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Three teachers from Washington’s Spring Mountain School, one of two schools in the state offering a Woldorf curriculum, are bringing freshly integrated ideas and concepts to the new school year, which begins Wednesday, Sept. 7.
Each of the teachers attended different summer continuing Waldorf education programs.
Spring Mountain founder Bethany Craig spent the month of July at Antioch New England Graduate School’s Experienced Educator Waldorf Certificate Program. Her range of studies in child development and the corresponding curriculum reflected the holistic approach inherent in Waldorf education.
Craig, who is moving from Nursery to teach First Grade this year, took such courses as Philosophy, Geometry, Speech, Clay Modeling, Music and Flute Playing and Evolving Consciousness.
In describing the experience, Craig explained how Waldorf provides a context for learning with a rooted understanding of life itself. When children study Speech, for example, said Craig, they learn that speech is creation. Within a framework of Lyric, Dramatic, or Epic Speech, different creative modes are enlivened in the child.
“Lyric prose or poetry is spoken more with the lips,” said the teacher and mother of two. “This enlivens the imagination and the feeling of life.
“Drama comes from the hard pallet, which enlivens the intellectual life of the child.”
“Epic speech enlivens the will and limbs.”
Craig’s first grade children will explore these various elements of speech through such activities as storytelling and play enactment.
Music in grades one through three is based on what is called the panatonic scale, which eliminates the dissonant notes C (male) and F (female). “This harmony helps pull children up,” said Craig, who has been dutifully practicing her panatonic flute.
Spring Mountain’s new third and fourth grade teacher, Mike Dunnigan, attended the Waldorf Institute
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