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.

Teaching: Searching for the Old Magic

When everything is starting to fall into place in my life (visa, insurance, flat, etc.) and my weekends aren't a blur (Happy Sober January!), I find that I have so much time and energy to focus on becoming a better teacher. I spent a lot of my Christmas vacation and the time afterward working on a curriculum for the year. I outlined monthly themes, holidays, activities related to themes and holiday, songs, and stories. The appendix for songs alone is 26 pages long. But when I got back to school at the beginning of January, I saw Ruzenka's new curriculum book. It explained every Czech holiday of the year including the origins, traditions, songs, stories, and games. I would be hard pressed to remember a time that I felt so jealous. Why couldn't I have this for Anglo-American holidays? It put my macaroni-necklace encouraging Scholastic brand "Preschool Almanac" to shame. I looked at the two books I had been using to write my curriculum and thought, Foj! I deserve better, my children deserve better, there must be better!
So, I turned to the internet. I searched World Cat; I searched Amazon. Then, I thought, this is a job for a Steinerian press! I pulled out a book about kindergarten education that I had purchased at the Sunbridge book shop but never used. Hawthorn Press. As it turns out, it's an English company which made ordering books online much easier. I decided upon a book called Fesitvals Together because it includes Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and Hindu festivals. It seemed appropriate, as I am expected to teach from an American perspective and use our holidays--and is the beauty of America not its being a tossed salad of cultures?

I received it only a few days later and fell in love. I haven't read it cover to cover--but it has recipes, stories, crafts, and songs. I feel so much better about my curriculum having used this as a guide. I started to remember the magic that I used to see in early childhood education. I have been trying to organize the school and toys in a way that reminds me of Hartsbrook, so I looked at my own pictures of when I used to work at Cricket and then I searched the website for more. I found this video:

Hartsbrook Early Childhood Enrollment Video from Klituscope Pictures on Vimeo.

My heart swells to remember working there. I could wish for nothing else in life. When I worked there, I felt the endless possibilities of childhood. I felt the magic all around me. We lived in a world of fairies and gnomes and beauty. I try to keep this in the back of my mind all day at work. Remember the magic.

Chapter Fourteen: Another Package and Excellent Monday

Today I received another totally amazing package, this time from the wonderful Nicole, fellow food-blogger/Smithie/LI'er/P2P'er/might as well be my lil' sister. Contained in it was ton of good 'Merican stuff. I loved the fact that she used $5 stamps. I cannot believe they make those or that you could have so many stamps on one thing! Uh-mazing.

CD, letter, and rice-cooker recipes galore! I've been thinking about getting a rice-cooker since it would essentially double my ability to cook and I'm sure I can find one really cheap around here. My last big purchase (hiking boots) was one of the best I've ever made.

The simple pleasures: Annie's and oatmeal (the latter I happen to recognize from Smith dining halls and appreciate more than if she had purchased it herself)!

MMM candy and snacky goodness. I had been theorizing about how to simulate Reese's because of my deep craving for them, but now I don't have to!

Finally, some essentials (yay Burts Bees! How I was in need of the stuff!), more candy, and British chocolates. I feel like getting British chocolates mailed to me in Korea from my Long Island friend who is at Smith is pretty much the definition of my life.

Today was also great because they are repairing the kitchen, thus we got kimbap for lunch! I was going to go purchase my own and eat at home, but it was all there and ready to be consumed, nom-nom-nom. Kimbap, if you'll remember, is the Korean version of sushi. Which we ate on our field trip last time (and probably will on Wednesday's sports' day field trip) in this photo:You take bap (seaweed), moisten it, put down a layer of sticky rice(bap), then a layer of veggies and proteins (typically egg, meat, and fish), then roll it up and roll it through some vinegary-sesame oil to add flavor. No soy sauce, no pickled ginger, no wasabi, just good ol' kimbap. One day, I will make my own and post it.

School today was also just really good (though I'm on break and still have two more classes to teach: 2a, my favorite and 3a, The Complainers). I spent a long time preparing really great lessons for these two upcoming classes and they better appreciate them, or else!

