Festival Tomorrow at 10am

Dear Rosebud and Dewdrop Families and Friends,

I look forward to seeing you at Relles Hall tomorrow, Thursday, at 10am.  This is the outdoor performance pavilion near the Butterfly Classroom and playground.  If you arrive early, your child can play on the swings and playground.

Depending on how many families attend, the festival will last from 20 to 40 minutes.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

From the Nursery on Silence and Speech

Dear Families,

Here are thoughts I collected for nursery families on silence and speech that you may find of interest.

True, Kind, Necessary

Dear Families,

In our discussion on the night of the Confident Captain, Zen Captain talk I presented a number of weeks ago, we explored ways to communicate with our young children without speech, or with just the right amount of speech.  This is tricky.  There are times we need to talk--perhaps a good deal--and times our silence is most helpful.  I recommend the penultimate chapter from Kim Payne's Simplicity Parenting on Simplifying Information or "Filtering Out the Adult World."  In this chapter, he shares a guideline for speech that comes from any number of spiritual, religious, and cultural streams.  Before we speak (to children or adults), we can ask ourselves if what we are about to say is true (avoiding gossip or hearsay), kind (avoiding criticism; indeed, Payne advises us adults to go on our own put-down diets, to be careful of criticizing, say, a president or politician we don't like in the presence of our children), or necessary (here is where we filter out the adult world of too much information to soon; is their a way to reach our child with our modeling or guidance or an image or gesture).  It is easy to forget, so Kim Payne writes the words "true, kind, necessary" down to remind himself before speaking to his children or others.

What follows are other thoughts I have collected on speaking and not speaking.

Talking, not talking, nonverbal education

"A night full of talking that hurts
All my worst held-back secrets.
Everything has to do with loving and not loving. . .
This night shall pass,
Then
We have work to do."
--Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī as recited by Ashley Ramsden

A number of years ago I was blessed to be able to accompany Ashley Ramsden--a storyteller and performer who teachers storytelling for future Waldorf teachers--as he performed in Monterey and Santa Cruz. He told long stories to assemblies of Waldorf students. He told stories at libraries and performance spaces. He also recited many poems by Rumi (many of which are like stories). To thank me for playing music for him, Ramsden gave me a recording of him reciting poems by Rumi--these performances and my image of Ramsden come to me from time to time. He was an excellent speaker. He was extremely gifted at not speaking as well. His pauses in a story or poem conveyed so much. When I find myself rushing through an Ellersiek game or tale in class, I think of Ramsden and his mastery of the moment.

I also think of Magda Gerber and her concept of tarry time, the time we give our infants and young toddlers to process information. She had observed that it can sometimes take a minute--literally--for our children to, say, register that we have told them we are going to pick them up to change their diaper. At the same time, some toddlers and preschoolers are so quick that they are already anticipating (often joyfully) what is about to happen.

This is all to say that I have observed  both the joys of talking with our children and some beautiful nonverbal interactions between parents and their children, situations in which the parent gave loving and silent witness to the new challenge or discovery a child was making.

As we help our children create community and transform conflict into conversation, we may find ourselves talking a lot as we notice and describe what is working--and help direct children toward another path that seems to work better, whether to say, "Let's try that again" or "I'll put my hand here to keep you both safe" or "You both seem to want those plates." Even while we respect that our young children learn through moving, bumping, dropping, climbing, falling, rolling, and pushing, we can help them move--as Michael Gurian writes in Boys and Girls Learn Differently--towards using words without having unrealistic expectations that a progression to civility will happen overnight or in a week.

As several parents have reminded me recently, we can also cherish those times when we don't need to speak, where the lesson, the reward, the value, the blessing is inherent in our child's activity and our silent, respectful presence is the greatest gift of all. A number of years ago a parent from one of my classes shared this article about silence and presence with me, finding it in harmony with our observation work in our classes. The chapter "Dailiness" from Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry (available in the Kathrine Dickerson Memorial Library in the lobby) resonates with a celebration of doing and not doing, of appreciating the moment without fear that the moment will pass.

