In the school of science, which Canadians call the Faculty of Science, Katie focused on biology with a strong interest in geology, accompanying geological field expeditions to Chile (she was there for, although unaffected by, the earthquake in 2010), to Banff, and to west Texas. She developed a love of turtles, including assisting a graduate student from Williams College in banding bog turtles in Berkshire County during the summer of 2009, and sifting earth to find and reassemble fossilized turtle skeletons at McGill. She has worked in the evolutionary biology lab of Hans Larsson at McGill for the past two years, a lab in which researchers are attempting to create–or at least create proteins from–dinosaur DNA that may be found in modern chickens, lightly referred to as the “chickenosaurus.”

Katie enjoyed her time at McGill and in the city of Montreal, picking up what she calls “ingredient French,” which allows her to shop and to cook. She has a broad circle of international friends who gather to cook for each other and to watch “Doctor Who,” a British TV show about a time-traveling scientist.

Katie graduates from McGill this spring, and plans to take a year off from school while applying to graduate school. She will return to Berkshire County to teach life science and math part-time at the Great Barrington Waldorf High School. Although she attended Miss Hall’s, she also considers herself an “honorary graduate” of the Waldorf high school, and is looking forward to imparting her love of science to high school students, especially girls. “All students should love science and math,” she says, “but because the field is still dominated by men, it’s important that women know how beautiful and important this work can be”

Katie remembers her days at Steiner fondly, especially all the folk dancing with Mr. Sblendorio. “He showed us something that he really loves,” Katie remembers, “and I believe that made it easier for us to find what we really love and to pursue it with all our strength.”

“I was born by a golden river in the shadow of two great hills, five years after the Emancipation Proclamation….”

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born here and grew up as a young black man in a white community. He went to an integrated school near Searles Castle. He then graduated from Fiske, Harvard, and Berlin Universities.

When he was a boy he picked delicious wild strawberries behind his house on Church Street and tasted his first orange on the green lawn of the Great Barrington Town Hall.

You may know some of the places where he played. During the winter he sledded down Castle Street, right across the Railroad tracks and onto Main Street! He played Indians in the caves on East Rock and swam in the Housatonic River. From an early age he visited the town meetings and became interested in politics. He was an excellent student, and since his mother could not afford college, the Congregational Church here in town funded his education.

As a boy here in Great Barrington, DuBois lived a life sheltered from the cruel Jim Crow laws of the South. He knew that he was different, however…

“I remember well when the shadow swept across me. I was a little thing, away up in the hills of New England, where the dark Housatonic winds between Housac and Taghkanic to the sea. In a wee wooden schoolhouse, something put it into the boys’ and girls’ heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards–ten cents a package–and exchange. The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card-refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others, or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut from their world by a vast veil.”

W.E.B. Dubois became determined to use his mind and his gift for writing to fight the battle against racial injustice. He started a magazine called, “The Crisis” and wrote many books. He helped to found the NAACP. He is considered to be the father of the Civil Rights Movement. He felt his strong African roots, and at the end of his life he moved to Ghana where he died at age 95.

DuBois’ legacy lives on in his hometown in an inspirational mural. The DuBois garden at the bottom of Church St. by the “golden river” cleanses the water of polluting runoff just as W.E.B. DuBois tried to cleanse America of racism.

Call the SPORTS PHONE (413)528-4015, ext. 150 for practice and game announcements. Cancellations or changes are announced by 1 p.m. of the day of scheduled game or practice.  For other questions, call Krista Palmer, (413)528-4015, ext. 110.

Princeton Waldorf School – Kimberton Waldorf School – Waldorf School of Baltimore – Washington Waldorf School – The Waldorf School of Garden City – the Green Meadow Waldorf School – and Association of Waldorf Schools, AWSNA – Presents…

With strength through collaboration
Waldorf Goes To Washington (D.C.)
Please Join Us for a Waldorf Alumni Night!

