Mindfulness in Education

I am interested to see the overlaps between this conversation about mindfulness in education and some of the things I find in Waldorf education -
joyous educational environments, educational communities, social emotional learning, inner resilience, integrated learning, grounding, active movement, nature, virtue, making the world a better place, transformation, peacefulness, self-realization and awakening, being present...


Talking about Mindfulness and Education from Mindful Videos on Vimeo.





Wake Up Schools - Cultivating Mindfulness in Education is an initiative of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and associated communities to share these ideas with educators, administrators and students.

9 Essential Skills Kids Should Learn

Over at ZenHabits Leo Babauta, whose children are 'unschooled', believes the 9 Essential Skills Kids Should Learn are:

1. Asking questions
2. Solving problems
3. Tackling projects
4. Finding passion
5. Independence
6. Being happy on their own
7. Compassion
8. Tolerance
9. Dealing with change

He believes that we cannot predict what the future has in store for our children and that it is foolish and wasteful to educate them in preparation for what we think they will need. In high school the computer geeks sat by their lockers filling out bubble cards - who could have predicted all of this?

I agree that we need to teach our children to learn and allow them to love learning and follow their natural curiosity, to trust them to learn.  We need to give them tools knowing that we cannot even begin to imagine how they will apply them.

I am not sure whether this list is complete or exactly what I would have written, but it is close enough for me to hold it up to what my children are learning and make see what I think. I am pleased and confident that they are learning these skills, and more!

“Our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility—these three forces are the very nerve of education.” 
― Rudolf Steiner

Waldorf High School

Waldorf Myths and Realities - Reading and Writing

Myths 

- Waldorf kids don't learn how to read

- Waldorf kids are 'held back' or 'delayed' in acquiring core academic skills

The early childhood focus on stories that are expertly told by the teachers and often acted out with puppets or wooden or woollen toy props is not just a nice thing, it is the beginning of literacy in Waldorf education.   The children, through experience, learn what a good story sounds and feels like. They  know that there is a beginning, a middle and a conclusion. They learn how to introduce characters and develop plot. They learn by example the cadence and flow of a good story.  

For many days or even weeks the children hear a story and learn it effortlessly by heart.  Not through drills or rote memorization - through integration and interest.

In this way I have seen both of my children develop excellent (though still at times selective!) listening skills and attention spans. And now my son, in pre-kindergarten, can tell us at supper the stories he has learned at school. My daughter, in grade two will tell stories from her memory and her imagination. Now though she will also write and illustrate them in books.  

The experience of watching my daughter learn stories aurally in the Kinder and Morning Garden classes was tinged with the same fear that many parents have when they see other children of a similar age reading or using electronic devices aimed at developing literacy.  But to watch her, along with her friends and classmates, dive into literacy in grade one was a beautiful thing. They were ready and were strong out of the gates.  They learned to draw forms and structure their drawings, they learned the alphabet and began to write letters and words. Now they write sentences and paragraphs and read the stores they have written.  It all seems so effortless, so painless, so fun and natural. This speaks to the pedagogical progression and to the gifts of the teacher who gently lead the students along this path.

So, what have I learned?  I trust the process.  Waldorf kids learn to read and write for sure, but first they learn to listen and to see.  From the whole to the parts, rather than the other way around.

For your viewing pleasure I offer two videos by Eugene Schwartz on the subject of Writing and Reading in Waldorf Education.

This link will take you to another blog post on How reading is Taught in Waldorf School, from the perspective of a Waldorf trained teacher.

Waldorf Yarns Word Cloud

Educational Influences, Educational Choices

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

Discussion and decisions about school are both simple and confusingly complicated. It makes sense that our present thoughts and actions are reactions to our own past experiences and can be influenced by what sort of schooling options our friends and family have chosen for their children.  While trying to clarify thoughts about how much we base our decisions on wanting to recreate for our children what we valued in our own childhoods, or trying to give them what we wished we had experienced as children the discussion can easily move into politics and economics.

Wanting what is best for our children is in part about wanting to spare them some of life's harsh realities, or at least postpone them. But it can also be about feeling the need to help them confront life's pressures by giving them a head-start in life.  Next thing you know the discussion is about supporting our community, elitism, anti-elitism and class.  Complicated!

Most of my school life was spent in pretty run-of-the-mill middle class suburban institutions. I have been fortunate to have had a few rich and transformative learning experiences, or experiences in rich and transformative environments.  These have shaped my life and my understanding of what education can be. Each raised the bar a bit higher.

I attended an elementary school that was modern in the late 60s and early 70s - it was an open concept school and bright and alive, freeing. My switch in grade 5 to an old school with individual classes and long institutional corridors was harsh; the teachers felt as old as the building and the approach to learning was as oppressive as the architecture. I had no vocabulary for it at the time.

My most formative education occurred outdoors, where our motivation to learn was real and intrinsic.  We learned together in what educators might now call a community of practice, but it was summer camp. It was it's own little world and the generations were 4 or 5 years between campers and counsellors so the history of the place developed rapidly and the stories have been told and retold on canoe trips ever since.  

Since that time, after each of my too-many-to-count moves, this book On The Loose has been given a place of honour on my book shelves.  It's status speaks to the book itself, but also to the time of my life when it validated the experinces I was having - learning independence, competence, interdependence, doing things that had real consequences, feeling the weight and the thrill of responsibility. " Crazy kids on the loose; but on the loose in the wilderness. That mades all the difference."

My professional education was a complete immersion in the group experience. The assessment strategies were primarily formative, focused on direct feedback, group work, honest self-assesment and skill development.  The evaluation scheme was satisfactory/unsatisfactory.  The freedom that came from this is hard to describe.  It made me realize how difficult it had been to write all those essays to try and please the marker and how I cowered in the face of competition.  I experienced how the traditional approach to marking and exams had hindered my learning, how my focus had been on passing and not on learning. 

There was an anxiety with this new way of learning, a fear of not knowing enough, a fear that other students elsewhere were learning more and that we would all be publically humiliated when we entered work life.  But mostly we learned because we wanted to and because we felt the responsibility for our own educations - we were actually able to seize the experience as a great opportunity to learn from one another and from the faculty who dedicated such a large part of themselves to the school and our learning. Unfortunately it was indoors.

Having had good experiences in education I am looking for these elements for my children - nature, intrinsic motivation rather than external evaluation, a grounding in some sort of community and real learning situations with real consequences.

I see many people wanting to make sure their children have the skills to get ahead, to stay with the pack and eventually to be able to excel. This is a time of enrichment and remediation outside the school, of families devoted to an exacting schedule of extracurricular activities.  I, too want life to be as rich and as pleasant as possible for my children. I want to give them all the help I can.   The educational enrichment I seek for my children can be found outdoors.

From time outdoors will come:

• a sense of peace and connection with the earth and ones classmates
• the experience of adventure and the development of competence
• independence and interdependence

"It feels good to say "I know the Sierra" or "I know Point Reyes". But of course you don't - what you know better is yourself, and Point Reyes and the Sierra have helped." On the Loose

So, what's happening outside in education?  Next post will be: Forest Schools and Outdoor Classrooms!

Walt Whitman image from: 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walt_Whitman_edit_2.jpg

Thinking About Education

From the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA):