What ties together the Forest Kindergarten, Gardening Program, and Environmental Studies Curriculum at KWS? Intentional, regular, and guided exposure to nature in a way that cultivates a love and appreciation for the earth that gives way to care for and stewardship of our natural resources in adulthood.
Vlog
Celia’s story: overcoming fear
In this heartwarming video, gardening teacher Celia Martin shares the story of an “ah ha!” moment when a student overcame her fear of spiders and gained a newfound appreciation for the diversity of species in the natural world.
Mr. Strevig’s Life Changing Moment with 9th Grade
Environmental studies and outdoor program teacher Jake Strevig recounts his unforgettable experience on a canoe trip with his students. When his canoe tipped over during rough patch of rapids, the students acted quickly and heroically to save their teacher and all of their gear. Mr. Strevig highlights the importance of teamwork and resilience, and the incredible bond that can develop during class trips and time in the great wide open.
River Ecology and the world of aquatic macro-invertebrates
by Jake Strevig, HS Life Sciences teacher
In the 9th grade River Ecology course, we take an in-depth dive into the world of aquatic macro-invertebrates. We inventory the number and diversity of critters living in French Creek using leaf packs to create a controlled experimental habitat. After a few weeks we remove the leaf packs from the stream, then count and record the numbers and diversity of macro-invertebrates. Next we enter those numbers into a simple equation and we are able to have a good indicator of stream health.
Friday, April 21st was our first day and the creek, and we were not looking for specifics yet. We were exploring and getting a feel for the amazing amount of diversity in our little creek. We gently captured some specimens using nets and carefully placed them in our sample boxes for observation and preliminary identification. There are at least 15 different species in these pictures! They are not all invertebrates, and some are hidden amongst the rocks, but they all live together in our little river. Not pictured are the six big crayfish in a separate bucket.
Can you identify any of them?
If you want to learn more about Leaf Packs, visit https://leafpacknetwork.org/
Erin Byrne, Forest Kindergarten Teacher
What draws you to the Waldorf approach to education? And in particular, to leading the Forest Kindergarten?
I have been a Waldorf teacher my whole adult life, and my first teaching position was at KWS in the high school. As a young person I was searching for meaning and looking for a new approach to education, found Waldorf education and started teaching when I was 24. This is my 4th time coming back to teach at KWS, as I left to go back to school, then when I had my two boys, etc. I also taught young adults with special needs at the Camphill School Transition Program at Beaver Farm. I was there as program manager, faculty chair, and special education teacher for 12 years and then became Regional Coordinator for the Camphill Association of North America for another 3 years. My job as regional coordinator was wonderful when I was traveling to all the Camphills for meetings and peer reviews, but I spent way too much time in front of a screen. I had always been intrigued with the forest kindergarten approach and was able to visit the forest kindergarten at KWS before the pandemic. When school started up again, I became an assistant in the kindergarten, and proposed the idea a year ago to expand our forest kindergarten program.
Is there a particular highlight from the first year of the Forest Kindergarten that stands out to you?
Every day before we enter the forest, we sing a song together to open our senses, and to have good manners while we walk quietly to our forest program area, as we are entering the home of all our forest friends. The song goes:
Look with our owl eyes
Listen with our deer ears
Smell with our dog nose
Feel with our raccoon fingers
I especially love it when the birds come to our pinecone bird feeders while we are quietly eating our snack. We’ve had visits from nuthatches, blue birds, cardinals, and woodpeckers!
You have sons that graduated from KWS? How have you seen this unique education impact their lives as they leave the nest and create their own lives?
Both my boys went from preschool through 12th grade. I realize now that the things we did with them when they were growing up has had a huge impact on their lives. We spent a lot of time in the great outdoors: bicycling, canoeing, hiking, fishing, swimming in creeks, camping, canoe camping, etc.! They both work in outdoor education: Jackson (KWS class of 2011) worked in wilderness therapy as both a guide and a medic, and now is a back country park ranger in Yosemite. Gabriel (KWS class of 2013) has just left his job as a senior guide in wilderness therapy and is currently working at a Waldorf kindergarten in Colorado. They both inspired me to work outdoors as well.
Jackson just released an album entitled Moving Water. You can listen to it on Spotify, Apple Music or free on YouTube.
Eurythmy
By the time the first Waldorf school opened its doors in September 1919 in Stuttgart Germany, Eurythmy was 7 years old; old enough to go to school! Leading up to this auspicious moment, Rudolf Steiner offered a Eurythmy performance a few months prior; a performance attended by the teaching staff, the staff of the Waldorf Astoria Cigarette Factory* whose children would now make up the core of the student body plus other invited friends and guests. He gave an introduction to this new art form and spoke of the clear purpose for Eurythmy to be taught as a core subject from early childhood through to graduation.