Even as we find the need to use words to guide our children throughout the day, we can strive, when the moment is right, to create structure and form with movement, music, rhythm, predictability, and modelling. Dr. Michaela Gloeckler writes about becoming nonverbal educators. In a relatively short number of pages, she provides a picture of three phases of child development and helps inspire us to become worthy of imitation for our children in these early years. She helps link a spiritual picture of human development to practical suggestions for how to be present with and for our children.

With warmth and light,

William Dolde

Why Our Toddlers Seem to Push Our Buttons

Joseph Chilton Pearce on Toddlers

I received a question about balancing our growing children's desire and need to explore with our need to keep them safe and secure, with the sense that parents are guiding the family ship and have not abandoned the wheel.  While healthy and consistent (and age appropriate) limits are healthy, it also helps our child and helps keep us sane if we can find appropriate ways for them to learn about the world--and toddlers learn about the world through climbing, running, tumbling, slamming, wrestling, building, toppling, throwing, splashing, and breaking.  As Rahima Baldwin writes in "Rhythm and Discipline in Home Life," the first Waldorf kindergarten teachers found it most effective to find an acceptable outlet for something she needed to forbid--ideally before the children even thought of trying the forbidden activity.

Using brain research, Joseph Chilton Pearce describes the toddler's innate need to explore and learn in "The Cycle of Competence" and "Will and the Terrible Two."  Because you may need to download and/or print the above selections in order to view them, here is a synopsis of Pearce's argument.  As a book such as The Scientist in the Crib would suggest, from birth children are "wired" to explore and learn about the world, to develop connections in their brain.  The most profound way they do this is in their bonds with parents and other primary caregivers.  Another important way is through free movement and exploration in the environment.  Children do not open and close the cabinets or try to open the oven to annoy us (at least at first).  They are following a divine and spiritual plan to learn about everything.  

Because children have such a strong bond with their parents and and such a strong desire to learn from everything, toddlers find themselves pulled in two directions at once.  Pearce describes how a toddler may pause and look at a parent saying, for example, "Don't touch the oven.  It is hot!" The toddler, after pausing, proceeds to touch the oven, causing pain in the toddler and dismay in the parent.  "He looked right at me and then ignored me!"  Pearce advises us to reframe our way of viewing this.  The toddler's pause and then apparent disobedience are not, Pearce says, a challenge to us, a toddler pausing to say a la Clint Eastwood, "Go ahead.   Make my day."  The toddler, rather, has not yet developed  control of his will yet and is being carried along by two strong forces:  one, always having to explore and learn about everything; the other, wanting to maintain this strong bond with a parent and primary caregiver.  The toddler wants to strengthen the bond with mom or dad--hence the pause--but also feels driven to keep exploring--hence the apparent disobedience.

This does not mean we as parents should let our children turn on the oven, drive our cars, and practice with a welding torch just because these experiences have a lot to teach  (though we may find with less dangerous forms of exploration such as climbing, cutting, and jumping we can find ways for the children to challenge themselves without coming into undo harm).  Limits and boundaries are healthy.  What Pearce and others help us remember is that we should also expect our young children (up to six or seven) to forget our boundaries and need patient reminders.  As Sharifa Oppenheimer writes, when we are redirecting our children or setting a limit, our words will be much more effective at guiding our children when we use the same tone we would for a statement such as, "Here's the towel."  If we steadfastly refrain from transforming our toddlers' need to explore into power struggles, we may find ourselves able to guide them while staying calmer ourselves.  Although it is healthy for children to see a diversity of emotions from parents and learn that it is OK to be sad, glad, angry, and anxious, if we provide ostentatious or explosive reactions to our children's forbidden explorations, we may inadvertently foster the development of a young social scientist:  "If I do this, Dad explodes like this.  Boy, I wonder what Dad would do if I do this!"  

