Waldorf School Method: Teaching Through Stories, Delaying Reading, and 7-Year Development Stages

Guest [00:00:00] I feel like our students go out into the world with knowing who they are, what they want to do. And then I think with this feeling of, I want to continue, I'm Ashley McFarland, a nonprofit executive living in Duluth, Minnesota, and you're listening to the Vance Girl Podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:23] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we start a new series, the Mind of the Child. Longtime listeners of the podcast know that I have two young daughters and I am intensely interested in understanding how is it that they learn everything from language to the way they walk and move to hearing the inner voice that guides them on the way. So we've set up this series to explore different ways of educating children, challenges that they encounter as they enter adolescents and many things along the way. This first interview is with two Waldorf School educators. For anybody that's never heard of Waldorf School, you're in for a real treat. It's a little like Montessori, but it's also something different. The way they understand how the child moves through their life is just a little bit different than almost every other education program I've ever heard of. And so today you're gonna get to explore a different way of thinking about educating your children. Before we get to that, we are using these studios every day for Legacy Interviews. This is where I sit down with a person or a couple to explore their life, to hear their stories, to listen to the values that they've accumulated, and really made it so they can share the experiences that they've had with future generations. If you're interested in having me conduct a private interview with one of your loved ones, go to Legacy Interviews dot com to find out more. All right, without further ado, let's go to this very special interview with two Waldorf educators, mic you, Oki, and Chris Gent.

Vance Crowe [00:01:58] Welcome to the podcast.

Guest [00:02:01] Thank you.

Vance Crowe [00:02:03] You two are the first time I've ever interviewed two people at the same time on the podcast, but I wanted to do it because you have a special knowledge of the way that kids grow up and the way that they learn through, 'cause you both work at the Waldorf School. So to start off, how would you describe Chris the Waldorf education? Oh, that's a big question. Let's see. So, so the quickest way I would describe it is if you know what Montessori is, head that direction and keep going a while and you'll find Waldorf. But specifically, I'd say it's a education that that really focuses on employing the arts, employing, I guess we would call social, emotional, moral education now. And in addition to the academics and those things, not just to support the academics, but because they are noble and beneficial and and good in their own rights. My sense when I was looking up the Waldorf program is that Montessori is really focused on having the child be focused on how to become productive quickly. And Waldorf was more of like childhood is should be understood that it's a slower process than that. You work with the tiny children.

Guest [00:03:32] Yes.

Vance Crowe [00:03:33] What is it that people should know about children when they're really young starting in the education system?

Guest [00:03:43] Well, so the young children come here with full of senses and then everything they see and feel and touch really affect them. And it slowly takes time. It takes time to really, for them to know the world. So give them enough time to really be in the world first and be in their physical body. We couldn't even walk in the first, like how much they learning first three years, walk, walk, crawl, walk, eat, stand up and also speak and how to sleep. All these things is a lot of work. So that understanding that in the first few years is really unique, I feel. For our way of approaching.

Vance Crowe [00:04:49] I had a chance to go to a, like a parent child thing. And actually it was in your class and at first it was very awkward for me because you as the teacher almost don't talk at all. What's going on there when, when you're, what is your role as a teacher when you're with little children?

Guest [00:05:10] So that's, yes. So because they are very sensitive, I try not to overload with my speech or my presence. So I'm speak quietly. That's probably what you noticed. And the young children learns through doing through imitation rather than being instructed. So I'm really modeling what I do for the children so that they can learn by imitating me.

Vance Crowe [00:05:41] And what does that imitation look like? Because it is, you know, I have a 2-year-old right now and it doesn't always look like she's imitating me

Guest [00:05:49] Or they will imitate, but you don't want them to imitate too. But, well, and then also re repetition really. So consistency and repetition. So I'm not sure if you notice the first class she came, probably she didn't know what to do, but by the end of the session, which I don't know which session you went, eight weeks or 10 weeks, they do know what to expect. So imitation doesn't happen right away, but it happens over times with consistency and repetition.

Vance Crowe [00:06:23] Yeah. Like you guys had a song when I was there that it was Toys Away, toys Away. And like we now sing that song and it's, it's amazing, almost like creepy in a way, right? Where you're like, you can sing this song magical maybe is a better way to put it. Where, where she just knows then what to do.

Guest [00:06:45] Yes. It's really how they learn by doing it and by repeating it.

Vance Crowe [00:06:52] So Chris, can you kind of lay out the, I think some people call it the Steiner School or the Waldorf Method. They think about education of children like that there are epochs of a child that they like live in these different stages. Can you kinda lay that out? Yeah, I, yeah. And when Steiner talked about it, he split it really into three, seven year periods. So working with any child, they very rarely will fit perfectly into any model you give them. But the first seven years, call that the early child, and that's, that's Miccio's specialty. And from seven-ish to 14 ish you have in the middle stage. And that's where I do most of my work. And then finally 14 to 21, that's the final stage. Adolescence and young adulthood. So yeah, we, we can each speak to the parts we know about our own. The generally you're learning the very basic things about life and living in the early childhood. And then it's really once they enter the second that we start working with more academics, ideas, bringing in the thinking. But even even with that, it's really the feeling life that is very active. So emotions, morality, what is good, what is right. So, so that's a lot of our work there as well. And then when they moved to the last one, the adolescence, that's really the height of where they can get into the intellectual subjects and yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:08:32] And so for Waldorf High School, that would, that would look very different than a Waldorf Elementary, elementary and middle school, which is what we do. And that also looks different than the early childhood.

Guest [00:08:46] Yes. And I guess each stages, the way we teach is different. So when you go to to grade school, the teachers are talking more. Even when you see me in kindergarten, it will be very different than what you saw in the parent-child class too. Because how we teach, like how we can effectively reach the children will change as they develop and then change too. And then I think this world of is very unique in a way that zero to seven years old, we really try to bring this moral or in goodness of the world. We want them to think, feel this world is good. And then the learning is again doing right, willing, doing. And then the seven to 14 is like he was saying, feeling life. So that's why a lot of arts and music and theater comes in and a lot of storytelling. And when they're middle schooler, Chris can talk a lot more about middle school, the biography, so that that, that their feeling can be stirred and that's how they learn better, best in that seven to 14 years old. So that's how we use that method. And in 14 to 21 is real thinking means their own thinking. How they can think on their own independently what's right, what's not right. What is the truth in this world? So that is really like the process of unfolding of the children.

Guest [00:10:17] We see this as a process and not what they can do in kindergarten or even third grade.

Vance Crowe [00:10:28] I think the thing that's striking for people, if they're totally outside of the Waldorf system, you know, the, there's a couple things that when you're an outsider, you see it and you're surprised, I would even say shocked by right? One would be these little children are outside almost all day. Right? Or, or maybe all day, right? And like it could be raining out, it could be snowing, but these kids are outside. So that's the first one. And the second one that I think surprises people is there's definitely an emphasis in western culture on being like, my child learned to read when she was, you know, three years old and we were doing our letters and we knew how to do all these things. And Waldorf does not emphasize that at all. It seems like in

Guest [00:11:11] The early years.

Vance Crowe [00:11:12] In the early years. So first, let's start off like, what's going on with the kids that are outside, you know, in, in freezing cold weather or rain? Why, why did, why is that the option?

Guest [00:11:24] Hmm. Well 'cause that's the real world too. And then really there are so much sensory experience you can have outside lots of learning. I think we, they experience the physics, science, all these things outside as well. And imagination of course. And then focus to play without any kind of toys. Just the natural material sticks and rocks and all these things. They just can't play outside. And also I think they, it's okay they can go outside if it's raining and they can explain all the element of the weather and then yes. And they're okay. I think that's such a strong feeling. I am okay in this world. Yep. Rain or shine snow can be really fun and exciting for our school. Yep.

Vance Crowe [00:12:21] Problem solving that comes with that. If they're outside on a rainy or snowy day, they'll be wearing rain boots or snow boots. It's hard to run. So if they want to play tag, well that's gonna be hard. So now they have to figure out something else. So just as one example, yeah, as a parent it was, it was really good for me to see Violet being able to play outside because my natural inclination was like, oh, it's 40 degrees out, you know, we're really hitting the danger zone on, on when a child can be outside and then all of a sudden you're like, wait a second. No, no, no, no, no. Like, that's not even just overprotectiveness. It's like a sheltering to where she actually doesn't get to experience the world around her in a way. And so it, like, it didn't take me very long to find this to be like a, like something really refreshing. And I think the fact that her mother and my wife could see other kids playing outside, like, I think it probably has a very powerful impact on the parents as well to see what their children can do.

