Mittens update, conference letter, article

Dear Families,

We have been using blue stretch mittens for all the children at outside time. Children put on a pair after they have first put on their outside clothes. They may take them off for picking berries. Now that they have used them for a few days, I observe that most children seem content with the mittens; they are light enough that they allow the children to feel their hands enough to, say, use a shovel in the sandbox. When we gather at the ropes course shelter for our snack, children take off their mittens. Kim and I give new pairs of mittens after snack to replace wet mittens. I collect the mittens again right before we gather for the closing circle.

Since the blue mittens seem to work for all the children in the class, I recommend taking other mittens and gloves home, or to have some ready in your car. One of my goals is to avoid having your mittens get lost at school.

Even though I purchased a lot of mittens, it will be important to keep track of them (another way to say this is because I purchased a lot of mittens I have to be extra vigilant or else I may lose them all). Their effectiveness is that they are easy to put on, allow children to retain a sense of touch and dexterity, AND can be replaced when they become wet and hands become cold. If blue mittens come home with your child, please return them. Kim washed particularly sandy mittens with children in the classroom today. It was a harmonious and healthy activity that delighted many children. Because there will sometimes be a wet set of mittens drying on the rack, we need multiple changes for the children, and I expect and hope our class to grow in size to twelve or close to twelve as we proceed in the year. Thank you for your help in keeping track of the mittens.

Children thrive when given the opportunity to participate in meaningful, tangible work--or to play in the presence of such work. Kim and I have been getting the children outside particularly early so that we can move sand from the big pile to the oven shelter for 45 minutes to an hour before taking our walk to our various places in the woods. Today I gave a number of children "sand" rides in the wheelbarrow.

I have filed printed copies and sent electronic copies of a conference preparation letter to families who have signed up by Tuesday. Here is a copy of the letter even if you choose to wait until spring or another time for a conference. Whenever you do come for a conference, it is most helpful if you provide me answers to the question in advance.

Whether you come to a conference next week or not, I encourage you to read this "Open Letter to a Mother of a 'Stuttering' Child." This is an old article. It may not even reflect current research by speech experts. It was given to me by a professor at the University of Maryland when I was training to become a public school nursery or kindergarten teacher; she found it to be one of the most helpful articles she had ever read about the importance of allowing children time to develop before fixing them with a label. As you will read in the article, the author and other researchers found that the most potent cause of stuttering was the diagnosis of stuttering. All children stumble over words and repeat from time to time; it was only once a parent or teacher regarded this normal disfluency as a problem that speech became more difficult.

I find many analogies with my work with children birth to 5. Children do not begin as miniature models of perfect adults (if there were such a thing) but develop in their own way and in their own pace. Some children may learn to ride a bike at 3, others much later. Some will be ready to solve conflicts with the words of Nelson Mandela or Gandhi from toddlerhood; most will use less beautiful forms of physical or verbal force as they learn how to be an individual in a group. Some children will pronounce all consonants at an early age. For some children, it is still normal for some consonants, especially blends, to wait until age 6 or beyond.

I am not advocating we ignore all medical professionals or other experts. There will be children for whom an early intervention provides tremendous benefits. For most children, even children with profound special needs, what we offer in Waldorf early childhood education and home life--real, meaningful work done artistically by a present adult in a nourishing enviroment that invites imitation and free movement and inspires the imagination, all within a strong rhythm that provides structure and predictabilty, while providing a life free from the over/understimulation of media, overscheduling, judgment, and rushing--already provides developmental help for all children.

Over the years, I find at conference times I spend less time comparing a child to the norms for an age and more time describing objectively what I see the child doing and hear the child saying. As I grow more experienced, I even wonder about my ability to report on a specific child's experience. As Susan Weber told me, we as teachers (and parents) have to be very careful about assuming we know how a child experience's things. A child might watch me move a pile of sand without ever coming to the pile. I might report to the parents about how the child watched intently and did not move. The child might report to the parents that she worked very hard and filled the wheelbarrow over and over and made many trips with the sand. Young children can live very much in a "we" consciousness. The child's report is more accurate than my observation; that was the experience for the child (and the reason why as teachers and parents we do children a great service when we bring intention and beauty to every physical act we do). In twenty years, parents and I might sit in silence at conference time, allowing the enormity of the miracle of child development and imitation to encompass us. In the mean time, I will do my best to keep communication open between home and school.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

Conference Sign-up in lobby, Advent

Dear Families,

      To make matters clearer for families with more than one child in the school, the early childhood conference sign-up sheet is upstairs in the lobby.  This enables parents to coordinate multiple conferences.  It is also different from the form in past years and may have caused some confusion.  I apologize if it has done so.

      You are welcome to sign up for a half hour conference for next Tuesday and Wednesday.  You are welcome to wait until the April conferences.  You are welcome to try to set up a conference for some other time.  Do know that beginning after Thanksgiving I will be working with kindergarten and first grade children in after care every day (the early childhood faculty is supporting the school's budget by taking on extra responsibilities) and may have very limited availability for additional meetings during those those months.

