Head, Heart and Hands

My lessons plans are done, and I can't wait to meet my sixth graders...

...in Italy!

I wrote here some weeks back about emailing a few international schools in Rome, hoping to get a feel for the educational system there on my upcoming trip, create a bit of instant community, and lend my days a meaningful structure by volunteering my teacherly services. I chose international schools to ensure there would be English speakers (I also planned to drop in on a few local public schools for which I was unable to find contact information on the internet).  I heard back from two or three who invited me cordially but tersely to "look around" their fine institutions.  Not exactly the open arms I was hoping for, but a serviceable piede nella porta.

I did write to one all-Italian school, Il Giardino dei Cedri ("Garden of Cedars"), because I fell in love with the description I found. It's a Rudolf Steiner/ Waldorf school, whose stated goal is "to produce individuals who are able, in and of themselves, to impart meaning to their lives." 


No anxious, decontextualized standardized testing drives this educational philosophy, but the imperative to educate the whole child, "head, heart and hands," relying on imagination, and the internal motivation of arts and practical activities in the service of academic development. Academics are de-emphasized in the early years; there is no academic content in the kindergarten, although there is a good deal of cultivation of pre-academic skills, and minimal academics in grade one. Certain activities considered "frills" at mainstream schools are central here: art, music, gardening, and foreign languages, to name a few. In the younger grades, all subjects are introduced through artistic media, on the theory that children respond better to this approach than to dry lecturing and rote learning. All children learn to play an instrument and knit. There are no "textbooks" as such in the first through fifth grades. All children have "main lesson books," their own learning journals which they fill in during the course of the year. They essentially produce their own textbooks which record their experiences and what they've learned. Learning is a wholly non-competitive activity. There are no grades given at the primary level; the teacher writes a detailed evaluation of the child at the end of each school year. The use of electronic media, particularly television, by young children is strongly discouraged.

The curriculum at Waldorf Schools (the amazing Rudolf Steiner School in New York was the first in North America) is designed to be responsive to the various phases of a child's development. The era of human history being studied corresponds in many ways with the stage of development of the child. For example, kindergarteners are presented with fairy tales matching their dreamy state of consciousness, grade 4 studies the Vikings and Norse mythology which suit their war-like feelings (a development I can attest to from personal experience!), grade 5 learn of the Greeks at the time their intellect is awakening and their sense of fair play is becoming obvious, and so on.

I'm sure that this relaxed educational Eden must come with a steep price tag -- affordable only to the privileged few whose academic progress is so thoroughly nurtured on so many fronts that it provokes none of the anxiety with which average inner-city schools must contend.  It is interesting to note, though, that it all began in the chaotic circumstances of post-World War I Germany. Rudolf Steiner had been giving lectures on his ideas for a societal transformation in the direction of independence of the economic, governmental and cultural realms, known as Social Threefolding, to the workers of various factories. In April of1919, he held such a lecture for the workers of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, Germany; in this lecture he mentioned the need for a new kind of comprehensive school. On the following day, the workers approached Herbert Hahn, one of Steiner's close co-workers, and asked him whether their children could be given such a school. Independently of this request, the owner and managing director of the factory, Emil Molt, announced his decision to set up such a school for his factory workers' children to the company's Board of Directors and asked Steiner to be the school's pedagogical consultant. The name Waldorf thus comes from the factory which hosted the first school.


This kind of humane, child-centered education, then -- rooted in what kids do and want to do best -- can, should, and has been done in the inner city. With the children of factory workers, in a time of social upheaval and distress. I have seen teaching in the South Bronx that nurtures imagination and motivates through context. I see no rational case against it: within reason, the Waldorf Schools are an inarguable model for early education. Period.


So finally, last week, I heard from a member of the faculty at Il Giardino dei Cedri:


Dear Joan,

My name is Shelagh Anderson and I am the English teacher at the Waldorf School "Il Giardino dei Cedri" here in Rome. First I must apologise for not replying sooner but I'm afraid I temporarily misplaced your email. Fortunately, after searching diligently for it, I found it.

I read your email at our weekly staff meeting and the immediate response was "Of course!"  Our school reopens January 10 and if you would like to come to sit in on some of our English classes, you would be welcome. I would be particularly interested in giving Grades 6, 7 and 8 the chance to converse with someone else beside myself who is mother-tongue. (As horrible as it may seem, I'm hoping you don't know any Italian.)

I realise you will be very busy visiting all the wonderful things there are to see, but it would be lovely if you could find a moment to visit us. If you are still interested, you can contact me either through this email address or, once in Rome, you can call the school at 06/3690821 or even my cellphone number 377/1182302.

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and I hope you have a good trip

Your truly,
Shelagh Anderson


Wow, what charm, how personable!  And they discussed me at their faculty conference!  I packed a folder full of personal artifacts in my luggage, to share with grades 6, 7 and 8 -- pictures of my family, our holiday celebrations, my Upper Manhattan apartment building, classes of mine through the years.  I assured Ms. Anderson that her English language learners are safe -- my Italian is, unfortunately for me, nothing to be relied upon yet.  I just may press them, however, after they have practiced their English with me, to let me at have go at my Italian.  It will be laughable, I'm sure, but I'm always happy to let the kids have a laugh at my expense -- it's a healthy turn of power dynamics . I fall asleep at night imagining what it will be like to chat with the students, learning joyfully from each other. 


You can take the teacher out of the classroom, at least for a sabbatical, but you can never take the classroom out of the teacher. Flight's finally tomorrow...oh, man, am I excited!