Guest [00:13:22] And it's just very healing in this busy world that children who struggle to sit still or who cannot hold their voice, right? Yes. Their children are loud and then, but when, when we are inside, they're supposed to use their indoor voice and indoor body Yep. Because you can't run around and be loud outside, but then being outside, they can be free and it's very healing for them to feel that nature and then quietness in the nature and all of that.

Vance Crowe [00:13:59] So in your program, one of the things that I noticed was, and this is like most of my experiences just with these little tiny children, tiny, was the singing of songs and things like baking bread, right? Where they made that bread. What is the role of that, those kinds of, of activities that you're doing?

Guest [00:14:20] Hmm. So in early childhood, we try to really bring the real actual work that's useful. We don't do the work just for the sake of doing things. So bread making, we make bread, we actually, in kindergarten, we grind our grain as well that we,

Vance Crowe [00:14:41] Oh really? We

Guest [00:14:42] Do. So we grind our grain and we make our dough and then make our bread and eat our bread. So the whole process of experience and what knowing they can make the things they eat on their own is something that's powerful for them to know as a life skill. So yes. And then also we do a lot of chores, sitting the table, cleaning up, chopping fish, all for soup. All these things like learning to take care of themselves and then, and also learn a lot of learning happening, right? Fine motor skills. And then yes, some science is happening in bread making or you know, like a lot of things happen when we set the table. It's a little bit of mathematical thinking happening with one, one-on-one correspondences, like one placement, one cup and one napping. All these things can happen by really doing the actual work. And it's really meaningful and authentic. It doesn't feel like fake.

Vance Crowe [00:15:56] Yeah. I mean, I, I can remember viscerally like hating writing things over and over and over and over again in paper, right? Like trying to get my letters right in the first grade. But if somebody had let me bake bread, I would've been right at home. And I think I probably that's most children would be that way. You went to Waldorf, you grew up in the Waldorf program. And what is your earliest memories of, of school? Well, I can remember the room we had our kindergarten in. If I went back now, I'm sure it would be much smaller than I remember. I, I really only have two memories from that year. One is some friends and I, some friends and I were sitting on something, I think it was a bench and pretending it was a train and someone was telling us about Pennsylvania, which we were wondering if that's a place where there's pencils for trees or something like that. And then the, the other I can remember is playing outside and there's some kind of climbing structure we were up on. And I, I can remember being up there. Yeah, that's, those are conscious memories. But you know, I, I do also remember bread making, basically one of the songs we would sing as we needed the dough. I remember using a grinder that I can recognize one of those when I see it.

Vance Crowe [00:17:30] So that's what I remember about kindergarten. And when you think about the parents that have this like pull to making sure that their kids are gonna be like, you know, the, the smartest kids, the best kids, the most prepared, most of them are thinking about getting their kids ready by reading or doing phonics. Tell me, how does this, how does that, you know, collide with the, the Wal with the Waldorf program?

Guest [00:18:01] Well, maybe Chris can go later, right? With literacy, but in earliest years. So we're, so the children needs to be able to physically ready to read, which means simply the children might have to be able to follow the letter left to right smoothly, or they should be able to look at the chalkboard and a copy. All these things needs to be developed before they sit down and then do academics. So we really focus on the physical development first. So that's why we do a lot of movement. That's why we do con conscious movement in the classroom as well. So that's one thing. But the little,

Vance Crowe [00:18:49] What does that mean conscious movement?

Guest [00:18:51] Hmm. So try to integrate left side and right, right side or the horizontal midline crossing the horizontal midline or simply fine motor skill development. If they are not able to really hold the pencil correctly, it's really hard for them to sit down and write or those physical, basic physical readiness is really our focus. And if their muscle is not developing enough to sit down still for 15 minutes, it's really painful for the children to sit down if their body is not quite ready. And then a lot of children could be diagnosed with a DHD too early because simply because they're not quite ready to sit down still, or a balance has to be there, their balance has to be there for them to be able to again, sit down and look at the letters and copy all these things has to be ready before they start decoding. That doesn't mean we don't start the literacy education in early childhood. So like you maybe remember the little poems and verse and songs we do, even in the little baby class has a lot of rhyming and a lot of rich language in there. And the stories and imagination that comes with the story is developing their comprehension skills. So that's how we work in our childhood, telling the story, working with the songs home instead of teaching them how to decode first.

Vance Crowe [00:20:31] Yeah, the stories are, are amazing in the sense that they have, like, they're religious in nature, but not, but not in, I don't wanna say that they're not instructive, but they're not. Well, I don't know. Maybe the best way for me is to ask you what stories do you tell in Waldorf?

Guest [00:20:50] Sure. That changes, again, to meet the best needs of the children, developmental needs of the children. So in early years I often do nature stories like maybe you might have heard, I'm not sure what when you were there, but nature stories of a little g norm going on a walk and finding treasures and things like that. Very imaginative. Or in kindergarten I do a little more fairytale folk tale type of things. Sometimes it is presented by puppet show as a puppet show, especially with the younger one to give them a little image so that they can follow story. But in kindergarten, I also do just tell story without any pictures of puppet. So that makes them to really imagine the story. And then also really developing the ability to create their mental pictures, which is really the comprehension skill and the beginning of the abstract thinking. So they should be able to picture the story in their head. So, and then we repeat the same story for a few times at least. So they have opportunity to really grow this picture and then learn new vocabulary because we do use rich language actually. We don't really wash it down for the little children. They don't know the words, not necessarily, but they can kind of figure out. And that's how we start to read too.

Guest [00:22:23] So we start from that way in early childhood.

Vance Crowe [00:22:27] Yeah. I'm struck by the way that you're describing this as in the more traditional like public schools, right? You have recess, which is just like a, a break from what the learning is. And you're like, learning, learning, learning. Now go try and take a break and get your energy out. Now let's come back and try and learn. And this is so different. It's not even an inversion of that, right? It, it's like we're, we're playing, we're interacting with the world and now we're hearing stories and that's a part of what we're learning. But we're never sitting down and being like, this is the instruction. Well, not never, I don't know what you do, but at least when they're young, you're not sitting down and doing instruction.

Guest [00:23:10] Not as much. Sometimes for the older kindergarten student, I do have a little more instruction, like activities that needs a little more instruction and things like that. They do sewing, they do weaving. What else? They do a lot of things. Hand work. Yes, those things happens too. And we do painting. Those are all sitting down activities, so they have time to sit down. And also snack time is also sitting down time. We are snack time as you experience. It's pretty nice. We sit down and light the candle and it, it is an expectation for all of us to sit and eat. And that itself really is training for them to sit down for 15, 20 minutes too. So we don't really necessarily force them to sit down to do the work, but trying to bring these opportunities so that they are ready when they go to first grade.

Vance Crowe [00:24:12] And what do you think is the role of, of like education does? Is there, if somebody knew how to do the Waldorf, you know, thinking, could they do it at home with their own children? Or is a part of the education, the fact that you're around other kids?

Guest [00:24:31] What do you say? Probably curriculum you could bring.

Vance Crowe [00:24:34] Yeah, a lot. I mean, the techniques you can bring the curriculum, you can bring, you can find all, find or make all the tools you need for the activities. But yeah, the, the social aspect is very important. And unless you have a large family, that's going to be difficult. Yeah. Yeah.

Guest [00:24:52] It is a lot of focus on community and social learning, especially in younger age. We don't really, in, instead of tailoring, well we do actually meet individual child's needs, but we try to work as a group a lot, especially in a younger grade. I'm sure Chris is still, he's teaching second and third still pretty much as a whole, as a group. They learn as a group and then as they get older it will be a little bit different. So yes, it might be difficult to have that experience

Vance Crowe [00:25:32] Second or third grade. Is that about seven years old? Let's see. So first grade's usually six and seven, second to seven and eight and third is eight to nine. So tell me about the mind of a child that is moving from this early childhood into this, you know, second level. Sure. So one, one change we, we talk about is the transition from the eye to the ear. So when they're young, they're seeing things and imitating. But as they're getting, as they're ready for academics and the grades program, what we're, what we're looking for is that they're able to hear things and do them. So I don't have to show them a particular action. I can say, this is so next you will do this. And they'll be able to do that. Now, obviously not, not first thing when they get there and build up all skills, but that's, that's one of the changes that we have. Now. There is, there's more of this thinking that we bring in. So now we'll start with learning. You learn the numbers, you learn how to count, then we build it, and then we talk about the idea of addition. So putting things together and then different ways that you can figure out what that is. Subtraction, often giving away, it's how I teach it. You, you could talk about losing, but that's a, that's a sad way to think about it. And division, which is sharing, how do we divide this up evenly?