It is a formidable task to describe the significance and purpose of Eurythmy in our education in one short article, so I will merely render some ‘brush strokes’ as it were, and hope interest is sparked!
Eurythmy, as an art form in which speech and music are made visible, fully integrates the body, soul and spirit. Willing, feeling and thinking are in constant, harmonious engagement. The Waldorf curriculum, grounded as it is in the knowledge and understanding of the development of the child, details the steps from the earliest beginnings in Rosebud to graduation from 12th grade. This curriculum forms the basis for the Eurythmy curriculum, and the Eurythmy teacher works in concert with colleagues to achieve that end.
For the youngest, the once weekly ‘visit’ of the Eurythmy teacher is a special occasion, as this is the only ‘outside’ teacher that comes into their classroom! A short but highly ‘potentized’ experience is offered in which beautifully, artistically detailed movement using seasonal themes, allows these little children of unbridled movement to hop with joy like the bouncy rabbit; to fly with wings outstretched to the tippy top of the tall tree; to clip-clop like the proud pony across the field to greener grass, or yet to crawl into a soft snug nest to sleep for the winter. Hands and feet are joyously engaged as the powers of imagination are invited into this magical yet relatable world.
In 1st grade, imitation is still relevant but will begin to be replaced by a capacity to ‘dream about,’ inwardly starting to visualize. The pictures must be rich and are drawn from the world of the fairy tales. Each lesson is filled with movement that requires feet to be agile like the nimble deer; firm steps for the child who must go in search of healing water; fingers to show a snail coming out of its shell; or arms stretching out like the glorious rays of the sun. A spear narrow bridge must be bravely walked across, eyes looking straight ahead; the twisting winding river followed to its source! This ‘underscoring’ of the script of our language will be supported and given a wholesome place in the active expression of the child through moving these archetypal form elements: the straight line and the curve. Unbeknownst to these young enthusiasts, the first rudiments of music theory find their expression in the happy stepping of the feet to pulse beat or rhythms, or the rise and fall of a melody allowing the arms to reach up high for those high notes and descend as they tumble downwards.
So, with each step of the way from grade to higher grade the necessary building blocks are used. An amazingly rich curriculum is provided in which the growing, developing child is receiving in the Eurythmy class what allows for an integration of the 3 hallmarks of Waldorf Education: Thinking, feeling, willing- head, heart and hand. The developmental milestones are always the key guidelines for what needs to be worked on as in the example of 1) the ’9-year change’ in which the child experiences a separation of self from the group, from the ‘oneness’ so beautifully represented by the circle. Through an exploration of poetry and music in which polarity of movement is deliberately emphasized, the child is recognized and supported through this necessary developmental stage; 2) In 6th grade, when the natural harmony of the 5th grade year lies far behind, a change has manifested in growth and physical development as well as in the cognitive realm. This calls for a new focus in the Eurythmy class! Geometry is taken up very rigorously by the class teacher and finds full support in the exploration of challenging geometric forms and principles which demand precision, control and collaboration and focus.; 3) In the 9th grade we can observe a tension between the further unfolding of puberty and their studies that now lead more towards abstract thinking. Polarities in the sciences, humanities and arts can be supported again in the Eurythmy class by movement elements that emphasize these differences and require the students to be keen observers in the process.
Accompanied through the years, the child is developing stronger self- awareness while constantly assisted in building greater social awareness and a sense for the rightful place in the circle of activity, the circle of community of life. Ultimately by 12th grade, the last pieces of the puzzle of this curriculum are fitted into their remaining places in this process of ‘synthesizing’ and the students can now look back at and recognize why they did what they did and when!
As I conclude, I need to still briefly address the importance of the Music curriculum in relationship to that of the Eurythmy curriculum. It is critical that a musician is a part of each Eurythmy class in which not one, but two subjects are taught: visible speech, visible music. The accompanist is far more than what that title suggests! This individual has to be involved in the creative process of the shaping of the lesson through intentional collaboration with the Eurythmy teacher. This dialogue is of incredible mutual benefit and the children have the gift of live music which can best represent the foundational elements of music. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the listening component is vital, is essential and is only really allowed to develop when the music is provided in the moment by the nuanced and sensitive hands of the musician. The music tells us all we need to know, but we must listen to it with keen ears and hear into it through repetition and growing discernment.
*Further reading on Dr. Emil Molt and the path that led to his founding of the first Waldorf School at Stuttgart in 1919.