      If you choose to have a conference next week, teachers ask that you sign up by Tuesday afternoon.  We have a conference preparation form we want to give you on Wednesday to be returned to us by Friday.

     We have a meeting with the kindergarten families this Tuesday from 5 to 8pm in Thomas Berry Hall at the Whidbey Institute.  Please ask if you need directions (continue down Old Pietila road rather than turning left for the school).  If you need assistance with child care, please let me or Belinda know; it is possible a kindergarten family in your neighborhood could help out, and I will have the kindergarten class coordinators check.

     Beginning with the Lantern Walk, many of the Autumn and Winter festivals of light provide great nourishment to children and their families during the darkness of winter.  In Waldorf schools, Advent is presented as a time of preparation and waiting for light in the darkness.  Many stories, poems, and display depict the four weeks of Advent in this way:  first the stones and crystals are aware; next the plants; third the animals; finally the people become aware of the coming of the light.  In my effort to convey the essence of festival life with simplicity to young children, I find the actual lighting of the candles and the singing of "Advent, advent, a candle burns" (some of your children will probably sing this to you) with a simple poem about stones, plants, animals, or people to convey the story of light in darkness.  To keep with my goal of allowing time for everything and avoiding all sense of rush, I like to start my advent "wreathe" (no greenery yet) with sea shells four weeks before the winter break.  This year this means this week.  Even as your children and I string cranberries to decorate for Thanksgiving and watch a puppet show about sharing a pumpkin, we will start lighting an Advent candle and singing an Advent song at snack time (in a similar way, I light a Menorah for the last 8 nursery school days before the winter break to give the full of experience of candles building school day by school day).  I realize that my early celebration of Advent could make me seem guilty of joining the rush of marketers trying to extend the Christmas shopping season, but my intention is different and therefore, I hope, forgivable.  Children seem to enjoy the time I allow for ample repetition.

With warmth and light,

William Dolde

Butterfly Nursery and Children's Garden November newsletter

printed copies in folders at school Monday, November 3

Upcoming Events and Closings

Please contact me if you have any questions. wdolde@gmail.com; 341-5686.

Lantern Walk, Friday, November 7, 5:30pm. Please refer to the email Kim Dunkley sent; printed copies of details about the lantern walk, along with the music to "Glimmer, Lantern, Glimmer" are in your folders at school. We will strive to sing this lantern song at the 12:25 closing each day to help parents learn the song. Children and I have been working on lanterns together in class. It is inherent to the cooperative mood of our nursery class that we all make lanterns that anyone can use. Each nursery child will take home a lantern that we all had a hand in oiling.

Veteran's Day, Tuesday, November 11. No School.

Parent Evening with the Kindergarten Families, Tuesday, November 18, 5 to 8pm. Thomas Berry Hall at the Whidbey Institute. Michael Hansen will be working with us to craft a social vessel that supports our children. We will be accepting donations to cover the cost of the venue.

Thanksgiving Week, teacher in-service, parent & teacher conferences, November 24 - 28. No School. I will make conference sign-up times available soon. Early childhood families are asked to attend either a fall or a spring conference with me. You are welcome to attend both. Please let me know if you want to have a conference before Thanksgiving week. I can sometimes make space for a conference on a Monday or Tuesday early afternoon.

Children's Holiday Workshop, Saturday, December 6.

Advent Spiral, Evening, Friday, December 12.

OTHER IMPORTANT DETAILS

Mittens accomplished, perhaps. I did find a reasonable price on a host of stretch mittens--all the same color--from a skating shop. They have not arrived yet, but I expect them soon. Because the 90 - 100 minute outside time seems so nourishing for our nursery children, and because this outside time includes a snack (at which we take off our mittens), finding something easy to put on and off seems all the more important. This is an experiment, so I am not sure if it will work. At present, don't worry about seeking other school mittens yourself.

Checking cubby supplies and taking things home. The transition from inside to outside can be the most challenging one for a nursery class. Over the years I have really tried to alter the mood of this transition--we draw children outside with the possibility of playing in the sand or swings rather than forcing all children to sit inside while waiting for every child to be ready (my experience and observation is that this punishes cooperative children who get dressed quickly and then have to sit inside and sweat in their rain clothes while waiting for others). It helps this transition if Kim and the children can find the right supplies easily. Please check your child's cubby and take home treasures, extra pairs of gloves (once mittens arrive), artwork, and the like. This will help with the transition.