Vance Crowe [00:27:09] So now these, these are physical things you can do. And for there it would just be things you would do. So you pass out one spoon to everyone. Now it will be okay, there are 12 of us, we each need one spoon. How many is that? Well, that's 12. Or bringing up bread making since once a year. This second grade class makes bread for the whole school and for us, yes, it, it is about actually the process of making bread, reviewing that. But also there, I have a chance to then apply some of this math we've been practicing. So we have a recipe, it makes 12 rolls. Well if we have 80 something, let's say 81 I think was last year, 81 rolls. We need, well how many batches do we need to make? Then we go through, we say, well we can count up by twelves and we add a poem we, we learned before the 12. So we go through that and then 12, 24, 36 up and we find, oh, 84. So we now need seven batches. And now with all these things we need to multiply them by seven. So instead of four cups, it's four by seven cups. And we can measure all that out. Count all that out, figure out how it is. So I'm struck as you're saying this, that the math that I learned was very reductionist, right? Let me show you what the core working of addition or subtraction is.

Vance Crowe [00:28:39] But you're layering in these concepts of the way human beings actually interact. It's actually probably a lot closer to how kids learned before we had, you know, industrial school system. 'cause they're just like, how, how many ways can we cut this piece of bread up or, yeah, yeah. Oh, one of the teachers who I learned from, he said that you should teach division first because it's about sharing, which is really the heart of first grade. Fascinating. 'cause normally you think of division as being like, I don't know, third or four. I didn't learn division until third or fourth grade. 'cause that was the harder math. Yep.

Guest [00:29:20] Well they actually are introduced all four processes in first grade because numbers are made up in

Vance Crowe [00:29:28] Multiple

Guest [00:29:29] Different ways.

Vance Crowe [00:29:31] Yeah. Now we're, we're not doing written longed vision in first grade. So I'm not saying what's 212 divided by eight? Build your house and Yeah. But neither is any anybody, any node. There's no school that's doing that. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But I don't want to give that impression. So, you know, we're doing, we've got 12 things. We've put it in groups of four. How many do we, how many groups do we have? I was very mistaken about this. I I, my impression was that Waldorf just waits because you're just not ready for it. Oh. And that like, we'll get to the book learning later on things like the math and the science, but it's so integrated that the reason it's hard to understand that is because math is in, in my mind is very much like, we're gonna break this down into the way the machine works and just show you those parts of those machine to, to assemble it all.

Guest [00:30:25] Math is practical, right? Yes.

Vance Crowe [00:30:27] It's, yeah. Yeah. And

Guest [00:30:28] It's easier to make it practical and then hands on.

Vance Crowe [00:30:32] Yeah. And child, even in this second stage, they're still very concrete in their reasoning. And you know, a lot of math is very abstract. You know, for, for us, we think nine, yeah, we know what nine is, but could be nine of anything. You know, we have nine water bottles, nine, nine shoes. But you can also take up one thing and cut it into nine. These things are all nine, but each of those is a separate nine. So really working from the practical, from the concrete is really kind of the core of what we do in the early grades. And in the early grades. My, I understand that kids get, is it one teacher for like longer periods of time? Yeah, so they have their lead teacher. So they start the day, they have what we call the morning lesson, and that's hour and a half to two hours depending on exact schedule. And then, so they're with them for that part of the morning. And then throughout the day for first grade, they'll usually be with them again twice for 2 45 minute class periods. Sometimes those will be combined for an hour and a half period. But then also they'll be with that teacher for their snack and recess and lunch and recess. And then that leaves, then two other periods in the two or three when they're with another teacher or with different teachers.

Vance Crowe [00:32:03] So could be they have hand work and then French one day, and then the other four periods are with their lead teacher counting the morning one is two periods once it's longer. But yeah. And then so that's with it within the school day, but also year by year each, each year the teacher rises. So next year I'll be teaching third and fourth. So my second and third grade, well, they'll be third and fourth, so I'll teach them next year. So that's a multi-year commitment, right? Yep. That's you saying, Hey, I'm gonna go along with these students and we're all all in this boat together. Yes. Wow. That's very different. Right? That's certainly the, I don't know what we wanna call it, the western education system. Normally you're, I'm a second grade teacher and I teach second graders. Yes. And then when they pass on and eventually get to a point where you're like, I'm the fifth grade math teacher and I just teach fifth grade math. Yep.

Guest [00:32:58] It forces us to learn new things every year. Yeah. And that's how the children Right. Learn from us too. We have to be excited about what we do.

Vance Crowe [00:33:08] Yeah. What do you do if you have children that you intrinsically have conflict with? Yep. That's, that's one of the challenges. Yeah.

Guest [00:33:18] But there is a, you know, there is a gift in that, right? Because that we needed to learn, we need to learn from that experience. Excuse

Vance Crowe [00:33:28] Me one second. Oh, sorry. Okay.

Guest [00:33:35] Oh, where were we?

Vance Crowe [00:33:36] We needed to,

Guest [00:33:37] Yes. Because that gives me as a teacher, or there's something more I need to learn.

Vance Crowe [00:33:46] Yeah, that's fair enough. I mean, I can't tell you how many times my parents would be like, oh, you just gotta get through this, you know? And then imagining like, well, you can get past that problem, that person that you're having conflict with, and then you're done. But regular life doesn't actually work that way. Not very often. Yep.

Guest [00:34:03] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:34:04] One, one other thing I'd like to say is that, you know, if we, if we get to teach the same thing over and over, we can really become experts in that subject. And that's, that's one thing that as I'm learning, learning the content, it's, it's all new. How to teach it is new. And I get to the end and say, oh, I would've done this and this differently, but I'm not going to do that for another nine years. So, but the trade off is, instead we get to really know the children. So instead of being content experts, we're experts in these children

Guest [00:34:38] Because the relationship is really the core of our teaching. I think as I teach more, I really feel much stronger about the relationship is everything. So yes, the children who might be challenging one year, maybe we need more than one year to have this healthy, good relationship to know about each other. And then things change. So yes, relationship is really the core for everything. The children needs to trust us and we need to earn that trust from them. And it might take a little longer. Some children are not a little Right. Anxious and doubtful. So it might take a little longer.

Vance Crowe [00:35:30] It's interesting because that would mean that teachers have some kind of a cycle, right? Much more of a natural life cycle. Not just that you have nine years until you teach that class again. But you may only do that three or four times in your life, right? Yep. That, that would actually be a career and shaped very differently than, oh, I'm in my 25th year of teaching fifth grade math. Yep. Yeah. At, at our conferences and trainings. If, if you hear, you'll sometimes hear, oh, they're on their third cycle, you know, oh, this person is experienced. So, and so at what point do, do Waldorf students start to moving into the classroom? Is it right when they hit second grade? They start doing that first grade. First grade, yep. Yeah. So what Mecho was talking about was now they are doing some practice for sitting, still learning how to use gentle voice and yeah, I'll just use the terms. I use walking feet inside gentle hands, gentle voice, how to sit up upright or at least in a way that's not harmful, and that they're not going to fall out of their chair. Yeah. And then we, we do begin with some inside time. Now, a lot, a lot of the work in grade one can be done outdoors and is done in movement for which it's nice to be outside 'cause you have much more space.

Vance Crowe [00:37:03] And then we, you know, we will practice some things quiet, some things loud, and it's nice to be able to be outside where it doesn't leave your ears ringing when a dozen children are loud. But yeah, then we go inside, we do some things. So, you know, in first grade we, we do a unit on the letters. So we do a couple on the letters to introduce them one at a time, usually through, well almost always through a story. So sometimes these stories will be, no, these stories will feature a particular sound or a particular letter very heavily. It's the usual way. So the story I did for m when I had my first grade vol vol, two characters who had then become kind of the core of all our letter stories, but they visited the magic misty mountains of the monkey monarch based on a Chinese tale about the monkey king. But monkey monarch, we get that alliteration guessing, you can hear what letter gets heavily featured there. And then we draw a picture of the mountain. And then in this particular story, they, the characters are learning magic and they then travel through the world learning more about it. But it's stored in ruins. And then we see hope from the mountain. There's the letter M. So then after the drawing, then we write out the more abstract capital m we also look at the hills leading to the mountain.