Children do need limits.  It is helpful if we state them positively, telling the child what she or me may do, or--even better--stating in a general way what is the appropriate thing to do.  When mentoring other teachers, I have observed them at a time when a child is disruptive say, "Joe, you may be quiet now," only to have Joe experiment with how long he can be noisy before the teacher does something else.  A power struggle begins.  I have asked the teachers to consider a phrase such as, "This is the right time to be quiet," or "When we are all quiet, the beauty of silence can come" or "It is polite to listen quietly or sing along."  Teachers have reported back that these phrases (and the gesture they implied) have reduced power struggles dramatically and invited more compliance.   When a power struggle does emerge with an older toddler or kindergartner  and our child needs a cooling off period, Rahima Baldwin advises us to leave the room with the child rather than sending them off by themselves (the chapter in discipline in Hold on to Your Kids follows a similar approach).  We stay with the child calmly without lecturing (long tirades tend not to penetrate and may be entertaining) and sit in a calm and boring manner with our child.  After a minute to 3, we say, "Let's go try that again" or "We'll do that again in a polite way" or "The kings and queens have been called to the table.  I'll be queen and you be king."  Young children live and think in pictures, and when we can garner the resources to create living pictures as we guide them, we may find ourselves more effective.

I hope this is helpful.  In a follow-up conversation with the parent who sent me to read Pearce again, the parent reported having adjusted the location of some furniture in the kitchen, permitting climbing in a certain area, and redirecting the exploration there.  It sounded as if the parent and child were both satisfied--the child could explore; the parent could ensure safety; it was no longer a power struggle.

If you have trouble downloading the selections, they are available in Evolution's End, available in the Kathrine Dickerson Memorial Library. 

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

Advent Garden, Thursday, December 16, 10am

Dear Dewdrop and Rosebud Families, Friends, Relatives, and Visitors

You are invited to our Advent Garden on Thursday, December 16, at 10am at Relles Hall (the new outdoor performance pavilion) at the Whidbey Island Waldorf School.

Follow this link for a brief description of next Friday's festival along with lyrics to many of the songs we will sing. Below is a description I have composed with more details to help you prepare for the festival.

Many Waldorf School set up an Advent Spiral for their early childhood and some elementary grade classes. Traditionally, a class and teacher will enter a darkened space. There will be harp or lyre or other quiet, meditative music. A child or adult portraying an angel will light a candle in the center of a spiral of greens. One by one, children have the opportunity to walk alone or with a teacher, light a candle from the central light, and place it along the path of the evergreen spiral. It is a beautiful event, and like the lantern walk (and festivals and religious holidays such a Kwanzaa, Christmas, Hannukah, Holi, Solstice, and others) helps given an image of strength for the dark months of winter. Our many lights together can light up the darkness of the months ahead.

In teaching parent & child classes, I have observed that some infants and toddlers find great nourishment from an event such as the Advent Spiral if I can adapt it. Our parent & child Advent Spiral will take place in the morning, so the light outside will make it not quite so dark. Rather than having quiet harp music, I will welcome us with some fiddle tunes, and then we will sing songs about stars and from the season together (I will provide lyrics sheets). My vision is that it will still be reverent, just noisier with more space for authentic infant and toddler interjections. Rather than having children walk (or crawl!) alone, families will be invited to walk together, parents holding a child or a child's hand as they walk with a candle for the family. I will walk along in cases where a parent needs two arms to hold a child and wants me to carry a candle.

Although I have adapted this festival, it may not feel just right for every child at her or his particular moment in development. We will be singing and encouraging children to sing. Children do not need to walk alone in front of a group. Children do, however, need to be comfortable sitting on a parent's lap or next to a parent while others walk through the spiral. There will be lit candles, so this will not be an appropriate place for a child to walk or crawl around freely. If everyone arrives somewhat promptly, the festival itself should not take that long, and we welcome families to leave early if it is too hard for a child to sit. Please contact me if you have questions. I have seen some 6 month olds and 1 year olds enchanted by the singing and the light. Some 1, 2, and 3 year olds find this delightful. Other 1, 2, and 3 year olds (and their parents) find it an incredible struggle because the child is at a phase in which she or he needs to be always in motion and sitting and waiting provides more stress than is needed during this busy season.

