Christmastime at School

It seems that I haven't posted in nearly half a year! Whoops.

This school year, I am teaching the 3-year-olds again. Unfortunately, we have what I so often refer to as "an enrollment problem"--which is to say that I have two students. One of them comes three times a week, the other one four. This means that my time is spread between my own class, the other preschool classes, and our after-school program to which I've been assigned. Two afternoons a week, I am supposed to entertain and educate a group of 2-4 second graders. There's a reason I teach preschool and not second grade. This is not my passion. However, I am looking to just get through the next year so that I can move back to America with three full years of preschool experience and a good reference under my belt. While I enjoy writing the curriculum for the seven-year-olds and seeing their results, the teaching can be a struggle.

My first project this year was to teach them why they are learning English. They are at the age when they realize it's harder to speak English than Czech, so why bother? They haven't yet been in a situation where English was helpful so they just rebel. I asked them to list countries where English is spoken. They couldn't come up with more than five. I asked them if they thought there were more than 10 countries where English is a major language. They were certain there couldn't be. So, I showed them a list of countries where English is a national language (de jure or de facto). We picked ten countries with the highest percentage of English speakers per capita and made a book about them. We used atlases and other books to research the people, climate, animals, and traditions. We compared Irish dance and Highland dance on Youtube. As I write all of this, I feel so proud of my students and of myself. However, while teaching it, I could not wait for it to be over.

Our next project was to write letters to an American second grade class. I wanted them to explain what Christmas was like in the Czech Republic. I had them do watercolor paintings to illustrate their letters. They all wanted to paint Christmas trees. It was kind of a bust. However, I got two of them to work together to make this timeline of Christmas. They dictated to me what they did on each day and made these little pictures. Again, I wonder if the ends justifies the means because this is pretty great.

Aside from teaching, my life has had a few changes. In September, I moved into a flop house where I had only half a window as I was in one side of a room divided by sheetrock. The kitchen had no hot water. There were people moving in and out every week, not to mention the number of couchsurfers my landlord invited over without telling us. The final straw was his refusal to put a lock on my door. He pocketed half of my security deposit and I went on my merry way. In October, I moved into my current flat with my girlfriend. We live in a fifth-floor walk-up which means a lot of stairs. Otherwise, I love the place. It's the top floor with vaulted ceilings--which are still absurdly high and have skylights! Nothing like the vaulted ceilings where I lived when I was twenty. It's got a loft-esque quality to it with exposed beams and a mostly open floor plan. The last tenants put up a wall (of high quality) to separate off part of the living room/dining room area into a second bedroom which we use mostly for clothes and guests.

And now, it's time for me to get back to Christmas preparations. I hope to take pictures of our fat little tree and all the crafty decorations we've put up!

Měla babka čtyri jabka

Every day before lunch, we say this poem in English, which I learned from my Waldorf mentor, and an equivalent in Czech. I love the way the Czech poem sounds, even if I can barely pronounce it an only have a rough idea what I am saying. I recently re-discovered a book of Czech nursery rhymes at school and I have a few that I love hearing the kids say. They just sound so magical. I tried to read them and found that I could actually understand them. Then, obviously, I needed to translate them for real. I am always in search of new hobbies--and what better than translating verses from a language I've never studied?

This is my first attempt, and my favorite Czech rhyme:

Měla babka čtyri jabka

a dědeček jen dvě.

Dej mi, babko, jedno jabko,

budeme mít stejně.

Literally:

Grandma had four apples

and grandpa only two.

Give me, grandma, one apple,

and we will have the same.

But this doesn't have the same sort of ring to it. Here's what I came up with, though it clearly needs improvement:

Four apples had Grandma

Grandpa had just two.

Give an apple to poor Grandpa

Dear Grandma, won't you?

So yes, it loses lesson that 4-1 and 2+1 are the same, but it keeps the general feeling of the poem.

My second poem in Czech is:

Foukej, foukej, větřičku,

Shod' mi jednu hruštičku,

Shod' mi jednu nebo dvě,

budou sladké obě dvě.

Literally:

Blow, blow, wind,

knock down one pear for me

knock down one or two for me

they will both be sweet.