Vance Crowe [00:38:36] And there's your lowercase m So that, that would be the inside part. And I would have loved this, this would've fit me precisely the, the, because it seems like so much longer of an arc to, to connect with these things. And, and the imagery and stories like this would've been right up my alley. And the fact that w well, what it sounds like to me is that you are, you're not being, you're really open to the fact, like using words like monarch, right? Like that's not something that's done with little children, right. That that's a trusting that they can figure out that context and integrate that language into their world. Seems like the right way to behave. Yep. Yeah. It when good. Yeah. We, we do reading, more reading later, an advantage of that is when we're focused on oral telling, oral storytelling, we can bring words like that. Now, if you give a first grader a book and it has the word monarch, that's gonna be a challenge. You've got digraphs, you've got letters not making their usual sounds, but they hear it in context and now they know, oh, monarch, that's a word. And then do you attempt to get all 26 letters in during this first year? Yeah. So, so on on that particular stories, it was the first one. And I was introducing them to the format. We spent basically the whole week just on m and how we learn it after that.

Vance Crowe [00:40:08] Most, most of the stories were three days near the end as they really got into the rhythm, we could spend two days as they learned the last. And then, well, and vowels are, vowels are different thing. Consonants are well behaved. So we can get through those and moving on later. Also, sometimes a story would feature two. So one of them I did was based on a, I think it's a grims, but jack the valiant tailor where you have Jack and his boastful billowing banner. So jack's a bit of a troublemaker and thing you have to remember with Jay as he goes the wrong way. You read left to right, but Jay is shoes, he's looking the wrong way. And then boastful billowing banner, we got to draw that with a B. And yeah, in the story, he, it, it begins with him swatting seven flies. And, and saying, wow, do you know way I'm still hung up on the J going the wrong way because this never even crossed my mind that the letter faces the opposite direction of all the other letters. Yeah. It's a hard one to learn. I never thought of that. Okay, now, you know. Yeah. Keep going. This is fantastic. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, and so just explaining the boastful banner, he, he ends up swatting seven flies I think it is, and looks and he says, wow, with one strike I have killed seven. And so he writes that on a banner and then parades through the town.

Vance Crowe [00:41:41] And then he parades out of town into a new town where people don't know him and they say, wow, he's a great warrior. And they start calling him on all sorts of crazy quests. And anyway, because he's a trickster and a troublemaker, he build that idea in. So whenever I see a kid writing their j in the natural way, which is you read left to right, oh, you want to put the feet that way? Remember Jack's a troublemaker, God, he has to go the other way. Do you find, how do you find that this, I mean, you're in your system so it's hard for you to know what the other systems are, but how does this, how is this different from the way that most kids learn to read and write? Yeah. So yeah, I, I don't know so much about how, how it's done in the public school. I, I have heard there's much more of drilling and repeating things, as you mentioned, writing the same letter over and over, which we have ways of doing that that are a little more subtle. But yeah, you know, we, we tell the story and then we come up with words. We review it the next day, do something with it the day after, and then periodically come back to it. So yeah. Now granted the repetition is, as Mico said earlier, necessary to learning. And one challenge in the Waldorf School has been that often teachers don't do enough repetition. 'cause we are a little bit opposed to that. And also we want to get to the cool new things. So that is a balance we have to find of getting enough repetition.

Vance Crowe [00:43:14] So they have these things known, but not so much that they hate it. Because ultimately what we want is for them to love it. 'cause if I have to be there driving them to do it, when I go, they're not doing it. But if they love to read, if they want to read when, when they're ready and learning it and it's fun, then I give them books and say it's reading time. They do it on their own in class. They'll pull their books outta their desk and try to read and a little bit of a problem. 'cause we have other things we're doing. But it's great to see.

Guest [00:43:46] That's why we don't really force them when they're not quite ready. But then we really share this love of stories from when they're little and the sound, right? Yep. The fun, sound rhyming, all of that really. So that they will love to read eventually the stories. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:44:08] I mean, this is a really profound conversation for me because the people that I know that don't like to read often will say, I just don't really like stories. I just don't really, and I wonder if like, I'm, I'm connecting with the idea that it's all, it's very possible that the, the rote memorization and the divorcing reading from story really would make it so it reading is kind of like a punishment as opposed to like a capturing of a new way to understand stories.

Guest [00:44:37] The story they can read in kindergarten is probably not really fun, right. A dog is running, a baby is crying, I don't know. So those are not really story, but we can give them, if I do 15 minutes of storytelling, I can give them a lot more context than learning to read one sentence. Yep.

Vance Crowe [00:45:03] Yeah. But con conversely of course we warn parents about giving to advanced stories.

Guest [00:45:09] Sure.

Vance Crowe [00:45:10] Yep. Just because we want them to be still interested in these simpler stories that when they get to reading, they're, we don't want them to be reading something age appropriate and saying, well this is boring 'cause Yeah. Then, then it's not going to be fun to do that practice that they have to before they get to the,

Guest [00:45:29] So everything is brought in Asia appropriate way.

Vance Crowe [00:45:34] Yes.

Guest [00:45:35] So very, we are very conscious where they are developmentally what to bring, how we meet them and what speak to them, but not to push them too, too soon, too early. Yep.

Vance Crowe [00:45:46] So in the reading, are you still doing the, the spot the red dog went to the house? Like are you doing that kind of reading as well? In, in first, first or second you can do that. Yeah. If a kid needs that later, of course you would come back and do that kind of thing. But there you have the inverse problem where there you have the problem that the stories are too simple for them and they're gonna get bored with them. And then it's not rewarding. But yeah, we, we have certain books that we read to the class. We had, what was it? See can remember the name of one was Jen the Slug. She was a bug, she slithered through the mud. That one was really focusing on you. All these constant vowel consonant, regular words where they can then be employing, oh, this word makes this sound, this vowel makes this sound, this one, hey, we can get this word. And then there are the rhyming, building up this knowledge of rhyming is both helping them understand the pH names and then recognizing, okay, if this word ended in UD and made ud, oh, this word ud, this word has, so ud, I can't think of two that rhyme, but joke and bug. So yeah. And we're working on with my kids recently, if, if you hear two words that rhyme, they probably are spelled the same.

Vance Crowe [00:47:22] So the, the specific example was far and star there. So we'd written out far earlier and said, well, think about how far is spelled. So we're working on ar, and then well star that's a so and a T and then how did far end? So then they extend from there. So as children are coming up in the system, it's there. A lot of those things are natural progression. Can a child start Waldorf when they're eight or nine and still be okay into the system? Yeah. There, there will be a learning curve. And the one of one challenge I've seen is, you know, they, they can figure out the academics and in some areas they'll be ahead, other areas they, they'll be behind. Because we're, I, I wouldn't say we're advanced or less advanced overall, we're more different. But you know, they'll, they'll learn these things. And the challenge, so most of my teaching has been with the middle school where kid comes in in and the rest of the class has had six, seven, or eight years of doing things in particular way. So I'm used to not having to explain these things, but then a new kid comes in and it's reminds me how much we do that is new and different. So there is that challenge, but you know that at that age anyway, it takes one conversation showing them and then they can do it.

Vance Crowe [00:48:55] One, one of the bigger challenges is that the relationship isn't there. So you have to rebuild that. Yes. And

Guest [00:49:05] Yes, learning about the child. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:49:07] Both teacher and student relationship, but also student to others. 'cause the others sit so scared. Oh, interesting. Because it's not just that the kids are with the teacher together, but they are together and it's more akin to a one room schoolhouse than, than something. And there's something about the grades too, right? They're not the standard, just everybody is one grade, or isn't it two combined?

Guest [00:49:34] That's Yeah, that's, that's

Vance Crowe [00:49:35] Not our

Guest [00:49:35] School.

Vance Crowe [00:49:36] That's not Waldorf specifically. Okay. That's, that's because of our size. You know, most of our grades are, would be about six students on their own, which to make that work financially would be difficult. But, but there's also, when you have just 12 students, even though they're two grades apart, you can still meet all their needs and work with them. And you know, if you had 12 students all in one grade, you'd still have a range. So it's, you're still employing the same techniques that you would use to meet a range of students. Yeah. So, so we are combined pretty much. Well, in my eight years there, I've seen one grade that was standalone and they big

Guest [00:50:22] Enough too. Yep. Yeah. And the social experience too. Especially when they're together since kindergarten, if it's just six students in one class, yes. It's like siblings.

Vance Crowe [00:50:34] Yeah. It would be,

Guest [00:50:35] It's really hard to bring this school class feel. So that's another reason we combine the classes too. Yes. To have the bigger social experience. Again, we really, it is important for us to have them. That social experience.

Vance Crowe [00:50:51] Now, you guys had mentioned before about there being a moral teaching to school. You know, I think about the school teaching morality and it's like, whoa, I don't know that I want that. Yep. So tell me what this means and and how do you, how are you careful about that? Sure. So, so a lot of it, a lot of what we teach are things that I, I really hope are not controversial. You know, be kind to other people, follow through on what you say. When the elder tells you, don't go down that dark path, listen to the elder or you'll be eaten by a scary monster.

Guest [00:51:31] And then we do it through storytelling, a lot of stories. And we even in second grade where you don't really preach them, even you tell the story.

Vance Crowe [00:51:42] Yes.

Guest [00:51:43] Right. Yeah. So we try to really bring as a story and it kind of sit, let them sit with the story and hopefully that sense grows in them. Yep. The preaching really, sometimes we do have to tell the children of course, but that doesn't happen as much. It's more through the story and then also just being together as a group.

Vance Crowe [00:52:12] Yeah. So, so an example, going back to the m story, the one of the two characters in it, I called, I called him Red Egg, but in the source material, he's called egg born. 'cause he was born out of an egg, which that's unusual. And then he grows up quickly. But although he's now an adult who has prodigious strength and health, he is, he's very argumentative and fighting with the, the monks who took him in and always getting into arguments and always going too fast. And he's not able to get through the, all the perils of the magic Misty mountains until he finally slows down, takes his time, thinks about things. And when he encounters trouble, instead of storming off as he did the first time, he said looks and says, oh, I see how to solve that. And then he takes another route. You know, that's, that's moral teaching in there of, of patience, of thoughtfulness.

Guest [00:53:20] And then because and Waldorf schools teachers, we do have scope and sequence, right? Yeah. What we want to teach in this grade, we do have that. But then how we bring that content is really up to the teachers. So this Misty Mountain, often I feel like I've heard many first grade teacher use that words, but he can make up his own story to meet the needs of the class. Or I can make up my own story to meet the needs of the class. If they're struggling to share, maybe I can come up with a story of little animal creatures who's struggling to share, you know, those kind of thing. We can try to meet the needs of the children sat in subtle way through story. So that's the freedom we have.

Vance Crowe [00:54:10] Yeah. As I'm, as I'm hearing you, I'm thinking you must have trust with the parents as well in the sense that, you know, many people wanna know, like, just tell me what you're gonna do and I'll just, you know, mark this checklist off. Yes, they've done these things, but you are saying if you're gonna be responsive, that means you've gotta change constantly. You've gotta use stories. Like tell me about the relationship of the Montessori teacher with the parents or Waldorf? Waldorf. Waldorf. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, there, there definitely is an element of mentioned ev every teacher will bring it their own way. There's, she also mentioned scope and sequence, which is our list of things we're hoping they'll do. So for example, by by third grade we expect they'll know their times tables out of order as well as in order. By second grade we expect them to know the times. Tables sequentially would be one. Now how I bring that will be different. So I mentioned we, we have a poem we do where we go through each of the number families one through 12, and then we're doing jump rope where we jump. But instead of counting one, two, we'll count 3, 6, 9 or whatever number we're working on. Jessica Derman, who teaches, she's got six and seven this year, Erma, she, she came up with her class parodies of Christmas songs where they sang some verse to it and then found ones that the number families fit into, but then singing it to the tune.

Vance Crowe [00:55:52] So, so that's one way. So both of us taught the number families practiced multiplication tables. We did it in different ways, right.

Guest [00:55:59] We could go get there in a different way because we have different children in the classroom. Yep. So that's, but then we have goal for the year. And then again, the benefit of having carrying the class over years, maybe there may be children who needs extra time to get there. The teachers, teachers know teachers are aware to, so that where you can pick up. Yep. So that's another benefit. Do we don't have to have, spend the time two months figuring out where they are or what we left off last year. Yep. So, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:56:37] And there is a lot of communication, right

Guest [00:56:39] Between

Vance Crowe [00:56:39] The grades one, one tradition is the first grade teacher does weekly or biweekly or monthly phone calls with the parents just to check in and not, you know, not just when there's something wrong, but just doing it every week. And you know, sometimes those are very quick calls if yeah, everything's the same, he's doing well, how are you at home? You know, talk with the parents and build relationships. And in the upper grades when we start getting to things that could be controversial there, we, in our parent meetings, which we have a couple of each year, we do talk about that together. So, you know, seventh grade we talk about physiology of reproduction and puberty and all the relationships and all the consent, all the things that tie in with that. So I really need the parents to know what I'm going to talk about. And now then eighth grade we get into modern history. Now there's, there's ugly parts of that. We talk about civil rights and why that was necessary. Talk about the second World war, the rise of fascism. These are parts of history that we feel by eighth grade student is ready to begin grappling with. One of our themes that year is the balance in things which not saying, not saying fascism is a kind of balance we need to balance with, but you know, the balance of freedom of democracy versus having someone just tell you what to do, which is much easier. You know, that's why Kings were so popular for so long.

Vance Crowe [00:58:11] Part of the reason. So yeah, I think that, and then another thing we have is festivals, mandatory festivals, which we, we make them, we try to make them fun. Everyone has a good time. But also that's, that's the time we all get together and get to meet. So tell me about the festivals. What is, what are, what is a festival? How do you choose which ones to celebrate? What goes on? Yeah. Well we, we choose, because these are the ones we've been doing for a while.

Guest [00:58:43] The tradition is for one reason.

Vance Crowe [00:58:46] Yeah. Yeah. Occasionally we'll drop one or try a new one or, but more often we just change something and see what it works. You just did the Harvest Festival, right? Yeah. That's a, that's

Guest [00:58:56] A newer one

Vance Crowe [00:58:57] And it's Oh really? Yeah. And it's a outreach event rather than a proper,

Guest [00:59:02] That's a more wider community. We invite wider community to, to that event. But it is really Yeah. Celebrating the season. Yep. In different way.

Vance Crowe [00:59:14] Yeah. So, and before that, as one of our owns, we had our, what we've called Michel Mess, A Festival of Courage. It's what we're celebrating there. So that one, we go out to the farm of one of the founders of the school who's continued to let us hold it there. There's a play that's put on by the oldest class. So typically in honor of that day because it falls around the feast of Saint Martin's

Guest [00:59:44] Mar Saint Mike Kyle.

Vance Crowe [00:59:46] Hi Kyle. Thank you. Thank you Martin. This is the next one. Saint Mike Kyle's.

Guest [00:59:50] So this is a story that base, it's very traditional story, I guess. So Slaying of the Dragon by semi Kyle. So that's the picture we carry is good, conquers the bad. And we need the courage to face the darkness. That is really the theme of the festival. So we call, another name of the festival is Festival Courage. We are trying to really go by this virtue.

Vance Crowe [01:00:23] Yes.

Guest [01:00:24] So festival of college, we, we just celebrated. And then in November we have the

Vance Crowe [01:00:31] Martin or the

Guest [01:00:32] Yes. Martinus Festival

Vance Crowe [01:00:33] Of Compassion.

Guest [01:00:34] Compassion for sharing because St. Martin. Yep. Yeah. St.

Vance Crowe [01:00:39] Martin of Tours was famous for, he found, found a poor man outside the city. He was going to die in the cold. So he cut his cloak into, so he'd have a, have a blanket to keep him warm enough.

Guest [01:00:53] So we celebrate that festival every year. And then you do the court drive. Yep. Or a food drive, something like that so that we can really share this spirit of this Yep. Festival. Yeah. So we have community.

Vance Crowe [01:01:08] Yeah. So we have the, we're, we're doing a coach and heater drive this year. That's what the group we work with says they're in native of. But then also we have a night where we gather the second grade class puts on a, a play. We're doing a story of St. Martin this year. And then after that we also do a lantern walk, which is a German tradition. So the kids all make lanterns in the weeks leading up to it. So different ways, you know, you can decorate a glass jar and make a handle. You can take a paper bag and cut out shapes and put over colored tissue paper, which lots of different ways you can do it. And then we walk around, walk around the school ground, singing songs

Guest [01:01:55] In the evening. So we have those kind of festival maybe few times a year. And then we do celebrate most every year. There are core festival that we celebrate every year. It's an opportunity really for us to stop and really look at what's happening and take time to really live in that virtue during that time. And then also for the children. What a hmm. Relief or secure, secure feeling. They have to celebrate same festival over and over and over and they know, oh, after this festival it'll be this festival.