Mailboxes for children inside the classroom. Please check the painting paper mailboxes just inside the classroom door. Much of my work with children birth to 5 is to draw out the generosity and interest in cooperation that is already present at birth (following the wisdom of Waldorf master teachers Rena Osmer, Susan Weber and the wisdom of Emmi Pikler and Magda Gerber). I have found over the years that if I create the form (for example, mailboxes; trips to give soup to the receptionist) that makes it easier for children to give to one another and adults, the children are more likely to realize the intrinsic reward of giving. There may be weeks or month when children do not draw or make things for each other. There may be times when many children do. Both are fine. Some children may want to collect treasures or make things for classmates at home; some children won't. This culture of interest in the other makes discipline much more effective. If children are already in the habit of giving to one another, they are more likely to be willing to make amends and help restore things if they have taken a toy, pushed or hit a child, or used judgmental words with a peer. Restoration rather than punishment tends to be much more effective in bringing about a safe and inclusive classroom.

My paper mailboxes are but temporary solution. If you see something at a thrift store or feel inspired to build wooden mail cubbies for inside the classroom, please let me know. Ideally, these would have space for twelve mailboxes.

Mentoring and Evaluation While the feedback I receive from most parents seems to indicate that they are pleased with their child's experience in the nursery class, do also know that as a new teacher to this school I will be undergoing a formal evaluation this Friday and next Monday. A lot of my practices in the classroom have developed through years of observing children, reading works about Waldorf education and child development, and from meditating upon and trying what work best for the particular children in my care. I always benefit from outside insight, which I will receive a healthy dose of this weekend.

Kim Dunkley of the Golden Forest Kindergarten is my mentor. While we encourage parents to speak to teachers directly, with a teacher new to the school such as myself you do have the option of speaking to Kim if you feel you cannot speak to me or if you are not satisfied by my response.

Bulletin Board and Blog

Some parents have let me know they find the blog helpful. Although some of the pdfs may be challenging to read on some computer screens, I like that I am conserving paper and that the articles are in a place easy for you to find should you want to refer to them in the future. In my first year at the Waldorf School of Baltimore, I received some feedback that I gave parents too much to read and a wish from other parents that I would give even more. I will try to provide a balanced amount of articles with the expectation that some parents will seek more and some won't read many at all. In my parent & child classes, I try to provide a new article every week. Often these articles may be of interest to you, too. Rather than cluttering your inbox with more emails, I invite you to check out the parent & child blog from time to time (an easy way to get there is to go to my profile on our nursery blog). When possible, I will post a printed copy of short articles I write or find on the bulletin board for you to read when you have time. When possible, I will provide a printed copy of pdf articles on the window ledge outside the classroom. A copy of a conversation from Difficult Children -- There is No Such Thing is there now.

Another conversation from Difficult Children -- There is No Such Thing

At our initial parent evening, I spoke of two conversations from this book. One, a conversation about Robert, I made available about a month ago. Here, now, is a conversation about a 7 year old named Miriam. (On some computers, the pdf can be hard to read on the screen. If you print it out, the text should be clearer. Again, there is a printed copy outside the classroom to read.) While this child is older and the parent's interactions are different than they would be with a nursery child, I find the principles very helpful, and they help clarify some of the practices I use in the classroom. A lot of what I do, for example, is to help children learn that obligation is not necessarily odious--that what the child wants to do and should do are not necessarily in conflict. Even as our school as a whole works on standards of behavior and discipline, it is important to keep in mind what the author/therapist tells us about the inherent coldness of commands and the antipathy they necessarily summon forth in our children. Parenting and teaching is challenging work: indeed, the challenge is the benefit for us. At the same time we need to be loving authorities, that we need to set limits and establish boundaries, we have to be willing to go the extra step of guiding our children with warmth and imagination and clarity. I encourage you to read this pdf and share it with parents in other classes if you think they would be interested. You could feel free to take the printed copy outside the classroom and ask Rebecca to make a copy, or check the book out yourself from the library.

As I have said before, these conversations between therapist and parent are moments of transparency in an otherwise incredible and dense and sometimes hard to read book. If anybody would like to start a reading group to study this book, please let me know and I would be willing to find time to participate. Henning Koehler's book Working with Anxious, Nervous, and Depressed Children seems easier to read, and I recommend it as well (copies in the Kathrine Dickerson library). This book provides lengthy descriptions of how to nourish the sense of touch, life (well-being), self-movement (proprioception), and balance (vestibular system) in all children, anxious or not.

Circle and the Power of Imitation

Circle time--a time when children sing or move or gesture together with the teacher--can be a time for misbehavior in the nursery class. When Bonnie Freundlich visits for eurythmy every morning (we will be invited to a parent evening about eurythmy in January), children tend to attend very well. I expect every child to be able to watch or follow along. I am prepared--as has had to happen in past years but has not been necessary this year--to have Kim remove a child from the classroom if the child is too disruptive or to create a safe space for a child to watch from a distance if the presence of another teacher in the classroom is too overwhelming. The children seem quite comfortable with Bonnie and thrilled with what she offers. They repeat Bonnie's rhymes about the cobbler later in the morning or the next day.