Mars did really well with math today and I think that they are starting to understand me a lot more. I think that in the past few weeks, Liam has really developed physically, socially, and academically. I tried to talk about it but no one else seemed to notice. Either way, I'm really proud of whatever little effect I may have had only teaching their class once a day.

In Pluto and Uranus, I got to read a Berenstain Bears book, which has to be one of my all-time favorite kids' series. They remind me of being little and also make me kind of want that silly, old-fashioned lifestyle. However, this book was a bit... behind in the times. It was very negative about getting "chubbier" in a way that I think would be really bad for a child's self image. It encouraged exercise and healthy eating habits, which I am by no means against, but it portrayed weight gain as just plain wrong. While I can't really talk about that to anyone here, it was good to have something to stimulate the socially-conscious part of myself. I'm thinking a lot more these days about not just what the media teaches children, but what stories geared toward them teach. How much, as educators, are we even aware of this? Do we spend too much time looking for the "moral" and trying to use them to supplement our curricula that we stop paying attention to underlying themes? Questions to ponder on this bright, thoughtful, finally-fall Monday.

Chapter Six: In Which We Analyze Children's Art or God, I Love Seeing What They Will Make

I created a workbook for my kindergarten classes. We had been discussing "where animals live" and I wanted to push them to use "habitat." I thought it would be best if they saw the word a lot, so I created these little workbooks for them. They loved drawing them but not nearly as much as I love looking at them.
Above: The front page implied that you should draw yourself as a zookeeper, but apparently only Dustin understood this. Do you see his key? Amazing! I'm a little confused about his resemblance to Willy Wonka (note the purple top hat). I guess Willy Wonka is a zookeeper of sorts...

This giraffe is the only picture that seems to follow all the "universal" rules I learned in that awful education class about how children draw. Honestly, I may send them over to Topal and see what she thinks about her universal rules now! Apparently, Asia is not part of her universe.

Again, Dustin, really thinking about his drawings. I imagine that his thought process was like this: How can I draw a camel? What is important about a camel? Camel's store water in their humps! YES! Not going to lie, this made me love Dustin more than ever before.


Mike's favorite habitat was the sea, but then he must have decided that a whale is a better habitat. The only possible explanation is that Ashley leaned over and "corrected" him as she is known to do. Ah well. But look at that lion. Is that not the coolest lion you've ever seen? I am thinking about maybe getting it as a tattoo.

But wait, maybe I should get Mike's jaguar instead? I'm impressed with how he conveys movement. Doesn't it look like it's running toward that snake?

Welcome to Anna's zoo, where she is apparently playing a new game based on "duck, duck, goose" called "rabbit, rabbit, cat."

I instructed her that rabbits don't live in the desert and explained what a hare is. I think she got the idea that they have bigger ears than rabbits and I guess that's what counts.

If you're wondering what a winter rabbit is, my best explanation is that it's a strange literal translation from Korean. But that's right, that's an underwater rabbit. I later made her draw a snorkel and goggles on the underwater rabbit, but did not get a picture of this! I apologize, for it was amazing.

"Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, CAT! HAHAHAHA!" Later, she decided, that no, her favorite farm animal was actually... you guessed it, the rabbit. I love Anna. She's brilliant and intense. I always feel like there's so much going on inside her head that no one gets to see. She spends so much time looking closely at things or just quietly thinking. I was probably a lot like her when I was a kid, but less prickly and more shy. I love that she has a sense of a really unique sense of humor.

I love Sally's giraffe. She got the idea that it was tall, at least.

Her camel also has no humps and lives in the forest. So it goes. But aren't her ants precious?

I think these are Eric's. I love that bird! I think some of these show a drawing style that is very different from what I've experienced in children's art at home. I wonder if it has something to do with the culture or something to do with the script used in writing? Ponder away and let me know if you have any explanations!

I'm not sure if the grasshopper ant is a real creature or something from his imagination. Either way, I like it!

I also love how this bird is going to dive-bomb that tree. Drama! Now that's art.

I love Lynn's "star zoo" and that she has a word bubble!

Lastly, a totally badass shark! There were so many good sharks in these books, but most of them came after the next class so I didn't get pictures.

I love looking at their artwork, how about you? Should I continue to make these silly posts or are they not really relevant to my "Korean" experience?