Vance Crowe [01:02:40] Yeah. Marking time in a way that's important.

Guest [01:02:43] It is. And for a year so, right. Especially now, it's so much unknown. It's so nice to be able to celebrate the festival actually last two years. Even in pandemic time when everyone was trying. Right. We needed to be separate for a long time, but we still try to celebrate in a way that we can do. And that really gave us this strength and feel of security. Yes. Word is going around another year and we are okay. And then that really is a great feeling for the children to have. And then community,

Vance Crowe [01:03:20] I think traditions like, so I grew up in a family of seven kids. Oh. And you know, my parents probably to keep their sanity, put traditions in on everything. And I just assumed everyone had that. But that really marked time. And when you leave those traditions all of a sudden, yeah, you can watch the trees changing, you know, color over time, but you're really disconnected from it because we live in climate controlled houses, so you can't tell when it's hotter or colder. We have lights. So if it's getting darker out, doesn't really matter to you. Traditions are the thing that keep you connected with the fabric of things.

Guest [01:03:57] Yes. Especially for the children. It's really very impactful.

Vance Crowe [01:04:03] When I was touring the school, I remember walking into one of the rooms and they were preparing for the annual play, and they had a picture of a sewing machine on the chalkboard. Oh. And I was like, oh my gosh. That is like a real schematic of how a sewing machine works. Yep. Talk about that because that's like a fundamental part of Sure. Of the education. Yep. Yeah. That would've been a eighth grade class. So, you know, we, we go to machine sewing. One of our, our theme in history that year, one of them is industrialization. So the sewing machine being a big part of that. So, but then in physics, we've als we've looked at the simple machines in seventh grade, looked at electromagnetism sometime between seventh and eighth. And from the simple machines, what they know about that, you can now understand every part of a sewing machine. That's not to say, we go through and say, well, here's the pin, here's the, here's the gear shaft. Or, but you have an intuitive sense of it. Yeah. By the time you've gotten there. Yeah. But you can see, oh, this part pushes this part. It repeats this thing. Yeah. And then s big part of that also is teaching them how to use it. Again, going back to the practical, because they've been doing hand sewing since kindergarten, and now we get, we get the machine out, we show, well, here's the things you have to keep in mind now when you have your pins, you don't want the needle to hit the pin because then you break your sewing machine. Needle. So you have to pull those out as you're going along.

Vance Crowe [01:05:35] Now here's how you keep your fingers safe, although they've got the foot that should do that. And then when something goes wrong, here's the things you can start looking at. So really teaching them how to use it. Because they're, they're, they're a little tricky

Guest [01:05:48] To learn. Yeah. It's really connected. Whole curriculum is connected hand work. We do hand work. Yep. But that also is connected with the main lesson is how we call it. Because Yes. That he talked about this history they learn is very appropriate to bring the machine at time so it's not separated. Everything is connected. And then be intentionally broad.

Vance Crowe [01:06:13] Yeah. And it, some teachers will also have the eighth grade handwork project be building sewing costumes for their place. So might have also been seeing that that's exactly what they were doing. Okay. And so they're preparing for their play and then they're thinking about costumes and learning how to construct those costumes. And they, they wrote the play themselves too, or something along those lines. Right. Or I could be wrong. They might have, yeah. Yeah. They do that sometimes. So the, it would be that a child would, a child that is artistic would be very successful in the Waldorf program. Can all children be artistic? You're shaking your head Yes,

Guest [01:06:55] I think so. On their own way.

Vance Crowe [01:06:57] Yeah. You know, not, not everyone's going to be a great, great portraitist because that, you know, to really get to a high level, you have to practice outside of school and put a lot of effort when you're in school. And not all the children will be interested in that. You know, some, some will be more interested in netting, some will be more interested in clay and sculpting.

Guest [01:07:20] Yeah. But they have opportunity to experience all of those things. Yeah. And work language. Right. Different, two, two different languages. They learn, we have movement, I think. And of course music is part of it. Art is also part of the lesson. It's not separated. It's really part of our lesson. And they all experience these arts. Everyone will,

Vance Crowe [01:07:43] Yes.

Guest [01:07:44] They all learn how to play violin. They all learn how to play recorder. Wait.

Vance Crowe [01:07:48] They all learn how to play violin? Yes. Whoa. Or record. Say more about that.

Guest [01:07:54] Well, they start recorder in

Vance Crowe [01:07:56] First grade.

Guest [01:07:57] Yes. In first grade. And in third grade they do violin. Yep.

Vance Crowe [01:08:01] Yeah. And so recorder, both as, as a first instrument, we, we typically bring the pentatonic recorder, which has a few fewer notes so you don't move all your fingers. But, so addition to learning kind of the basics of how we use a musical instrument and you know, how most importantly, how to not make noise with it. That is the first lesson, but then have to hold it a certain way. Make sure your left hand's on top, your right, hand's on bottom. And then getting control of the fingers. That, that's a skill for the young ones of just lift this finger. Yeah. Not, not both of them. Just one and not this one. So, and now that, that then helps with all the other fine motor things we do. So, and then in, we, we've typically done third grade. We're trying, starting them in second grade this year they'll start violin. And then that will continue on until I think fifth grade when they're introduced to viola and cello. And then in sixth, seventh, eighth, they get to choose whichever one of those instruments. And then they do that in the orchestra class. So do all Waldorf teachers then need to know how to play the violin in order to be a teacher? We have, we have a, we have a music teacher come in here.

Guest [01:09:20] Well, although I know he can play. I mean, some teachers are able to play.

Vance Crowe [01:09:25] You can play because you learned in school presumably. Yep. Okay. Yeah. And there, I mean, in, in grades teaching, there's a recommendation to learn a bit about everything your students will be doing. So yeah.

Guest [01:09:36] A recorder we can all play

Vance Crowe [01:09:38] Too. Yes. Yeah.

Guest [01:09:39] Yes. We will have to learn that.

Vance Crowe [01:09:41] Yep.

Guest [01:09:43] But I think exposing to all these things, the children are not necessarily good at everything, but they'll find something they can shine, I think, shine, you know? And then I think that they respect each other in that way. And then they feel, okay, I'm not as good as maybe drawing so and so, or, or he's so good at this. I think they're really respecting each other in that way. Like to, going back to your question of what if one child is not a good artist, but I think they can all find something they are good at or they like or they can proud of.

Vance Crowe [01:10:23] How many of the kids that start in the young classes go all the way up till your school goes to the eighth grade?

Guest [01:10:31] Through

Vance Crowe [01:10:31] The eighth grade? Yeah. Yeah.

Guest [01:10:34] It really depends on the class. I would say some class really goes strong from kindergarten all the way up to eighth grade. Some class lose and gain along the way. So it's difficult to say. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:10:50] I think the last class I graduated, I think most of them had been together since kind kindergarten, some of them since before that. And then the rest of them had joined in the early grades, other than the one who joined, I think in fifth or sixth grade. So in that case, it was a large amount of the class. So surely you must, your school system is so different than other systems. Surely you must hear criticisms about what you do. What's the, what are some of the criticisms you've heard and how, how do you think about them? Sure. So I mentioned the not doing enough repetition is one. And you know, there's, especially as you get well, both early on with them being worried, oh, my kid's in first grade, but not reading yet. And then later as they're getting into sixth, seven and eight of, oh, will they be ready for high school? They're not doing this thing in algebra yet. So there's a lot of, that I would say is concerns and Yeah. And the St. Louis system high school is a very big deal here for, for where did you go to high school? Are outside of St. Louis. They don't realize, like, here it's as big of a deal as what college did you go to? It's what high school do. Kids that are going to Waldorf have trouble getting into the high school that they need to get into, wanna get into? You're shaking your head no.

Vance Crowe [01:12:22] Like I'm crazy. You think so? So most don't.

Guest [01:12:26] No, no. Most don't.

Vance Crowe [01:12:27] Yeah. I, I, I, sorry. I thought the question you were gonna ask is do they have trouble in high school? Which I was going to say, there is one complaint we get consistently, which is they're not prepared for the amount of homework. So I wasn't prepared for the amount of homework when I got to high school either. Yep.

Guest [01:12:43] Think no one was

Vance Crowe [01:12:44] Prepared school. We're also not gonna give the kids three or four hours of homework in eighth grade, just so they can go to high school and say, oh, this is the same.