One of the strengths of Waldorf Early Childhood education is that we provide form in a healthy way. While other schools are imposing more and more academic form and homework in the early years (with very mixed results; see www.allianceforchildhood.org for information on work and play), form in a Waldorf School comes from the careful attention of the adults to the rhythms of the day, week, and year. In light of this, I made a very conscious decision a few years ago to offer a circle of traditional singing games ("Fiddle me up to London Town," "Jim Along Josie," and "Grand Old Duke of York" among others) outside without compelling any child to join me. The games would emerge in the right spot while children were playing, and children would come freely out of imitation and interest. While this has worked more or less over the years, I am struck by the profound enthusiasm many of our Butterfly children show for this outdoor circle time. At the beginning of the year, most children came; when they learned they did not have to come, many children played elsewhere; now, many children come running the moment I start singing, "We feed the chickens every day, singing as we go." I would have expected to have to augment the circle with new songs (which I have ready), but the children seem so nourished by and enthusiastic for the repetition. Obedience does not necessarily have to be for an adult. In this case, I think the children and I are being obedient to higher wisdoms such as the wisdom of generations that created these archetypal singing games.

As our school looks at behavior school wide, I have heard comments that some parents are concerned that because early childhood teachers allow children to sit out, this habit persists into the grades. In our parent evenings, I feel from all of you that we are in agreement that the nursery class is a very different place from first grade or fourth grade or 7th grade. Many parents like Waldorf education because it continues to recognize that children have different needs at different developmental stages. By working out of imitation and obedience to higher forms with the nursery children, my goal is to cultivate children who love to participate in circle and music in the grades because it is inherently joyful to do so; they wouldn't even think of misbehaving in a first grade circle because they can sense the gift they will get from singing and moving together. While I would support another nursery teacher who chooses to have a different place and expectations for circle, my hope is that you will support me if you hear a parent bemoaning the lack of discipline and using the example, "The nursery teacher doesn't even force the children to come to circle." People are welcome to their own opinion, of course, but please refer that parent to the blog and possibly a meeting with me so we can share where our opinions are coming from.

Dragons, Parades, Teacher's Imagination, Needs of All the Children

In my last entry, I wrote of examples where children resolved conflicts themselves. I think it fair to ask what I might do to help children when they seem stuck in play that is becoming loud or aggressive. Since Michaelmas, more than a handful of children have pretended to be dragons at one point or the other. As long as the dragons have not been aggressive toward others, Kim and I have allowed this play as a healthy and necessary way to process the Michaelmas pageant (again, one could ask whether it is appropriate for nursery children to attend the Michaelmas pageant; in some schools they do not, and I will ask myself, my colleagues, and the Parent Council this question next year). Often this play transforms itself into other games organically; dragons become dogs who have owners who seek food and rides to farms and pumpkin patches and ferries. One day five children were having a grand time pretending to be dragons breathing fire, dancing about, being loud, not really aiming their fire at anything in particular. All the same, I could see a couple of children feeling hesitant about going into that part of the room because of the vigor of the dragons. I began taking big hollow blocks and tying ropes to them and said, to no one in particular, "Dragons are often part of parades like Chinese New Year's parades, and I have also seen parades in which mountain dogs pull sleds through the town." I continued tying up sleds and began singing a New Year song and then a Kwanzaa song ("Harambee") with no expectation or requirement that anything would happen. Several children began pulling the sleds, another two children began building a fire truck for the parade, the children who had been standing back went into that part of the room and began building a house, and an occasional dragon came forth in the parade. While this approach does not always work (and indeed, we might need to redirect a child to helping with a chore or sit a child down if the child needs to collect her or himself before playing some more), situations like this happen all the time. It is not easy, but I practice and hopefully get better at redirecting play and behavior with warmth and imagination. I feel I am working toward the goals set forth in the conversation from Difficult Children - There is no Such Thing.

While I feel heartened by the cooperative and imaginative play of our nursery children and their willingness to make amends when amends need to be made, I know that as a school we are looking to clarify what we do about discipline. In your folders today, Monday, is a letter from the Children's Garden teachers about discipline. There is also an annotated version of an article about "Loving Authority".

Thank you for reading all of this. Thank you for keeping the channels of communication open.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

Birthday Monday and Fire Fighter Boots

Dear Families,

      On Monday, October 20, we will be celebrating a birthday.  Although the activities of the morning will be different from recent Mondays (no painting, no early morning puppet show), the children's joy of sharing the ginger muffins the birthday girl and I will be preparing should more than compensate for the shift in rhythm that comes with festivals and special celebrations.

At the beginning of last Wednesday morning, one parent set up a child's boots and rain pants much like a fire fighter's:  the rain pants were already placed over the boots (pants on the outside) and bunched down toward the ground.  The child merrily took off slippers, slipped feet into the boots and pulled up the rain pants.  It was satisfying for the child and helped the mood during the potentially difficult transition from inside to outside.  I want to express my thanks to that family for sharing this idea with us.  I encourage other families to try this technique as well.  This may not work in a situation where cubbies are so close to one another (the kindergartens of next year, perhaps), but we are blessed with pretty ample cubby space for the Butterfly nursery.

