Waldorf, founded in Germany in 1919, has gone through more than 100 years of development, and has now become the world's three most influential early childhood education systems (the other two are Montessori and Reggio), and is spread across countries with different cultural backgrounds and social values on various continents. Currently, there are about 1,200 Wadefu schools around the world, and China's Wadefu schools are distributed in Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Zhuhai and other places. American writer and Nobel Prize winner in Literature Saul Bello once publicly stated: "If I have a school-age child, I will definitely send him to Waldorf School to study." His influence and popularity can be seen.
87-year-old German educator Helmut Eller started working as a time class teacher at Waldorf School at the age of 25 and devoted himself to education throughout his life. The book "Eight Years of Living With Children" is a detailed record of his practice of educational philosophy at Waldorf School.
"Second with Children for Eight Years" mainly tells the detailed study and life of children aged 7 to 14 in Waldorf. Its curriculum is to provide a comprehensive balance education for the child's body, mind, spirit and spirit based on the development of consciousness at different stages of the child, and to provide a deep awareness education to assist the child's wisdom in generating. Specifically, compared with traditional education, there are several characteristics:
centralized surprise teaching mode
Waldorf School's courses are divided into "time class" and "non-time class". The so-called time class means that each academic year is divided into different periods. Each period generally lasts for 3-4 weeks, and concentrates on learning a subject. The time class is about 105 minutes, usually from 8:00 to 9:45. This is an important moment of the day. Language, arithmetic, geometry, common sense, geography, history, biology, physics, chemistry and other subjects are all studied in time class. This concentrated arrangement has withstood the test of a long time and has proven to be appropriate, so that one can study a topic for a long time.
Many people may have the same questions as me: How can children persist in taking 105 minutes of class without resting? After reading it, I found that this is inseparable from the reasonable arrangement of the course. The general period of class is divided into five parts: rhythm part, review part, main part, writing part, and narration part.
Rhythm part: Start with morning reading, recite the Proverbs (the content reads differently every year), then sing or reciting, recite the short rhyme , do clapping activities, counting exercises, or dance the circle dance. After they learn to play the recorder , they still have to play the recorder during this period.
Review section: Teacher reviews, children enrich their content, and expand their themes. From "hands-on" to "brain-on", this is also the method proposed by founder Steiner, which has a primitive trait that requires the inspiration and strengthening of children's willpower from the beginning. This trait is not just about making up your mind to "what I want to do", but refers to the power consumed by the child when he truly acts. Through regular actions, he can strengthen his willpower.
Main part: This part is mainly the new course to be taught that day. In a class, it is an art to switch from the content of the review part to the new content to be taught.
Writing part: Whether it is drawing, drawing, writing, or arithmetic courses, they must be left to students' own writing part. On the one hand, children can further understand the content explained by the teacher just now through writing. At the same time, the teacher uses the characteristics of students' writing: some children act decisively, use their pens with force, and quickly draw perfect lines. Some children are calm and do not rush to draw their own, and hardly look at others. I was still thinking about it and wanted to complete it more perfectly, but I was not completely satisfied in the end. Some children have to do things in a hurry... Through these teachers, they can quickly become familiar with children's personality traits and personality differences.
Telling part: This part is what children look forward to most, and the teacher can tell various stories. The content of the story is different in each grade. For example, the first grade is mainly fairy tales, the second grade is mainly saint legends and fables, and the third grade is the story in the whole book " Old Testament ".The fourth grade focuses on heroic legends... Waldorf believes that through these stories, the living pictures in the hearts of students can be awakened. These pictures can also undergo various forms of qualitative change as the child grows up.
Waldorf's non-time classes are very distinctive, mainly including sports, handicrafts, art, religion, and gardening. In addition, practice classes and tutoring classes. Waldford's educational philosophy believes that children's nature cannot be seen in the classroom, and only when exercising is possible: some children always want to run, while others are willing to stand beside and watch; some people know what to play immediately, while others don't know what to play at all, how to deal with classmates. It is not uncommon for individual students to suddenly quarrel, and it is not uncommon to anger and disturb others out of boredom.