Becoming – A film for the Waldorf Centennial
“Becoming” is the third film in a series of short films produced on the occasion of the centenary of Waldorf Education under the direction of the award-winning Californian documentary filmmaker Paul Zehrer, and which provide an insight into the inclusive diversity of Waldorf Education under the most diverse cultural, social, religious and economic conditions around the globe. No age has a deeper impact on the whole of life than the first years of childhood. “During those first seven years, children develop their bodily foundation for life. They explore and experience the world with their senses and through meeting the other. These early encounters in life have a deep influence and long-lasting effect on the making of their own being,” says Clara Aerts, coordinating member of IASWECE and co-producer of the film, which was shot in the USA, Israel, Japan, India, South Africa, Guatemala, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Germany. “The experiences that we make possible—or withhold—for our children at this age form the most elementary basis for their further lives and thus ultimately for the future of humanity.”
Mathematical Arts: Geometry
Geometry holds a central place in Waldorf education’s mathematics curriculum and emerges out of form drawing which students begin in Kindergarten. In sixth grade, students move from creating flat two-dimensional geometric designs to kinesthetic art with curve stitching, which creates circles and curves from straight lines. They are colorful and beautiful and very visually interesting but do you wonder what they have to do with math?
Artistic, but also Technical
In order to construct and shade those drawings or string designs, the students need to have learned many things, including a knowledge and understanding of circles and polygons, how to use a compass and ruler with competence, and how to bisect an arc or a line or an angle. The students learn how to construct straight lines from a curved line by drawing exact polygons within a circle as they learn how to divide a circle into 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, and 24 divisions. Line and string designs show them the many ways that curved lines can be constructed from straight lines. The drawings done in sixth grade represent foundational Geometric concepts, presented beautifully and artistically, that are carried into the high school when students learn about Conic Sections, Trigonometry and Projective Geometry.
Engaging the Hands Creates a Deeper Understanding
Use of string art in learning geometry is a powerful method to ‘experience’ the facts and laws of geometric forms. The precision and beauty of these geometric forms lead the children to a deeper understanding of mathematics as they use their hands to illustrate concepts and develop skills.
These constructions offer abundant opportunity for students to learn mathematical vocabulary and concepts, and the ability to follow directions. String designs helps to improve spatial perception, encourages students to experiment, enriches their learning and lays a foundation for advanced Projective Geometry and the three-dimensional graphs and surfaces encountered in Calculus in high school and college.
The brain discovers what the fingers explore.
In sixth grade, geometrical rules are sought and formulated:
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Geometrical proof of sums of angles of triangles
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Construction of angles using compasses, bisecting angles
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Congruent triangles and the four principle cases for congruency
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Movement properties of triangles and quadrilaterals
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Congruent shapes, construction of similar angles, complementary, supplementary and other angles
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Construction of triangles, with altitudes, and angle and side bisectors
Why We Teach This Way Matters
Kimberton Waldorf School: Head Heart Hands from CANCAN Productions on Vimeo.
THIS IS EDUCATION THAT MATTERS
Why We Chose Kimberton Waldorf School
PARENT TESTIMONIALS
We had our kids in a private school before that was based on common core curriculum. Watching our kids approaching different assignments, seeing them being constantly stressed about grades, tests and overall performance, we asked ourselves if this is what we want to give them. Seeing their schooling as a very stressful race from one test to another, with lack of common sense in many assignments, lack of logic in many homework tasks, constant push on repetition instead of encouragement to free thinking, and finally suppressing our kids’ freedom to ask questions, was very concerning.
Having four kids, we don’t know who they will become as adults, but we certainly want them to be people who aren’t afraid to question the status quo and find their own ways towards happiness and fullness in their lives. Common core education didn’t give us the perspective nor tools to help them grow as individuals who discover themselves and the world around, rather it was a process of creating stressed, tired and discouraged young souls who were not interested in learning as an adventure. It was seeing education as a system, an artificial way of possessing enough short-term knowledge necessary only for purposes of tests.
Waldorf showed itself as a journey, where kids are approached according to their age and current state of being. Where even complex matters can be explained in accordance with kids’ natural way of understanding, processing and absorbing information. Waldorf appeared to be the answer to help kids to fall in love with learning, reading, counting and discovering beauty of the world without unnecessary stress and encouraging a long-term interest in expanding their interest in many topics instead of the “learn-pass test-forget” process.
The amount of time the kids spend with nature, from feeding goats to getting dirty in the woods, is absolutely wonderful! As Eastern Europeans we missed this at our previous school. The emphasis of art being largely incorporated into Waldorf curriculum, in our eyes, was a very important factor in helping kids become fascinated with education. No electronic devices policy: what a relief it is. Since we came to KWS my kids don’t even mention anything about cellphones. We decided to completely give up on TV a couple years ago, so we have great evening times together, more time for fun, reading, discussions, games, Torah studies, or simply to be together. It is a very liberating experience. – Current KWS parent