I would also like feedback from parents about what kind of gloves or mittens have worked well with their young children in this climate.  My experience in Baltimore was that mittens or gloves that were easier to put on tended to be ineffective against rainy cold.  Most of the waterproof gloves or mittens for young children tended to be a challenge to put on and keep on.  If you have a brand or idea that works for your family, please share it with me so I can pass along the information.  I do have some thoughts of buying, say, 16 pairs of simple cloth mittens (the kind that look tiny but stretch out to cover the hands) in all the same color (so that unnecessary jealousy does not arise) that teachers can carry along during outside time.  Children could then alternate between wearing mittens; when hands get soaked in the rain, children could take off mittens for a while and then put on an dry pair.  I wanted to see if there were other helpful ideas before I make that move.

Thank you for your help and support of all the children in the class and me,

William Dolde

Visitors, cold, Pictures of play from the last week

Dear Families,

Our nursery children continue to work together to create elaborate play scenarios. They tend to receive the Tuesday Eurythmy circle (there will be a parent meeting later this year about Eurythmy) with reverence. Children request dances and circle games from me on in the clearing near the ropes course. A number of children are recreating the puppet show I present.  I spent Tuesday morning being driven around the classroom in a pretend bus, visiting various children at their play scenarios on farms, at beaches, in the mountains, at pretend kindergartens--all the while knitting woolen apples and pumpkins for the children to play with.

It became pretty apparent Wednesday that the weather has become much cooler. We will begin wearing mittens or gloves as a norm and take them off if the weather becomes milder (as it has this weekend). We will try to continue to have a snack outside during our walk; as it is colder, it will be best to bring vegetables, seeds. nuts, and the like. The juicy fruits of summer begin to feel pretty cold when we are snacking outside on a cool day. Kim also pointed out that fruits tend to get expensive on Whidbey Island in the winter while vegetables such as carrots and the like remain at a consistent price. While you should feel free to send a pear or apple if you still have a bumper crop at your house, plan on stopping fruit and sending vegetables with your child for these colder months--we always have room for them in the soup on Wednesday if we don't eat them all on our walk on Monday or Tuesday. We have a pretty good supply of pumpkin seeds and seasoned walnuts at school for our walks, and Kim and I will be making a little bit of extra bread to bring along on our walk on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Every child eats more than a little bit of rice and bread, and every child is at least eating some of the soup.

The children play for long periods cooperatively.  Some days, they all end up in pairs.  This is wonderful and healthy--and teachers need to be aware that another child is not feeling excluded from a pair.  To help build in a habit of welcoming children into our play and work, I have begun inviting other children to visit our class occasionally to play.  This also helps model courtesy for our children; I sit at the drawing table, write an invitation, and ask for our children to deliver the mail.  A cousin of one of our children had a wonderful time in our room, and our nursery children liked having a visitor.  We will be inviting other children and adults:  a nursery teacher from the Seattle Waldorf School will be observing our class on Monday; my evaluator will visit our class on a Monday in November.   I will work with the kindergarten teachers to determine which children might like to visit us; it will not be healthy for any of us if a visiting older child feels punished to be with younger children or acts in such a grandiose way that her or his behavior causes friction amongst the nursery children.

As a school, we will be focussing on drawing forth courtesy and etiquette from our children; adults will also strive to be polite to one another.  One way I try to build this in the nursery is by having our children take turns delivering rice, bread, and soup to Rebecca at the reception desk or Administration upstairs.  The adults seem genuinely thankful to receive the snack, and this provides its own intrinsic reward for our children in the joy of giving.

As we look at behavior and etiquette school wide, I have been perusing the Parent Student Handbook, and it seems a reminder about the school's dress code is in order.  It is my understanding that children are to come to school with clothes free from distractions, including writing.  As a parent, I know it can be hard to sort out clothes for school days and non school days.  As a parent, I also know that it is possible.  As our school as a whole tries to create a culture of respect and inclusion, it will be helpful if we adults do our best to follow already agreed upon rules.  I encourage you to reread the Handbook.  Even if we see an adult from another class not necessarily following the rules, it will be wonderful if our nursery group can provide an example of unity for the years going forward.

Here are three descriptions of play scenarios and interactions amongst the children in the past weeks with an emphasis on ones in which the children transformed their interactions in ways I would not have predicted. As with the form of this blog, I will describe the activity of all the children in our class without using names. Sometimes the same "role" in the scenarios below can be filled by different children on different days.

1. Two older boys build a house and a puppet theater and bakery behind the snack table. They use many to all of the toys in that corner of the room. They journey off to another part of the room, where they play with other children. While they are away (for a good ten minutes) a younger boy and girl come to the structure they have built, climb onto it, and pretend that it is a bus. A few minutes later, I observe the two older boys returning, saying, "Let's return to our house!" Without saying anything, I follow, ready to help, thinking it would be quite normal for the two boys to feel that their house had been invaded with a desire to cast forth the younger children (just as it would be quite normal for the younger children to be pleased to find something that seems to make a bus so readily). The older boys come up and hear the younger boy welcome them to his bus. The older boys now ask for a ride on their bus to their home. They climb on, pretend to get a ride, and proceed to build a house in another part of the room.