 

Older siblings are welcome, but please keep the following in mind. This festival is intended for infants, toddlers, and young preschoolers and their families. If the older children can come as a support, sing with the family, and provide structure, it will be lovely to have them. Some older children who have seen an Advent Spiral in kindergarten or their grades class might be frustrated because elements are simplified or missing. In these cases, it may be best to seek care for the older child with another parent or friend. Some older siblings, however, will be moved themselves as they witness the joy our infants and toddlers experience coming together in reverence, and having them along will be just right.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

Follow-up to Crayon Discussion

Dear Families,

There were several topics that we discussed last session that I will follow up on during the break between sessions.  We discussed crayons and coloring for young children.  I recommend the book Understanding Children's Drawings by Michaela Strauss, in which the author has studied pictures (scribbles) from around the world and drawn interesting conclusions about developmental similarities in children and how these are reflected in archetypal early forms--the scribble, the swirl, the dot, the cross, the closed circle.  Strauss also notes that it is not necessarily good or bad that a child starts drawing at 18 months or 2 years or 3 years or 4, noting that children who start a little later tend to go through the same developmental archetypes of all children, just a little more quickly.  In class, I reflected that it is fine for our youngest children to draw but we need not worry if our children show no interest in drawing.  Helle Heckmann--master early childhood teacher from Denmark--reminded me fairly strongly in an evaluation that in the first 4 years, our children benefit more from gross motor experiences (the crawling, climbing, tumbling, wrestling, building, falling, and so forth) and that I would want to avoid distracting children from this by having too many fine motor activities such as stringing cranberries together.  I have heard and read elsewhere of the value of allowing our youngest children to move freely and develop their gross motor skills first, and then this will help their fine motor skills when the time is right.

When I began as an assistant teacher in 1997, early childhood teachers in Waldorf Classrooms were beginning to take a hard look at the use of block crayons in early childhood--up to that point they seemed a natural gift for early childhood classrooms: they did not break; no paper to be removed; they seemed to encourage exploration and divergent artistic thinking rather than outlining and perhaps more convergent form making. Remedial teachers such as Ingun Schneider were asking kindergarten teachers to take a second look the the use of thick, block crayons. As Schneider points out in her article on supporting the development of the hand, our arms and shoulders become very tense when we hold a block crayon; they are noticeably less tense when holding a stick crayon and pencil. Remedial teachers began to wonder if the overuse of block crayons in kindergarten classes were interfering with a smooth and natural process of developing pencil grip and learning to write. I remember my lead teacher packing away all the block crayons and purchasing stick crayons to use exclusively.

Not long after this I was fortunate to take a week of classes with Ingun Schneider as part of my training to become a lead teacher, and for me the use of stick crayons for very young children (including toddlers) made a lot of sense. As with any educational system, there are different opinions and streams, and I respect colleagues who make more frequent use of block crayons. That being said, one preference I have for stick crayons (or even sturdy colored pencils) for young children is that they help dispel the illusion that in a Waldorf early childhood setting everything needs to be soft and fuzzy: there are places for lines and angles as in the crosses and scribbles young children make as they work with crayons; and there is space for lines and hard spaces and toddlers work through conflicts as we have read in recent articles on toddler conflicts.

Schneider's article provides helpful insights into how we can help our children develop; she begins with infancy and early toddlerhood. If we can allow our children opportunities to move, climb, roll, crawl, fall, and tumble, we allow them the chance to form the foundations for fine motor development in future years.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

Thank You for the Session, Looking Ahead

Dear Families,

Thank you for bringing your children, your work, your joy, and your good will to our fall session.  It was wonderful to be in the presence of you and your children, and I look forward to having you join our classes in the New Year--at which point we will have both Thursday and Friday classes.  You may register for either day, regardless of your child's age.

Thanks to families that attended Monday's meeting on a dark and stormy night.  It seemed just right to have nursery and parent & child families together--making the group the right size for sharing and discussion.  I plan to gather us with interested nursery families and community members two or three times in the new year for various lecture and/or discussion topics.  If you have other thoughts or ideas or topic inspirations, please share them.

You are all invited to next Wednesday's Advent Study in the Butterfly Classroom at 7pm, November 17.  It will be led by other faculty members and help share a bit about the Advent season, ideas for home, and more.  With apologies, I will not be present; I will be at another meeting at the time.

