entering the class each day of the school year.

Here’s to the new year!
Thanks for reading! I invite you to leave your lovely comments and share this post with friends.

Warmly,

Rebecca Varon-Remstein

Second Grade Parent and Outreach Director