This blog provides a place for parents and teacher to share articles, insights, and information for the Butterfly Nursery Class at the Whidbey Island Waldorf School.
Please remember that you are invited to a talk and discussion on the power and perils of praise--with insights gleamed from Virginia Woolf--this coming Tuesday from 6 to 7pm. From 7 to 8pm parents will discuss forming a support group or groups.
Intrinsic Motivation, Brain Research, and Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas
Butterfly Classroom
Whidbey Island Waldorf School
Tuesday, March 1, 6 - 7pm
(from 7-8pm there will be a discussion about forming a parent support group or groups)
"All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority, belong to the private-school stage of human existence where there are 'sides,' and it is necessary for one side to beat another side, and of the utmost importance to walk up to a platform and receive from the hands of the Headmaster himself a highly ornamental pot."
— Virginia Woolf (A Room of One's Own)
Articles on the research of Carol Dweck on the inverse power of praise have resonated with parents in parent & child classes on Whidbey Island and in Baltimore. Motivated parents have shared the article with friends and relatives. Several parents have requested a talk on tricky subject of praise, what to say instead if--following Kim Payne--we want to avoid spewing "Good Job!" all over the place, and what might be exceptions. In this lecture and discussion, William Dolde will review Dweck's research and try to offer insights into how to enable the research to help us rather than paralyze us. He will also weave in Virginia Woolf's wisdom from her 1938 non-fiction work Three Guineas (with some reference to the earlier A Room fo One's One) to explore some of the reasons why our culture tends to be asleep to common phrases of judgment such as "Good Job!" or "Is he a good baby?"
Various parents have expressed a wish to start a parenting support group, and from 7 to 8pm we will have a discussion of what forms this could take--from meeting at a coffee shop during school to meeting with a teacher at night. Parents should also feel free to bring any questions about children and parents to this second hour, and we will use our collective wisdom to try to provide paths toward finding answers. This second conversation need not revolve around praise and its alternatives.
To prepare for the first hour, you may wish to read the following two articles:
"How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The Inverse Power of Praise," by Po Bronson
Mia Michael, a kindergarten teacher I worked with and learned a great deal from when I was a Waldorf kindergarten teacher in Monterey a decade ago, shared the above article with me--a gift she had wanted to share with me after not seeing me for many years. It resonated a great deal with me, and I wanted to share it with you. While we do not per se relate classic mythic stories in the nursery or parent & child class (an image of the nursery I received when I first came to Waldorf education in the 90s was that the nursery teacher is like a sturdy farmer or woodcutter or cobbler or blacksmith, welcoming these young and heavenly children to the earth with tangible work done with warmth and love. It is then the kindergarten and grades teachers in a Waldorf school who use stories to remind children of the spiritual world above and beyond and before and after and through and in the manifest world of rain pants and snow days, lunch baskets and pencil sharpeners), I share it for those interested in thinking how the curriculum over the years in a Waldorf School will meet our children at different developmental stages. The article also helps me to think about the stories that resonate with and within me at this point in my life's journey.
It might be a great article to read before you attend the talk on adolescence and the middle school curriculum on Wednesday, February 16, at 6:30pm.
On Friday, March 11, Grandparents and other Venerable Friends of our students are invited to our school. While we have no official early childhood classes on that day, we teachers work together to share a variety of experiences with grandparents and their grandchildren. Even though there is no school, if a grandparent is coming, our early childhood children are invited along to share an experience. Our method of sharing changes year to year, but you can plan on something like the following:
At about 9am, grandparents and early childhood grandchildren will come to the Butterfly, Sunflower, and possibly Golden Forest room to engage in activities such as baking bread, finger knitting, touring the rooms, hearing songs we might sing, watching a puppet show or hearing a story, sharing a snack, and more. Not all activities are offered every year.
At about 10am (some years earlier, some years later), parents pick up their children. Grandparents stay for refreshments and brief discussion, are transported to Thomas Berry Hall, watch an grade school assembly, and then enjoy a brunch, lecture, and discussion at Thomas Berry Hall.
We will flesh out and publish details soon. Know for now that grandparents and venerable friends of EC students are cordially invited, even if your child does not have school on Fridays--and remember, no EC students, have school as usual on Friday, March 11.
With warmth and light,
William Geoffrey Dolde, writing for the Early Childhood Faculty
While a healthy and reasonable amount of conflict occurs in our nursery class, neither strong media images (a child insisting on being Batman or the Little Mermaid and refusing to allow others to alter the plot) or extensive gun play play a large part in the imaginative life of our nursery class. That being said, a parent in a conference asked for my thoughts about how to respond at home when a child plays pretend shooting games. What follows are some words I wrote a couple of years ago when I had children who seemed more predisposed to want to create shooting games in my class. There is also a link to an article in Mothering Magazine.
The article can help us as parents frame and clarify our responses to our child's play. I have many things I like about the article. I also find its evidence inconsistent, and it seems to promote a lot more talking and explaining than is necessarily good for children before the age of 7. Without writing a full critique, here is a list of some of my thoughts.
