Hello and welcome to another Sunday with Sarah. I'm Sarah Baldwin and I'm here
today to talk to you about some of the philosophy behind Waldorf education and
the seven-year cycles in human development that the founder of Waldorf
education, Rudolf Steiner, talked about. Now, when I first heard these ideas 25
years ago when I began my Waldorf teacher training, the ideas seemed
different to me but now they make so much sense after all my years watching
so many children grow and having taught so many classes. So, I hope to describe it in
a way to you that makes it simple and easy to understand. So if you think about
a child's first seven years of life, so much goes on during that period. So a
baby comes into the world, they are kind of at one with their mother, and at one
with the world. And their physical bodies are still developing. It begins in the womb
but after birth the child's inner organs are are still forming. Their bones are
growing and getting stronger. The end of this period is usually marked by the
change of teeth and the child losing their baby teeth and the adult teeth
coming in. And in Waldorf education this is the period of time, these first seven
years, that's approached with goodness. We talk
about goodness, beauty and truth. And so these first seven years we are trying to
teach the child that the world is a good, safe and loving place and
that's the kind of environment we want to create for them in a preschool or
kindergarten and that I would encourage you to try to create at home, feeling
like they came into a kind and loving world. This is one reason we use fairy
tales in these early years, because
fairytales always have a lesson that good always overcomes evil which is
very satisfying for a young child. During this period, these first
seven years, a child really needs to be in movement. This is one reason we don't
teach academics in a traditional way during these first seven years
because a child is learning through moving his body, through jumping and
skipping and swinging and climbing rocks and also through fine motor skills so we
teach them how to sew and they draw and we actually know now that a child's
brain is developing through large motor movement and through
small motor movement. By the end of this seven-year period, a lot of the
physical body is now formed. The child is ready to separate more from the mother
and become more of an individual and modern research has confirmed that this
is an age, you know six going on seven, that a child now is ready to sit at a
desk for a longer period of time and focus. So in Waldorf education this is
when the academic work of learning the alphabet and learning math ideally would
begin. Trying to force it, I've talked about this in other videos, trying to
force that earlier can sometimes be really detrimental to a child when the
different areas (physical, emotional, cognitive) haven't all caught up. By the
age of seven, they're entering a new phase of life where those areas are
caught up and this is the age to begin academic learning. And this is the age of
beauty. This is the age when a child's imaginative life really comes to life.
They're living in a world of imagination and we want to feed that. And their
feelings: it's a period of life where their feelings really
come into play and we want to feed those those feelings by surrounding them with
beauty. So in Waldorf education we give them
beautiful art materials, real art materials, really good quality watercolor
paints and beeswax crayons and good paper and teach them handwork.
They learn to knit with real wool yarn and natural materials and this all
feeds that child's yearning for beauty. And so this phase of human
development lasts from 7 to 14. During that period, there's what we talk
about is the nine-year change and this is a period where a young child is at
one with the world and thinks that the world is, you know, a good place and
it's when they tend to become aware that there's also evil in the world and it's
when they start to individuate some from the parent. A lot of children at this age
think they can't possibly be related to their parents, they must be adopted. It's
an awakening, it's kind of like a mini adolescence. So that's something to be
aware of if your child is approaching or in their ninth year, like 8 turning 9.
And then another major shift happens at the age of 14. So the next period is 14
to 21 and this is the age of truth. We talked about goodness, beauty and truth.
Starting at the age of 14, this is when the growing child or young adult
starts to really question what is true. This is when they begin to start
questioning authority. It's quite natural. These are the high school years.
And so we want to, in Waldorf education we start having them read books and
stories about searches for truth and justice and it's a
very idealistic age so we want to engage children in that. And this phase of
life ends not just at the end of high school but at the age of 21, which now
modern research shows is when the brain is really, usually finally developed. The
brain is still developing through all those years and even if a if a person is
legally an adult at 18 we know that their brain is not fully formed at 21
and Rudolf Steiner said that this is when the kind of individual, the ego he
calls it, the person who that child grows up to be really begins to emerge.
So that's another nutshell but also it's important to know these seven year
cycles don't end it 21. They go on throughout our life. There's a period
from 21 to 28 and if you look at those seven year cycles you often find in
an adult's life that those can be pivotal years, years of personal change and
growth in a person's life. So I hope that makes some kind of sense to you or gives
you some insight into the philosophy behind Waldorf education. I know for me I
just find it very deep and remarkable the way that Waldorf education meets a
child where he or she is at by honoring that development. So again, if you are
enjoying these videos be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel called
Sunday with Sarah and if you have questions for me, I'd love to answer them.
Leave a comment below or you can write to me at sundaywithsarah@bellalunatoys.com
and I'll do my best to answer your question in a future video. So have
a great week and I will see you next time. Bye.