!!!WALDORF Alums (of one sort or another) from any Waldorf School ever – Attention! If you are in DC – C’mon Down!!!
Ever wonder where everyone is? Here’s a chance to find out in the DC area…
AT
R.F.D. (Regional Food and Drink)
810 7th St., NW
Washington, D.C. 20001
202.289.2030
RFD

Wednesday, May 2, 2012
6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

RSVP by April 20 so we have a head count:
alumni@princetonwaldorf.org

Co-sponsored by AWSNA (Assoc. of Waldorf Schools of North America), Waldorf School of Princeton, Kimberton Waldorf School, Waldorf School of Baltimore, the Washington Waldorf School, Green Meadow Waldorf School, and the Waldorf School of Garden City.

Food and a private room will be provided. Cash bar.
Bring your business card for a raffle!
You must be 21 years of age to attend.
Grads and non-grads are welcome!

Fay Lee Thung, Mr. Sansone’s Class of 2009

Fay Lee was enrolled in the very first parent/toddler class at GBRSS and has spent a total of eleven years at our school. In her freshman year at Monument Mountain Regional High School she enjoyed a smooth transition to all honors classes, feeling well prepared and harmonizing easily with new teachers and fellow students. Presently, as a junior , Fay Lee has had the pleasure of performing yearly with Shakespeare and Company’s Fall Festival and the Berkshire Pulse spring dance performances. She is an active member of the National Honors Society and sits on the MMRHS senate.

Fay Lee’s enterprising spirit, that we’d like to say we’ve nurtured since she was a toddler, has helped her to initiate a fundraising dance party raising $1,000 for Haiti Relief in conjunction with Railroad Street Youth Project and the Berkshire Pulse. Fay Lee has been accepted and is looking forward to attending Boston University Summer Theater Institute for five weeks this summer. These varied accomplishments grew from the foundation of confidence, gratitude, compassion and the love of learning that GBRSS instills.

The 7th and 8th grade Chorus from Rudolf Steiner School and the chorus from Waldorf High School will present a joint concert on Thursday, May 31, 2012 at 7:00 pm at the Berkshire South Community Center.

Both choruses will perform selections from Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and contemporary composers, displaying the year’s work in choral music. Suggested donation: $10 adults, $5 students, and children 3 and younger free.

Our early childhood program lays a foundation for writing and reading but does not begin formal instruction until the children are in first grade. What do we do in the kindergarten to prepare our children and what practical things can you do at home to further this process? Let’s take a look at some of the important skills and abilities involved in the process of learning to write and read:

Language Skills, including Speech Proficiency
Visual Proficiency
Auditory Proficiency
Physical and Sensory Development
Social and Emotional Intelligence

Language Skills

The richer and more varied the child’s vocabulary, the more clearly he differentiates sounds and words, the better foundation he will have when he needs to translate these sounds into symbols. We immerse the children in poetry and songs everyday at circle time and we use the important element of repetition to reinforce the learning. It is well known to linguists that a child needs constant repetition of new sounds and words before he is able to reproduce them himself. Unlike physical objects which the child is free to pick up and examine at will, as often as he likes, a sound or word is transitory; it is there for a brief moment in time and then gone again. If it is not repeated enough, the child has no way to grasp it and learn about it.

For this reason we continue for several weeks with certain poems and songs at circle time, and we repeat our stories and puppet shows many times in a row, to familiarize the children with the language, imagery and concepts. As teachers we have many techniques to ensure that the circles do not grow stale or over-familiar while at the same time keeping the repetition of the words. We can expand and add new gestures or imagery, add costumes or turn the song or poem into a game. And as teachers we know the importance of delving deeply into the imagery and meaning of the fairy tales and stories for ourselves to keep them interesting and fresh for us, which is the key to keeping them alive for the children.

Speech Proficiency

Experience has shown that the child must have reached a point of maturity with regard to oral language before beginning to read. This is known as the “speech age” of the child and is determined by the child’s use of phonemes and his ability or inability to form a particular sound. It has been estimated that by the age of seven the average child is able to correctly articulate the consonants and consonant blends ninety percent of the time. The learning of the alphabet of sound is an important prerequisite to learning the alphabet of letters.

