Hi! It's Sunday, I'm Sarah Baldwin,
welcome back to "Sunday with Sarah." Today I'm going to spend a little time
speaking about homeschooling. Now I realize this won't apply to everyone but a
common question that I've received is we love Waldorf education,
I'd love to send my child to a Waldorf school but I'm unable to. It may be because
there is no Waldorf school close to you, in your geographic area. It may be
because you can't afford private school tuition. It may be because your child has
special needs that can't be met by the Waldorf school.
There are a number of reasons. So in these cases one option for you is to
homeschool using Waldorf methods.
Some of you may be aware if you've read my biography or if you've been following
me that I homeschooled my own two children and my niece for a couple of
years. My kids went through a Waldorf school from nursery to 8th grade except
for those couple of years when we took a break and I homeschooled. I
learned so much during those two years, not only about homeschooling but about
how children learn. It was a really valuable experience and a really
rewarding experience that I think we'll always treasure those
couple of years that we all had together, working and learning together at home. So
common questions I get from people interested in homeschooling using
Waldorf methods are about which curriculum materials I would recommend
I'm familiar with a lot of them, I reviewed a lot of materials during
those years we were homeschooling and since then and have some opinions which I'm
happy to share with you today. And keep in mind these are only my opinions. As
they say, your mileage may vary. But first of all one of the most well-known
curriculum packages out there is called Oak Meadow and it's very well
established.
It's been around a long time and it's used by a lot of families interested in
Waldorf education.
I have to say it has a Waldorf flavor but having examined the curriculum
I have to say it's not very true to the philosophy behind Waldorf education.
It's got some inspirations from Waldorf education, particularly with the
crafts and artistic activities they offer, but in a lot of ways it
strays pretty far from the philosophy behind Waldorf education in
terms of the year by root year curriculum as designed by Rudolf Steiner,
which was very brilliantly
developed in my opinion, to meet a child's developmental age at each stage.
But it is a very well established program, really kind of lays out
day-to-day lessons for you. If you like some things about Waldorf but you're
uncomfortable with others and you want something a little more mainstream, it
may work wonderfully for you.
In terms of providing an education
it should be just fine and I know many families who use it and love it.
When i began homeschooling
I started out using Live Education which is a really beautiful curriculum
designed by two Waldorf teachers, very true to the philosophy behind Waldorf
education and very similar to what children would be getting in a Waldorf
school in terms of daily lessons and curriculum, grade by grade. Beautifully
illustrated. We started out using this and I had, as I said, my two children
and my niece so I was
homeschooling three different grades, and the curriculum required planning three
different lessons each night, or the day before, creating drawings for their
main lesson books that I would create and the children would copy.
It was pretty labor-intensive. We lasted a few months and I found I got more and
more stressed out. I was up till midnight trying to prepare lessons each day and
the kids were having less fun until it dawned on me this was really a
curriculum developed by Waldorf teacher, very similar to how they would be
taught in a Waldorf school and I began to realize the difference between school,
in Waldorf education in an institutional setting, versus being at
home where you can have a lot more flexibility, when you have a class of two
or three or one versus a class of twenty-five to thirty students.
There's a lot more flexibility. So just about the time when I was getting
frustrated and looking for something new,
a woman named Donna Simmons who was Waldorf educated herself, she went to a
Waldorf school
I believe from kindergarten through high school, she had done Waldorf teacher
training and most importantly had the experience of homeschooling her two boys,
designed her own curriculum called Christopherus. We'll post a link
to Christopherus' website below this video. But I ordered her guides and I was so
impressed that this was a curriculum that not only really understood the
philosophy behind Waldorf education, understood the curriculum, but here was
someone who actually had the experience as a homeschooler herself, who
knew what it was like to be a mother who is juggling the demands of a family:
preparing meals, doing laundry, doing the shopping, doing daily errands and
homeschooling your children. Donna finds brilliant ways to incorporate
children into the life of the home and make them learning experiences. She
has, since my days as a homeschooler, developed many more guides and
and curriculum guides, grade by grade and early childhood.
So when people call me asking for my recommendations,
Christopherus homeschool resources is always my top recommendation and if it's
something you're interested in I invite you to check out her website. Another
option if you have children under grade school age,
you don't need a curriculum. I will,
in another post, I will talk about how life is the curriculum for preschoolers
and how just daily living will incorporate all the lessons your child
needs before first grade. If you're a parent at home with young
children under six,
if you're a home daycare provider or interested in taking care of other
people's children during the day, you must check out Lifeways. Lifeways North
America offers a training program for parents and child care providers. It's very
inspired by Waldorf education and the insights of Rudolf Steiner, the founder
of Waldorf education, and it's not only a training on working with children, it's
also about self development. As a parent I can't recommend it highly
enough. I will post the link to Lifeways North America's website below this
post. There's a lot of great resources on Lifeways' website and I
highly recommend you sign up for their newsletter because it's just packed with
great information on working with young children. Finally, through the years
since I've been a homeschooler, there have been a lot more websites and
people designing curriculum guides for homeschoolers interested in Waldorf
education.
Some of them are great and some of them I've read a lot of misinformation
and have been concerned about some of the information out there being somewhat
misinformed or
not really displaying an understanding of the underlying philosophy and
curriculum. So if you are researching and looking about
i urge you to ask yourself a few questions when you're evaluating whether
to spend money on a curriculum:
who is the author? Are they a trained teacher? Do they have a degree in
education?
How long have they taught? If they're promoting a Waldorf curriculum
are they a Waldorf teacher, have they received Waldorf teacher training and how long
have they been in operation? Those questions will help guide you to find
quality resources for educating your own children.
So let me hear from you.
Are you a homeschooler? Are you using a curriculum?
What are you using, what works for you? Are there other resources that you know
about that you can share with others?
I would love to hear from you,
as always, and thanks so much for tuning in this week. I'll see you next week.