Tag Archives: early childhood

The Wisdom of Play Based Learning

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Betty Merner has been a faculty member of Meadowbrook Waldorf School for more than 22 years. She taught in public schools for 18 years before discovering Waldorf education. Following 15 years as a class teacher Betty became the school’s Resource Co-ordinator overseeing special services for students in need of extra support. Here she considers the results of a study into play based learning in light of her extensive experience of the Waldorf approach.

The HighScope Educational Research Foundation of Ypsilanti, MI recently published the results of its longitudinal study, the HighScope Preschool Comparison Study. HighScope followed the lives of 68 young people born into poverty from ages 3 and 4. These children were randomly assigned to one of three early childhood programs: the Direct Instruction model, where teachers followed a script to direct the learning of academic skills; a Play-Based model, where teachers responded to children’s self-initiated play in a loosely structured setting; and the Highscope model where teachers set-up the classroom and a daily routine within which children could create and do their own activities. The study followed these children until age 23 and looked at their success in a number of categories that affected their lives on a number of levels. Continue reading →

Who is the Waldorf Teacher?

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As parents we bring our children gradually into the world, nurturing them closely through their earliest years and hoping to bring them to experiences that will promote their healthy development.  As they grow in independence we become increasingly aware of their individual capacities and especially their enormous appetite for learning, their innate ability to assimilate the world around them.  In the early childhood years parents are allowed a level of autonomy with a choice of services offering various components of education and daycare that we may include or decline.  For most of us then, the beginning of the grade school years marks the first time our choice of just who will be our child’s teacher, who will direct him/ her for a significant number of their most formative hours is no longer wholly our choice.  We may choose the educational philosophy that best suits our family’s values but a leap of faith is required.  We must trust in the individual teacher assigned to our child’s class.

The Waldorf ideal is that the class teacher will stay with the class from grade one through grade eight.  Waldorf education holds the child at its center.  Concerned with educating the whole human being, the creation of a familial environment within the class with a consistent, authoritative voice is fundamental to providing the secure setting necessary for students to explore and unfold their life’s purpose.  The continually evolving relationship between teacher and parent is essential to this process.  At Meadowbrook these relationships developed between students, between students and teachers, parents and teachers continue to enrich the lives of all far beyond grade school and college.

In recognition and celebration of our community, here is a short (12 minutes) film in which Waldorf teachers from some of our affiliate schools describe their roles and share their motivations.  Being a Waldorf Teacher.