This one, I'm more proud of:

Blow, wind, blow through the air

Knock me down a juicy pear

Let one or two fall from the tree

Oh how sweet they both will be!

I'd like to say that there's a practical reason for me to be translating these rhymes. I'd like to say that it's part of a plan to teach my children English using the rhymes they are familiar with. But it's not. It's simply another way to pass my time. And I'm okay with that.

Simply Seeds

This past summer, I spent a few weeks at my father's house for the first time since I was fourteen. It was late August and we were struggling to keep up with the harvest of tomatoes and peppers. My whole childhood, I enjoyed the bounty of our backyard. Being the sixth generation of my family to live on the street meant that our backyard was a paradise of fruits and vegetables. We had rhubarb for pies. Gooseberries and currants were for making jelly. Our pears were really canning pears, but as children, we ate them off the tree and enjoyed their crisp texture and tartness. Red and black raspberries never made it to the kitchen before our pudgy hands would stuff them into our stained mouths. There were plum trees in our yard while next door there was an apple tree that we were welcome to pick from. We also enjoyed our neighbor's blueberry bushes and occasionally picked the June berries from near the road. While all of these plants gave us their delicious fruit year after year, we had little understanding, nor interest, in our father's gardening. Who cares about tomatoes when you have raspberries?

But in 2009, as something of an adult, I had much more respect for the two gardens my father had been keeping. It was difficult not to feel a sense of awe when looking at them. The tomato garden was overflowing--and certainly not just with beefsteaks! "Did you see the yellow plum tomatoes?" my father would greet me as he came in from the backyard. The day that we found what appeared to be a purple heirloom was a day of wonder and delight. I had chopped so many tomatoes and peppers (and not just bell peppers either--"I think this is an orange Scotch Bonnet!") for salsa, roasted tomatoes, and my own bean chili. I felt like we would never keep up. The fruit drawer in the fridge became the tomato drawer, while our windowsill was covered with vegetables awaiting the chopping block. As we looked at the purple heirloom, we debated what to do with it. "I think I'll save it for seeds," my father said. I began to notice the little yellow seed envelopes on the counter--most unlabeled. Of course! This garden, while magical, didn't just appear one day! My father was saving seeds and planting them year after year. The tomatoes and peppers that we eat provide more than just delicious sustenance--they also provide for the future. They are full of possibility! Inside of each one is dozens of possible plants for the future. Our garden was full of surprises not because these things just appeared but because my father has no interest in labeling envelopes. But this is part of the magic of our garden!

My father's crown jewel this summer was the watermelon plant that managed to make its way into the pepper garden. Had a watermelon seed somehow gotten mixed in with the pepper seeds? Had someone at a barbecue spit a seed in the direction of the garden and it managed to germinate there? The watermelon was gorgeous and huge, though I didn't eat it so I'm not sure how it tasted.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I can bring the magic of our backyard to my school. I'm planning out a garden in my head, which is a completely foreign concept for me. I decided to buy a book from my favorite press (Hawthorn) called Gardening with Small Children. I hope it comes soon! I desperately need some guidance on this subject. But at snack today, I was cutting up apples and noticed the seeds. I put them aside and after snack showed them to the children. We put them in one section of an egg carton and labeled it "green apple." I doubt that we'll have any sort of orchard in our small backyard, but if just one of these seeds becomes a tree sometime in the future, imagine having snack time from our own tree in our own backyard! I marveled at the simply beauty of seeds in an egg carton, hoping my students felt my sense of wonder at the magic of the world. These little brown things, that we spit out with a "p-tooey" of annoyance, have the possibility to become trees which will produce more apples for us to eat and more seeds for more trees with branches to climb and leaves to collect! And what more beautiful sorting and storage container than a recycled egg carton? Look how much the earth has provided us with and how it continues to provide!

So, this afternoon, I went to the fruit shop and, using my little and bad Czech, got a few peppers. I cut them open and again felt joy in seeing the magic of nature. All of those seeds, which usually stick to my knife and drive me crazy while I cook, were the start of this summer's vegetable garden. Unlike my father, I carefully kept and sorted them.



I cannot wait to plant them this spring and to enjoy my own pepper harvest this August. Working with children is like observing the evolution of humanity. They make new discoveries every day which our species took thousands of years to come to. So far, my children have been living in the hunter-gatherer stage of human evolution. Agricultural revolution, here we come!