Guest [01:12:53] But getting into high school and doing well in high school is not really a question.

Vance Crowe [01:13:03] I mean, if people are just listening to this, they should see your face because you're just like, it's not really a que like, so, so like, I, I appreciate that. I,

Guest [01:13:11] I do think though, what do you want for your child? What do you want for your child? Who do you want this child to be?

Vance Crowe [01:13:19] To me, I want my daughter, the only one that I can really say very much about, 'cause one is three months, and the other's two years, the 2-year-old. Like, she's so curious and so interested in what's going on around her that I want that to go as long as we possibly can, because eventually she'll hit some point where there's a tempering between your curiosity and producing work. But I don't need that to be any time now. And it frightens me to think about my parents put me in a great school. They, you know, I, but like most of my education probably came from my six siblings, which violet's not going to have. Right. And so finding a way to extend this period of time where whatever she is most curious about, she's able to pursue and to give her access to understanding art in a way that I cannot give to her. I, I don't have it. It wasn't cult encultured in me. And I, when I hear you say like, I'm a little bit like, I'm not sure I want to air this 'cause I don't want people competing for whatever spots are at that Waldorf school.

Guest [01:14:30] Yes. I think it's maybe my face. Right. What do you mean by doing well? Right. I feel like our students go out into the world with knowing who they are, what they want to do. And then I think with this feeling of, I want to contribute to the world, I dunno, I might be just think it too big, but it, there is a feeling in eighth graders who's going to high school. Like, I, I'm, I'll be fine. And then I, I know what I can do and I will be fine. I think that's such a gift in this world of anxiety and all of these things that they're facing. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:15:22] A feeling that if, if there's a problem though,

Guest [01:15:24] I can solve it. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:15:26] Something I want to learn, eh, I'll go read about it. I'll do the research, you know, oh, I see something needs to be done, I'll go do it. And you feel like you're, the education that you received, like that's what you really learned. Like it sounds like a self-determination. Right? Like the ability to, to decide the path and be able to make your way that way. Yeah. Did you know when you were leaving eighth grade that you wanted to be a Waldorf teacher? I, I knew I did not want to be a middle school or elementary teacher. Did not want anything to do with that. So, yeah.

Guest [01:16:02] Don't you enjoy middle school teaching though? Right?

Vance Crowe [01:16:06] Yeah. And, and now I found, I find I really love it. Yeah. No, let's see. High school, what did I want to do? Yeah. At some point I was pretty sure I wanted to be either emergency medicine or he oncology were my interests. Hema oncology, so that would be blood and cancer. Okay. And did you pursue those things? Well, I, when, when I started going into college, I was a little, I became more interested in kind of disaster response. So that pushed me more towards emergency medicine. But I found I get very woozy around blood even reading about it. Really? Yes. Well, that would be a problem in emergency medicine. That is a problem also for hemo. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I just remembered some other dreams I had, but that, that was it in college. And, but I, I did think I wanted to do, do something with the sciences and I thought renewable energy, that, that could be interesting. I, I've had a love of astronomy for a long time, so I figured, hey, that's physics. So shifted over to physics and as one of the gen ed, I went to a liberal arts college and needed a gen ed. And one of the options for one of the flags, I think they called them, was a education course, introduction to Education. I said, you know, that might be interesting.

Vance Crowe [01:17:39] Were you surprised about what you learned about education since you had been in the Waldorf system? Well, there was a bit, but also I didn't go to a Waldorf High School, so I What high school did you go to? Crossroads? I don't know any of the St. Louis High schools. Okay. Doesn't mean anything to me. Okay. Yep. Yeah, it's up in Forest Park. Okay. Down the street from the History Museum. Okay. So, yeah. Anyway, so talked to lots of students there and my, my class was actually the first graduating class with Waldorf School. So there was no one else who had been to the Waldorf School before. So, right. I had, I got to explain to lots of my classmates what the Waldorf School was. And that really gave me a insight into how it was different. Oh yeah. 'cause kids will really tell you. Yep. Oh, we didn't do that. Oh yeah. Yep. Yeah. And then also all of the, all of the kind of habits I picked up in Waldorf. So for example, when we do sciences, part of the science class is you clean up after the experiment, you know, just like in the early grades you put set things up, put them away. Yeah. Toys away. Yeah. Yeah. We continue after the labs, you clean out the jars, you can, unless you are leaving something for tomorrow. So in high school chemistry, I just assumed we would all stay and clean the lab afterwards. That was not the expectation. So, yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:19:13] So is it, are people knocking down the door to go to Waldorf school? How, how is, how is enrollment, how does this look compared to other things?

Guest [01:19:24] No, not really. No. So, well for early childhood, I feel

Vance Crowe [01:19:30] Yeah, there's lots Wait, wait list. Lot of parents can wrap their minds around it. Doing it at early childhood. Yeah. And in grades, the program is much smaller and has shrunk a lot in the last two years. So we have spots there. And what about the teacher side of it? I would imagine that teaching that you're describing would be very attractive to certain kind of person.

Guest [01:19:54] Yes. If you

Vance Crowe [01:19:55] Yes.

Guest [01:19:56] Want creativity or your talent to be really used because you can really bring your strengths in your teaching. Yep. Yes, definitely. And if, and if you love teaching, but not quite really interested in teaching in a mainstream way. Definitely. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:20:19] You started off as a substitute teacher, right? Yes,

Guest [01:20:21] I would. And

Vance Crowe [01:20:22] How then did the path go for you? How did you'd come over from Japan? You started subbing at your children's school and now how did you go on to becoming,

Guest [01:20:33] I don't know. Well, I know actually. So one of the founding teacher told me, you know, Mitchell, I think you have, what did she say? You have the quality that's hard to be trained. You have, you should be a Waldorf teacher. And then that is some really nice compliment, really nice thing to hear from someone who I respected. And then maybe I should really try and see how I like it or not. And that's how I started.

Vance Crowe [01:21:11] And then the education path for you to become a teacher. There isn't

Guest [01:21:15] One. So no, I was not interested. That was 1, 1, 1 job I thought I would never consider is a teaching, especially with the little children.

Vance Crowe [01:21:28] That's amazing to me because it seems like you were born to do this when I saw you in action.

Guest [01:21:35] I'm not sure. But yes, now I do. I do. I really do love it. And I feel, hmm, this is the way I can contribute. So yes, the youngest children are important and I do feel this is what I want to do. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:22:01] What is the education path? How does someone become, do you have to get certified to be a Waldorf teacher? Yeah,

Guest [01:22:07] There are training programs mostly post and there is one, two actually. One in Chicago and one in Milwaukee too. It's usually three to four year program. Part-time,

Vance Crowe [01:22:22] Part-time. Part-time.

Guest [01:22:23] 'cause

Vance Crowe [01:22:24] You're teaching the rest of

Guest [01:22:24] Time, right? So you are usually teaching. So three weeks in the summer, one week each in spring and fall. And you do student teaching, practicum observation, field work, these things too.

Vance Crowe [01:22:38] Yeah. So, so there's the, there, there's certification programs, which are often for teachers who are already teaching. So, and then in addition, most most teachers will do grades. Teachers will do a yearly course on about the content and the year they're about to teach. So this summer I did a, we, we call those intensivess. I I did a grade three intensive. 'cause I taught grades one and two last year. So I did the grade two then. So I knew where, where the grade two child is. Things had been refreshed kind of about what, what the usual curriculums are, suggestions for how to bring it. So then this year I studied on grade three. So now I have those two in recent memory to draw on and apply to my teaching. Now when a teacher goes to a class on teaching Waldorf, are you guys playing outside and doing jumping with numbers? Or how, how does the class actually get structured?

Guest [01:23:40] It, it, it's pretty much like that. We do have morning, yes, we have morning lecture, we have movement class, we have arts. We all have to take music class, clay painting, hand work for childhood teachers puppetry as storytelling. Yes. And then sometimes yes, play outside maybe. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:24:02] No, a lot of that is to teach the practice doing the things you're going to do. So yeah, we don't, with, with the children, I might do a particular movement and poem combination for a month, but we won't, we won't do that in our training. We'll do that for one day or maybe a week. So to really get the feeling for this is the kind of thing you can expect for a third grade student to be challenged with at a good level. And, and then the teacher also models. So I see you're not doing it quite correctly. Here's how I would work with a third grade child. And then they model that. Oh, so 'cause you're actually doing it, right? Yep. Yeah. And then, you know, there's things that would be hard, you know, like try to write a description of tying your shoe. It's hard. Show someone you can do that and you can show 'em how to do that. But you know, in first grade we have things called the zoo exercises, which are difficult to explain, but

Guest [01:25:01] That's an intentional movement.