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow at our lantern walk.  Please review a past blog post if you forget your invitation time.  First, it is a lovely event, and I want you to feel welcome.  It also has some unique scheduling needs to make it run smoothly, and I want to clarify or repeat 4 points.

1.  Please arrive as close to your actual start time as possible.  If you are early, your car's arrival may interrupt a quiet moment at the end of the previous group's lantern walk.

2.  Please park in the parking lot on the right once you turn into Old Pietila Rd.

3.  We will have lanterns for you.  Because I will be leading the walk, I will not hand them out.  You may take any of the lit paper lanterns that do not have a name tag (those are designated for specific nursery children).

4.  To make best use of the outdoor space (Relles Performance Hall), we are replacing our traditional puppet show with storytelling and a tableau.

We will have our parent & child and community Advent spiral on Thursday, December 16, at Relles Hall (same location where we will gather for the lantern walk).  This will take place at 10am and last for about half an hour. There is no school for kindergarten siblings of our parent & child children that day; older siblings are welcome to join us and watch or support their younger brother or sister (kindergarten students will have their walk the night before).

Expect in the coming weeks blog posts about topics we have discussed--crayons and hand development, painting with children, sharing.  Please let me know if there are other topics you'd like me to write about.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

Lantern Walk invitation

LANTERN WALK
The sunlight fast is dwindling,
My little lamp needs kindling,
Its beam shines far in the darkest night,
Dear lantern, guard me with your light.
~ M. Meyerkort
Dear Early Childhood Families,

As winter approaches we will kindle the light within us all at our upcoming Lantern Walk on Friday November 12th. We will gather our courage for the dark days ahead as we walk into the night with our shining lanterns guiding us. The lanterns are a symbol of our inner light that must be kindled during the long winter months ahead.

There will be three lantern walks, one at 4:30pm, 5:30pm and 6:30pm. Please check the end of this letter to see which lantern walk your family is scheduled to attend. Siblings are welcome if they are able to support a reverent mood and stay close to their parents at all times during the festival, including the walk where they should be by the side of their parents. They can bring their own lanterns if they have one. If you have a conflict with the lantern walk you are scheduled to attend please swap with another family and please inform your teacher. We are not able to add children to the lantern walks as they are all very full.
 
Please arrive on time and walk quietly to the pavilion where we will have hot apple cider. Please do not arrive early or late. (This is very important).  The timing of our walks is close and so we have to remain on schedule. Park in the lower parking lot just off Campbell Rd (you turn immediately right as you come into the main driveway on Old Pietila Road).

After everyone has arrived we will watch a puppet play in the pavilion. (Please dress very warmly). The teachers will then lead us on the lantern walk. After the lantern walk we will lead you back to your cars and say goodbye.

This is a quiet and reverent festival and we ask that you help support this mood by quietly guiding your children through the experience.

Blessings


Dyanne, Kim and William




4:30pm Lantern Walk
Ruari and Callum Keith
Viola Butters
Corey Lindstrom
Phoebe Holland –Thompson
River Stephens
Beatrice Zabel
Leon Kohlhass
Cooper Patty
Yarrow Batiste
Olivia Sichel
Atam Zimmerman
Walden Sagmeister
Ianna King
Sara Teevin
Sylvia Anton – Erik
Benjamin Cone
Ian Woodrow

5:30pm Lantern Walk
Josephine and Jack McAuliff
Julian and Soren Walston
Kailey and Alena Henderson
Wilder and Grace Yanz
Sonia and Gabby Toombs
Michael Cardosa
Ada Faith – Feyma
Annie Kate McDanniel
Edythe Donham
Anna and Thor Umlauff

6:30pm Lantern Walk
Crispin Dolde
Slater Canright
Forrest Erickson
Briar and Miles Morgen
Zachary Rosenberger
Sam Simons
Genny and Joey Edmonds
Ava Johnson
Amanda Kehl
Kiera Sherman
Josephine Chia
Sterling Gardiner
Natascha Graner
Hugo and Rain Costello
Sierra and Nicholas Muller