Teaching: "Real Work" with My Little Eskimos

When I started to read, in earnest, Kindergarten Education, I felt suddenly back in touch with my Waldorf roots. Between this book and Hartsbrook's video, I feel like I'm back on track. I am remembering all the little things that are important to the way that I teach. One of them is creating a world of fantasy. This is not just done through free-play, but also by creating an atmosphere. I want there to be so many things in our school to facilitate this like play silks and play stands, but I need to figure out a way to do this with what we have.

And this winter, what we have is snow.

I put aside my desire for fairies and gnomes and settled upon Eskimos. Ruzenka had been singing a Czech song with them about Eskimos. While I understand that it's not politically correct to be using Eskimos in this way, it's a starting point for further fantasies. I can't help but think of Eskimos, either, as we try to perform triage while getting them ready to go outside and come inside. We put on stockings, fleeces, snowsuits, boots, scarves, hats, mittens, and whatever else their parents might send them with. The end result is some combination of "I can't put my arms down," Eskimos, and astronauts. Christmas is long behind us now and spring still feels quite far off, so we are celebrating winter as Eskimos. We just got an igloo-shaped tent for the classroom and I have taken to calling the children "my little Eskimos." Children love to be called something other than children. It encourages their fantasy, helps them feel like they are part of a group, and is simply fun.

One of the aspects of Waldorf education that has returned to my mind is "real work." As a teacher, my job is to model for children. I shouldn't be telling them all day what to do, but I should do it myself and if they want to join in, so much the better. It's difficult, at first, because traditional education has made it feel unnatural to let children behave naturally. But, I'm getting the hang of it again. While we are outside, I don't believe in constantly telling them what games to play or giving them tasks. Instead, I start doing something, and they can join in or not. I keep following the idea that children do not need constant vigilance. Watching them will only make them anxious and prevents them from coming up with their own ideas for play. So, I work myself and keep watch out of the corner of my eye.

Our igloo has been my "real work" success story. Yesterday morning, the snow was too hard to pack. We couldn't make snowmen or forts. Instead, I started digging a kind of reverse moat to make a wall. When they asked me what I was doing, I said I was making an igloo. They observed. In the afternoon, the snow was so hard that it was breaking into chunks. Perfect! We now had bricks of snow to build our igloo! I started breaking up the pieces and stacking them on the wall. Quickly, the children joined in. When it came time to leave, I completely forgot myself. I was so into my work and so were the children. We are making a structure that they can play in. They have a stake in their work. It's clear and simple.

This morning, they didn't want to come inside at first--they just wanted to work on the igloo. They chipped away at the hard snow, made bricks, and packed them together. During regular outside play time, they weren't so interested in helping, but that was fine, I continued to work myself. Occasionally, they helped. Most importantly, we had a new girl today who reveled in this work. She had not done anything else at school--she wanted nothing more than to go home to Grandma. But when she had work to do, she was completely content. So, above is a photo of the igloo so far. I'm hoping to find a hose or a spray bottle so that we can give it a nice coat of ice.



I thought back to other projects we've done in school. These suet bird feeders certainly count as real work. They served a practical purpose and the children can enjoy them. We spent 20 minutes one day watching a black bird try to eat off of one without landing on it.

During nap time, I read more of Kindergarten Education and remembered the things I did at Cricket that were real work. We all milled apple sauce together, we set the table, we washed the dishes. This afternoon, I decided to test the waters of real work indoors. While the children were having free play, I set out some aprons, a few towels, a bowl of soapy water, and a bowl of clean water. I collected the play dishes which did actually need some cleaning after many months of sticky fingers and runny noses. I dipped the cups in the soapy water and scrubbed with my hands, rinsed them in the clean water, and laid them on the towel. One new boy who has been difficult to entertain and distract watched me, enthralled. I offered him an apron and showed him what I was doing. He washed all of the dishes himself and then looked for more things to wash. This work had purpose. This work was sensory. The water was just the right temperature. You could smell the soap. I made sure to use a fuzzy towel.

I am working to remember the importance of all these things. Work and magic, work and magic, work and magic. Slowly, I'm becoming the teacher I want to be.