2. When we come to a clearing on the upper loop (we call it the "big rock" because there is a big rock there), two girls rush for a bent-down tree. If you stand in a certain place in this tree, you can grab another tree and bounce up and down. For a few weeks, a number of children had discovered this game and played--sometimes in a group. Last week it seemed just these two girls wanted to be in exactly the same spot. They started sprinting as we got to the clearing. One girl gets onto the bouncing spot. The other cries and demands the space. The first girl says she can have it tomorrow. Matters are tense for a while. In previous weeks, Kim and I had tried to offer solutions, which only seemed to make the girls hold their ground all the more. The two girls negotiate for a while. Then they both leave the tree and play in other parts of the clearing with other children. The tree remains open. At times, one or the other girl climbs on the tree, bounces without great enthusiasm, and looks for someone else to play with.

The next day, the girls again sprint to the clearing. The same girl gets to the tree first. The same sort of negotiation begins. This time, the second girl remembers, "You said tomorrow I could be first." "I meant tomorrow tomorrow" says the first. Again, things are tense, without much apparent room. Then the first girl gets off. The second girl gets on to bounce, tries a few times, and goes to find other children to play with.

Children are often more concerned with process than with product. Joseph Chilton Pearce encourages parents to allow elementary children to create their own sports and games rather than always putting a coach in charge. According to Pearce, the creating and arguing over rules is where the value comes for these older children. I wonder, similarly, if the value for these two girls lay in the negotiation and relationship--as tense as it sometimes seemed. Once that ended, the young child's insatiable thirst for learning brought these girls to new situations from which they could learn.

3.  Four children are playing near the couch; four children are playing toward the door with a rocking boat.  The children near the door have gone on journeys as horses and dragons and cats.  Children have figured out how to have pretend leashes for dogs as well, and animals and people are gathering for a breakfast after a pretend sleep.  The children near the couch had set up a puppet show and picnic and farm.  One child near the couch says, "And now it is time for our picnic."  A child from near the door says, "We need all these things!" indicating the enamelware cups and plates--this even though the children near the couch did not seem to be asking for them.  The child repeats, "We need all these things!" several times.  I am ready to help.  I have observed when children tend to protest loudly to defend themselves, this so interests other children that a conflict might start.  In this case, however, the children near the couch, when spreading out silks for a picnic, have realized what a good puppet show scene it would make and are now seeking puppets.  The child who had been holding the cups and plates places them down on the table.

With warmth and light,

William Dolde

September & October Newsletter

Printed copies are available, Monday, October 6, along with an article by Dr. Susan Johnson, "The Importance of Sleep."

Recap of Parent Meeting from Sunday, October 5

We had a helpful discussion about Kim John Payne, Emmi Pikler, and conflict.  At home and school, we gave examples and talked about how we might support our children.  I think I said then and want to say again--as parents and teachers we are going to be confronted with situations for which a response is not always obvious and just have to be willing to blunder and accept our mistakes.  As one parent said, giving ourselves the permission to try again can really help.  This also lets our children see that mistakes are OK and that we can try things again to make things right.

       We looked at a few pages about the Shame, Blame, and Put-down diet written by Kim Payne and talked about how to translate this work for young children.  With older children, a teacher or parent would notice the teasing behavior--"It makes things worse when you roll your eyes"--attempt to discover what the core issue is--"What is bothering you?"--and ask the child to do it over--"Let's find away to respond without rolling your eyes."  While this can be helpful with older children (research finds that parents and teachers observe only 2 out of 10 acts of teasing or put-downs so it is essential to intervene when we do notice), we as parents of young children agreed that this amount of noticing and talking might make potentially negative behavior (eye-rolling, name-calling, sticking a tongue out at another child) more potent and more frequent just by our calling attention to it.   When we use statements that say what not to do ("Don't stick out your tongue.  Don't hit.  Don't call her dummy.") with young children, they sometimes to often hear and/or think "Stick out your tongue.  Hit.  Call her dummy."  Similarly, with our young children, attempting to discover what's wrong with a question, "What's the matter?" often receives a blank stare or "I don't know."  

        We worked together to notice how as parents or teachers we would combine the three steps--notice, discover, do-over--into one, sometimes with, sometimes without words.  We can emphasize the do-over.  The "Let's try this again" can be extremely helpful for young children in a group situation.  Sometimes we can use imagination to help:  two children are excluding a third because there really is not enough room in the tower, so the teacher starts planting a garden around the tower and asks for help finding seeds to plant.  Sometimes our physical presence is enough.  Sometimes we can state, "This is a challenge" while stating or silently recognizing the benefits of trying to solve this problem.  "This is a challenge.  I wonder if there is a way for seven children to fit in the boat."