Teacher from beginning to end
A feature of Waldorf School is that the time class teacher is brought from beginning to end. Since the time class teacher has to accompany the child for eight years from beginning to end, education means re-education, which is also a challenge to the teacher's knowledge system. On the one hand, Shijiduanke teachers should constantly expand their professional fields. Although they are not experts in a certain major such as physics, chemistry, plants, etc., for the needs of children's growth, they strive to become a "all-rounder", explore with children and improve together, so that children realize how important it is to expand various knowledge and find the inner connection between various disciplines. In this way, students will even unconsciously hope that the teacher will explore these mysteries with them.
Of course, the benefits of long-term companionship are also obvious:
On the one hand, it allows teachers to consider the overall situation and connect part of the content of a certain period with other periods. For example, in historical periods, talking about the lives and culture of Egyptians and Greeks, and at the same time, it can guide children to know other countries. For example, what you have learned in physics and chemistry classes can also be integrated into classroom topics in other subjects. From this we can see how valuable it is for children of this age to teach multiple different subjects by the same teacher.
On the other hand, through long-term companionship, the time class teacher can more comprehensively understand the unique nature and different temperaments of each child: multi-blood and mucus seldom talk about unfair things, on the contrary, depressive children are very sensitive to everything, will connect them with themselves and quickly get uneasy. Bile children oppose injustice, feel that it is everywhere and reacts strongly, completely ignoring whether they really understand the situation. Then, based on different temperaments, make objective judgments calmly and adopt targeted solutions.
At the same time, through long-term companionship, teachers can also go deep into the hearts of children of different ages to better understand their behavior. At the same time, teachers will also combine various situations and specific feelings that they encounter at the corresponding age to let themselves return to childhood. It is like awakening the power of their own childhood and can find a new way to understand children's souls. In this way, he can treat everyone's personality foresight and combine unusual feelings such as respect, awe and gratitude.
In addition to telling Waldorf's unique teaching philosophy and curriculum settings, some tips in detail are also very creative and worth learning from. For example:
At the end of each school year, the school will hold corresponding ceremonies to make children realize the "sense of gradient". The teacher recognizes each student in the past year through handwritten transcripts, and also has more expectations for the next school year. This expectation and sense of ritual will make students have strong psychological hints and strengthen their awareness.
In arithmetic teaching, first perform the calculation of "combination": 6+3+2+1=?, and then perform the calculation of "segment": 12=4+3+2+....? The former is equivalent to the comprehensive method , and the latter is equivalent to the analysis method. The former is positive thinking, while the latter is reverse thinking. The former is the harvest, the latter is the effort. The comprehensive application of the two methods can greatly expand children's innovative thinking.
During the teaching process, you should be sensitive to the child's emotions, premonition the child's inner adaptability and acceptance, avoid cramming teaching, and often ask yourself: Does a lasting interest in learning play a greater role in your child's life than mastering specific knowledge?
For a child's stationery is lost or often mocked by his classmates, he cannot simply preach. And you need to experience the scenes and situations of the event with your children, and be completely immersive. First, empathize with , then analyze and find the answers together. "Only with a solid emotional experience can a stable and reliable social interaction ability be formed", give children affirmation and make them feel at ease.
For children, they have image consciousness rather than thinking consciousness. Therefore, in the first few years, children were accustomed to absorbing the whole world in a reasonable way. Therefore, when telling stories to children, they should try to be both emotional and emotional, so that they are infectious. This allows children to shape their own image in their hearts while listening to fairy tales. In this way, their imagination will become very active and creative.
Maybe our children did not attend Waldorf School, but this does not prevent us from learning from Waldorf’s philosophy. This philosophy is to penetrate into all teaching activities through respect, awe and gratitude - to work together with all artistic methods and cognitive means. In the words of founder R. Steiner, it is:
Let science be constantly full of vitality
Let art be constantly full of vitality
Let religion be constantly full of vitality
After all, this is education
After all, this is teaching.
