More About Crayons

Dear Families,

Last Friday as we began work on our lanterns, I talked a bit about the crayons we were using. 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; indeed, I thought they would be more appropriate for filling the page with color as in painting to make our lanterns. 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