1. One can make all sorts of rules about gun play, but so much talking is also paralyzing and awakening for the young child. What my evaluator Annie Gross said when I asked her what to advise if a child seems stuck in gun play is that what young children really need is to be in the presence of lawful, physical work (and the chance to help themselves): digging in a big area (not just a small sandbox), watching real bonfires at home, splitting wood, pruning, cutting, moving heavy things, spinning wool, ironing, cooking, and more.
2. It is our job as parents and teachers to help a child who is stuck in play, whether it is gun play or always wanting to be the Little Mermaid.
3. Television and video game depictions of guns have no place in a child's life before the age of 12 or so (right after the age at which Eugene Schwartz recommends introducing the Harry Potter books). In a Waldorf curriculum, a child will have experienced the lawful hunters of Native American tales, the vigor of Hebrew tales, the violence and trickery of Norse and Celtic tales, the archetypes of conflict, death, and resurrection in tales of Greece and India. Then a child is more prepared to respond in a healthy way should these media images appear.
4. Narrative versions of the lawful hunter, whether with gun or bow and arrow, can be very appropriate for the 6 or 7 year older child. The Grimm's story of the 4 Skillful Brothers or How Six Men Got on the World come to mind; tales from Native American traditions in second grade also come to mind.
5. Traditional childhood games of cops and robbers and the like work best after the child reaches Piaget's stage of "Games with Rules" at about age 7 or so (this is often also the time when it is best to introduce board and card games; open-ended imaginative play should rule the day before this). A lot of learning takes place at a home play date when a group of children decide how many times you have to be shot to be dead, how you come back to life, what are rules for determining if you are hit or not, and the like. This tends to require too much talking and planning for children before the age of 7.
6. To just forbid gun play outright before age 7 can tend to make children sneaky.
7. In order to promote social inclusion, once children are really ready for gun play, it is best that these games happen at home so that other children are not inadvertently drawn into or "put-down" by being shot in a game they are not playing. Recess has too many children and too few adults for gun games to have a healthy effect at school.
8. If a child pretends to shoot another child or adult who is not playing with that child, we as adults must respond just as we must respond if a child insults or teases another child. The way to respond will not always be clear. Sometimes the response needs to be quite strong.
9. Wrestling with other children and with parents is healthy and helps develop a child's senses of balance and touch. It is a shame if gun play interferes with this process. Kim Payne often prescribes wrestling with mom or dad for children; if your child seems stuck, I recommend giving this prescription yourself.
10. With older children at home, it is a shame if gun play and technology deprive children of chances to tackle, wrestle, climb, jump and do other daring things that help them meet each other and the world with force. Children seek rites of passage and genuine encounters. While one could argue that tackle football with helmets and pads is dangerous (I played football and learned to use my helmet and pads offensively; studies are showing long term damage to professional football players from hard impacts), the too often outlawed childhood game of tackle football without pads--or ideally, the chaotic game of tackling the child or parent with the ball who then tosses it up for the next brave soul to catch--more like rugby, allows a genuine, forceful encounter, and allows for bonding through physical touch.
11. It is quite conceivable that a father or mother would use hunting as lawful, meaning work and may include a young child in this work. One could argue that in an area with, say, a surplus deer population, hunting and eating venison is a way to feed a family without making a large impact on the environment. My point here is not to open a debate about farming practices, hunting, and the like, but to help us frame a way of inquiry. The soldier is a worthy and lawful archetype, one the child will meet in first grade fairy tales and the tales from Norse, Celtic, Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and World histories in ages to come and is one that can live in us even if we choose a path of nonviolence following Gandhi or the like.
12. To force a child to be peaceful does not create peace.
This posting is to highlight some upcoming events at our school and for our nursery families.
February 14, Valentine's Day -- We do not expect nursery children to make Valentine's cards for their classmates. If a child feels inspired to make gifts for her or his classmates, that is great. Please make sure there is something for every child in the class (we may grow to 12 children again) and that gifts are homemade. Again, this is only if your child really wants to (e.g., because she sees older siblings preparing cards).
Wednesday, February 16 -- talk on adolescence and the Waldorf Middle School Curriculum and a Middle School Open House, 6:30-8pm. We have a goal to share more information about middle school to our early childhood families. I encourage you to think of this talk as an early childhood meeting and attend; it can be wonderful to see where our curriculum is headed.
February 21-23 -- No nursery class. School closed.
Tuesday, March 1, 6-8pm. Parent evening for nursery and parent & child families and interested community members. The first hour will be a lecture on power and perils of praise and effective alternatives. The second hour comes from a parent request to see what it would be like to create a parent support group and what that could be like; we can have a discussion right there, and some parents might go on to create a regularly meeting group to share parenting concerns and joys. I will post more details of the lecture and discussion soon.
Friday, March 25, 9-10:30am. Nursery and Parent & Child Spring Festival. We will gather for a snack, see a puppet show, and then take a walk to meet Mother Earth. Father Sun, Sister Rain, and Brother Wind. I will post more details as the date approaches.
Saturday, March 26. WIWS auction. Some parents who have been at our school many years tell me they wish they had known how much fun the auction was when they first started. I encourage you to attend; you will received frequent updates in our school's weekly newsletter.