Many of the examples from home involved children of different ages, where some of the solutions from school would not work.  We talked about noticing (without necessarily speaking, though speaking would be OK too) that there are many modalities in the interactions between siblings and the potential power of holding onto the image of cooperation and joy that we sometimes observe.  We might speak about this positive archetype; our nonverbal attitude may be enough.   We also talked about--without rewarding a child for hitting a sibling--finding an acceptable outlet for negative behavior.  Kim Payne prescribes wrestling for some families.  I have wrestled with children some years in the nursery class.

It is also true that home and school can be different.  Teasing is a subtle issue.  Sometimes when a teacher or adult tries to disapprove of teasing, we may feel our awkward words do not necessarily reach the potential bully.  They may, however, reach the ears of other children watching the scene and help those children over time change the dynamics.  As the quote from Jack Petrash from last week reminds us, sometimes we can help one child the most, sometimes the group. 

         With older children, the most change in persistent unfair relationships often come when another child--not in the midst of the fray--can put things in perspective.  In the nursery, I already see this activity happening, and without paralyzing a child with praise, I notice or appreciate, "Thank you for bringing that board over to make the house bigger.  It helps all the children fit now."  

         We ended our parent meeting agreeing that as adults we can do a lot by tending to the adult relationships in our community.  The first two pages of the Blame, Shame, and Put-Down Diet--the part we did not read in class--give individuals, couples, or groups of adults a path to follow as we endeavor to model for our children.  Even with older children who would benefit from a more formal meeting structure like the one Kim Payne outlines, parents and teachers would start the process with adults first to become the change they want to see.

Puppet Shows by teacher and children

       I have been presenting a puppet show about a baker who prepares the dough and takes a rest.  While she rests, the dough rises over the bowl and out the chimney, stating, "I want to see the world" and singing, "I rise.  I rise.  Higher and high.  I rise, I rise, to see the sky."  The baker wakes to see the dough on the roof.  When she learns that the dough wants to see the world, she tells the dough to come down; she will help it see the world by making it into rolls.  She makes and sings, "Sunday bread, Sunday bread, made with nuts and raisins red" and takes her rolls into the town.  Children buy them to take home.  When her basket is empty, the baker says, "Now you see my dough, you have gone off to see the world."

   I present this show using an apron with extra pockets sewn on.  My head becomes the roof of the house.  Over the years, I have found that children tend respond well to it.  I like that it helps give an imaginative picture to our work in the classroom of baking bread.  On Tuesdays, Kim takes groups of children to share rolls with the administrators, singing "Sunday bread."  We will see it a few more times before I present a table puppet show about "The Turnip," in which the farmers and animals need the help of little mouse to pull the turnip from the ground.  After Thanksgiving, I will present a puppet show of "The Elves and the Shoemaker."

Some children have started presenting their own puppet shows during play time.  Some like to present them just to themselves.  Others like to set up chairs, distribute tickets, and call for a large audience (with mixed success at convincing other children who might be taking naps in boats or preparing to hunt dragons to leave off their games to watch a show).   After starting the year with a show about "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" in their wooden shoe, I have made two wooden shoes available for the children to use in their shows.  They also like to try the shoes on their feet--sometimes on my feet.

There have been big pretend birthday celebrations (as with many play scenarios, the lengthy preparation is the most important part), slides and playgrounds built on the loft, workshops built in all parts of the room, and more buses, trains, cars, sleighs, and boats built throughout the room.

We have been going outside for an hour and a half to longer.  Many of our children don their rain garb so capably that I have been surprised to see some of us ready to go outside long before the elementary school has finished with recess.  At present, this has created lovely moments in which some second or third graders greet us with warmth and joy.  In addition to visiting the teepee and snack shelter at the ropes course, we have also been visiting a clearing along the upper loop in which there is a big rock with a fort built onto it and fallen trees to transform into seesaws or jumping places.  Thank you for keeping your child's supply of extra clothes and rain clothes stocked at school.

Bonnie Freundlich will visit us on Tuesdays to lead the children in a Eurythmy circle.  She intends to come to one of our parent meetings later in the year to share more information about Eurythmy to parents.

With warmth and light,

William Dolde

Meeting Sunday, October 5

Dear Families,

In continues to be a pleasure to witness your children play, work, imagine, cooperate, and find solutions and alternatives when cooperation is difficult. The Children's Garden newsletter comes out next week, and I want to save detailed descriptions of play scenarios inside and outside for that letter. Because grandparents and other relatives are reading of our children's experience from afar, I will also post my contribution to the newsletter to the blog once the hard copy of the newsletter comes out.

We have a parent meeting for the Butterfly nursery in our classroom this Sunday, October 5, from 3 to 4:30pm. Here is a proposed focus for the meeting. Please email me (wdolde@gmail.com) if you would like me to address other topics.

Arrival and a chance for parents to paint (Kim, the children, and I will transform these paintings into our lanterns for our lantern walk at the end of October).