Vance Crowe [01:25:03] Yes. So moving in the ways of certain animals in certain ways. So those, yeah, we, we get down on the ground, we walk like a walrus. We

Guest [01:25:13] Yes, we

Vance Crowe [01:25:14] Roll in certain ways. Yep.

Guest [01:25:16] Bear, walk, all kind of things. Yes, we do a lot of things. So it is fun and intense. The teacher training is, but still, even after three years or four years of training, you feel like you're just scratching the surface. You just have enough to start. So our research and our study really start from there almost because the children are different every year. And we have to meet our students that we have here.

Vance Crowe [01:25:51] Both of you are unique and like immediately recognize it. Right? It's, you know, the way you carry yourself. Both of you have a certain tone of voice, but you're also, you know, different. Right. You're different from just the regular person that you would find on the street.

Guest [01:26:06] I don't know.

Vance Crowe [01:26:07] You don't think so? Is this a surprise to you? That, that I would say that, that, that, I mean, you talked about eating okra in the morning that you, you picked and before we got started, and you said before, you know, I was looking for a place where I could buy beeswax crayons for my children. So both of you intuitively know you're, you're at least a little bit different than are the students when they come out. Is a function of the education make them different or I don't know the right way to ask this question. I'm not trying to offend you. I'm just saying you're different. Yep. Do kids come out as different and I think what a parent might be thinking is weird. Do they come out as weird? Yep. Yeah. So, so yes. Was, I'm, I'm hearing your question not, yes, they come out weird. But you know, there, there is an element of that because we really encourage them to be themselves and to accept each other for who they are. So I, I can say when we have children join in the later grades from, from public schools, that there is a bit of a culture shock with them of coming in and finding these things. You know? So for example, the word we, the word nerd is not used other in a serious manner. So, so that, that was something new to one of the kids is that they could talk about their nerdy things and other kids would be interested and say, yeah, tell me more. That they didn't have to hide that they loved dinosaurs and toxicology that the other kids just said.

Vance Crowe [01:27:44] That's neat.

Guest [01:27:47] Yes, I think so. Yeah. Weird is not a bad Yes thing. It's unique and you, everyone should be different. And then we accept that difference. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:27:59] Yeah. And I think when you get, oh, go ahead. Yeah. And then just speaking as a Waldorf kid going into high school there, there was also a culture shock for me. The thing I I most remember is what, what I think now is called verbal sparring, but where friends will say mean things to each other in a joking way, which that was not at all part of my middle school culture. So I, I remember my first day in kind of the freshman common areas, and I saw these three guys sitting next to each other just absolutely insulting each other. And I went, I thought, wow, these people are complete jerks. Why are they so mean? But then over the year I learned, oh, they're friends, they're joking. This is part of how they play. Yeah. Part of how they tell each other things that they can't say in a, in a, in a verbose way. Yep. What are the things, what's a i I I feel like there's so much to the school and the system and the ideas that you have. Sometimes people, when I go look up criticisms, they, they say, oh, the guy that started that, he was really pretty, pretty off the wall guy. I don't know, are you sure you wanna do that? Yeah. What do you think about that? Sure. Yeah. I, I would say yes, he had, he had many ideas that aren't correct. I, I would first point them to one of the quotes from him in one of the last books he wrote where he said, this is my understanding. If, if anything, if anything I've said turns out to be wrong, disregard it.

Vance Crowe [01:29:36] Give it only as much importance as you would fairytales of old. He also specifically talking about is more, I guess I would say spiritual ideas. He said, you know, think about these things yourself. Think about them deeply. And this is the part I can remember because anyone who accepts my ideas without thinking about them is useless. That's great. I love that. Yes. That's a big thing he never

Guest [01:30:03] Wanted, this is not religion. Yep. It feels, you feel this religious feel almost, especially in, because we respect and the re reverence is important for us. Right. Respect that brings naturally kind of religious feeling maybe in the classroom. But then this is not religion. He doesn't want us to believe in him. Yep. He want us to think on our own and a question and find our answer.

Vance Crowe [01:30:32] Yeah. So, you know, he had some, he had some ideas. Now, I mean, when I read through his writings, I, as a scientific minded person, I see lots of scientific things that are just wrong. And, you know, those are fine. We can ignore them. Some, some of those he uses as a basis for how to teach. So then we have to be very careful. So for instance, when he was talking about why we, why to teach drawing instruction this way, he relied on a theory of how the eye works that now we know is, or we're pretty sure is not true. All current research points to it not being true. So now when I look at that method, which has continued to be used, I have to say, well, is there merit in this method? Now, now Steiner died a hundred years ago and we've had a hundred plus years of practice. So that has continued tells me there, it it at least isn't terrible. Yeah. Your explanation is to why something works is not always the same as that it works. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. An example that I bring up in later grades is there was a fellow in I think the late 18 hundreds who predicted global warming, but the chemistry he was basing it on was later shown to not be true. So his idea was thrown out, but then later it turns out well he had the right idea, just the wrong reasoning. Yeah. And you know, Steiner also had some ideas about medicine that we would say aren't right.

Vance Crowe [01:32:04] So there's one passage where he talked about, for a child with this condition, give them water sweetened with lead, which we would say, Nope, don't do that. Yeah. That, that's only gonna cure a certain kind of condition. Right?

Guest [01:32:17] Yep.

Vance Crowe [01:32:17] Yeah.

Guest [01:32:18] That's part of the reason we have to keep, really do our own research and study as teachers too. And then go to training. And those conversation happens in trainings too. Yep. So as a movement we are aware.

Vance Crowe [01:32:34] Yes. And you think of this as a movement, then

Guest [01:32:37] It's

Vance Crowe [01:32:38] Tell me more,

Guest [01:32:39] Isn't it?

Vance Crowe [01:32:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's bringing this idea that it's, it's not just about, not just about academics or the academics. It's not just about ca how soon can we get this kid doing calculus? Not just about let's bring in physical education and art because kids who do those perform better at the academics. Let's, let's not bring in, let's not have them do chores because that's a easy time that we don't need specialists for and that reduces our cost and keeps the place clean. No, it's because all these things are good and healthy and beneficial for the child in their own right. That we want children who can affect the world around them to make it a more beautiful place. Who can think clearly, who can feel deeply, drink deeply from the cup of life, but not let it overwhelm them who can be good people.

Guest [01:33:32] Yes. Good people. Well, the world. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:33:36] I love that. I don't think we could actually have a better closing than that. Is there anything I didn't ask this, this has been a wonderful conversation

Guest [01:33:45] Unless you want to go

Vance Crowe [01:33:47] Yeah. I

Guest [01:33:47] Overnight.

Vance Crowe [01:33:49] Yeah. I, I enjoy talking about this. And if you wanna talk middle school, we could talk a long time about that.

Guest [01:33:55] Yeah. But Right.

Vance Crowe [01:33:56] Yep. Well, this has been wonderful. If, if people have found themselves struck by the idea of Waldorf education, what should be their next step?

Guest [01:34:08] Visit our website.

Vance Crowe [01:34:10] Yep. If they're local, the

Guest [01:34:12] Waldorf School of St. Louis, we are in Webster Grove, north Webster Grove. Yes. We have walk and talk tour every month. And then I think open house in January. Just please go to website and call our school. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:34:29] I did the walk and talk in, I would, I was doing it just to see what's right for our child, but I would recommend it for anybody that's just curious about a different way of thinking. It was like seeing a living museum in some way and then your program that had a, I mean, just the one time that I went, maybe I went twice, it changed the way, the nature with which how we interacted with our daughter in a very positive way. So I, I could not say it is

Guest [01:34:58] The parent, parent child class.

Vance Crowe [01:34:59] Yeah. The parent child class. That, that's, we came and we made bread and did all of that.

Guest [01:35:05] Thank you. That's a reward for me to hear that.

Vance Crowe [01:35:09] Oh, it certainly did. I mean the nature with which, how we spoke to Violet, how we called our attention, not by raising our voice, but by going quieter and by singing songs like it, it helped me to understand my daughter in a way that I didn't before. So thank you and thank you guys for coming by after a long day of school and being outside. So thank you so much for coming, coming

Guest [01:35:29] On. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.