A lecture/discussion on the way we can use the wisdom of Kim Payne and others in early childhood. While I observe that our nursery children show great capability in transforming conflict into chances for imagination and growth, I have also heard that there is general interest in the school and among early childhood families in particular in learning and working more with the work of Kim Payne. In my previous school, I took the three year training with Kim on his social inclusion work; I have attended a workshop with him at Sophia's Hearth; and I have spent a few years with colleagues translating his work for early childhood classrooms. As such, I think I am well suited to give a taste of this sort of work, and I can give examples of how our children are already showing prosocial and problem solving behaviors.

This lecture/discussion will have 5 general parts.

A. An brief introduction of some of the most important things I learn from Kim Payne. Another teacher or parent might take different points. Kim might make a different list himself.

1. Conflict is important for our development. It is our job as parents and teacher to help children when conflict gets stuck--while having trust that they also benefit from being involved in solving problems.
2. Restoration, making things right, doing things over is much more effective than punishment or apologies. This has nothing to do with being soft or wishy-washy. It has to do with being effective.
3. Help the children humanize one another.
4. Help children move from fixed positions to being able to express their needs and see how their needs can be a bit flexible and do not necessarily conflict the needs of others.
5. Notice what is working. When helping the most egregious situations, Kim and those who follow him are effective because they are able to show a, say, supposed bully that she does not always torment the supposed target. When a child realizes that she already is capable of performing a prosocial action (even if she normally chooses the more agressive one), she is much more likely to show the healthier, healing response.

B. A discussion of the selection "The Safety of Nonjudgment" from Your Child's Self-Esteem by Dorothy Corkille Briggs. This provides us a way as parents to support our children if they come home and say, "Jim is a bad boy. He took my toy." Briggs helps us move from judgmental and "you" statements to "I" statements. Although "I" statements have their place, beyond personal statements enhance our ability to guide our children in a truthful way (here is another link to that article from a previous blog). If you like the chapter from Briggs, copies of Your Child's Self-Esteem are coming to our school's library soon.

C. A discussion of an interview between a counselor and parents from Difficult Children - There is no Such Thing. In this conversation, the counselor demonstrates a remarkable ability to see beyond the ostensibly negative (and outright alarming) behavior of a young boy. It is amazing what we can do when we suspend judgment and look for the archetype of an ostensibly difficult child. I also want to place this selection here to help us think about possible "exceptions" to a child's version of a "no put-down diet" below. The counselor is able to help the parents see that insulting language from their son is not a direct attack at them but is instead an indication of pain or sensitivity. In a similar way with children, I will caution us from making our children apologize every time they say something like "You're the meanest child in this class" (which a child in Baltimore used to say, very nobly, when he saw one child treat an other child unfairly). We can model and offer an alternative, without judgment: "Yes, it is very upsetting to see that toy being taken away."

D. A reading of a version of Kim Payne's "no-put down diet" for adults and older children (he revises, so there may be more current models). Although the agreements work best for children in 5th grade and up and adults, the principle of noticing and trying to do things over (without asking questions or drowning young children with explanations) is very helpful with young children. I will provide hard copies of this selection at the meeting.

E. A discussion that as parents and teachers, we can't always do the best thing for every child in every situation. We do our best to keep our children safe and to support them as they transform conflict into conversation, but not every intervention is always going to seem best for every child--at least in the short term.
As a teacher learning and growing from year to year, I still sometimes wondered if I could have handled this or that situation differently or better. Master teacher Jack Petrash, from that other Washington's Waldorf School (outside of D.C.) helped me accept my imperfection in a brief passage from Waldorf Education -- Teaching from the Inside Out (available in our parent's library but checked out; this is a readable and eloquent introduction to Waldorf education):

Reflective teaching invariably leads to self-knowledge. Although this may sound daunting, there are simple ways to proceed. One understanding is that what makes a teacher good also has within it the possibility of making a teacher ineffective. For instance, classroom management is a skill many teachers need to develop. Getting large numbers of children focused and on task requires a variety of abilities. Teachers have to be clear about directions and expectations, and be both persuasive and compelling. To do this effectively teachers also have to develop a certain degree of insensitivity to individual needs and interests. In moving students from one undertaking to the next, it is often necessary to respond to questions with, "Not now. Please take your seat," or "Tell me about that in a couple of minutes, right now just get started," and of course, "No, you may not change your seat. You need to sit right there." The ability to move a group from one activity to the next requires that teachers ignore certain individual needs.
Some teachers do this so effectively that children simply comply and lessons go smoothly. However, if these teachers do not also cultivate a keen interest in the needs of individual children, their work will suffer. Teachers need simultaneously to have the ability to work with the whole group as well as the ability to focus on the individual. And this balance does not always come easily. Teachers generally start out with a natural inclination in one of these two areas and then realize that they need to work consciously to develop the other.

Again, I recommend Petrash's book(s). He has also published Covering Home (in our library) which gives lessons for parenting inspired by baseball and Parenting a Path through Childhood.

With warmth and light,

William Dolde