Children with reading difficulties frequently have problems in speech. Therefore, by helping children to overcome their speech defects one can assist them in their association of sound and letter/word, and their capacity for oral reading. The best situation would be to help the child to learn to form his speech correctly before he begins to write and read.

In a study made by Sonenberg and Glass, forty children with reading problems were tested for speech and auditory defects. All but two of the children had speech problems and nearly half had problems with auditory discrimination. The children with difficulties in auditory discrimination frequently made the following sound reversals: K to G, P to D, W to WH, F to T, T to L, P to M, P to G, B to D, T to K, M to S, D to T, T to unvoiced TH, F to unvoiced TH, F to V. These substitutions often show up as reading reversals.

Van Riper and Butler have set outlines for phoneme teaching that stress the importance of identifying each sound with a sound in the child’s environment, giving the sound a name, and identifying the sound with a picture. For example, “S” is described as the whistling sound of the teakettle. For our young children, it is enough to identify the sound without naming it; although on occasion I make an exception (Pattacake, or the folk song BINGO).

Speech Proficiency Tip:

Sing to your child! Sing songs that you remember from your childhood. When choosing a fairy tale or story for your child, think about the complexity of the conflict in the story. For a preschool child, a simple story about a child searching for, and finding, her cat can be enough of a conflict and resolution. For older kindergarten children, a story with more complex tasks or difficulties to overcome (such as three tasks to be performed to break the enchantment) can be considered. Always look at the level of conflict and tension within the story to guide you.

Three to four year old children are still coming to terms with their own bodies and the everyday life and world of objects and nature. (Also a primitive “animism” is still alive in the child, and there are many delightful folk tales that reflect this…the door speaks, the table speaks, etc.) Putting on boots and mittens, walking in the woods, helping mother knead bread dough or sweep the kitchen floor; these everyday activities are special events for the young child, and opportunities for learning. Watching the postman or the farmer at work, observing how grown-ups do things, are all very important at this age. Therefore stories which center around daily life, home or work activities are well-loved, and at circle time young children love to mime these activities in connection with the poems or songs. Try singing “Here we go ‘round the mulberry bush” with its endless verses of “this is the way we wash our hands” (or brush our teeth, or put on our boots) when you are doing these activities with your child. It is a great way to get happy compliance! Nursery rhymes are also wonderful and you can use them to accompany certain routine activities. Everyday when the children come in for lunch I stand at the door, holding it open and making a sort of bridge with my arm that they walk under, and I often sing “London Bridges”. Or when I pour the water into each of their cups at lunch it reminds me of “Jack and Jill” who went to fetch a pail of water and I sing that song each day as I pour the water. It is a simple little ritual but the children often like to join in, and the repetition gives them a chance to become very familiar with the sounds and rhythms.

At age five and six the children have developed to a different stage and their drawings are indicative of their awakening consciousness. The sky and the earth are now often separated on the page, the child is no longer living completely “at one” with the world but is beginning to connect to the concept of separation in a new way. This shows his readiness for slightly more complicated plots, such as some of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales. These creative pictures feed his imagination developing a capacity for rich imagery. The children are now less dependent on the visual props of the puppet show (we do mostly puppet shows with the younger nursery children) and can listen and independently picture the happenings in the story.

Speech Proficiency Tip:

All children love to hear stories about what their parents did as little children. Try to remember some – it doesn’t matter how mundane they are, your children will be delighted! Also, it is great to observe something in nature and share it with your child at mealtimes. I store up memories of things that I have seen on the way to school that morning, for example, a cardinal flying across the road, or a bunny hopping into the bushes, and of course endless stories about my cat, Kippy, which children love. (“Tell us about Kippy!”). Once I have shared a short story/observation from my day, the children quite naturally follow my lead and often will take turns telling things that they have seen. It is a nice way to begin a mealtime conversation, and these conversations are a great place for the children to practice their language skills.

Visual Proficiency

The eye becomes structurally complete at about eight years of age. Before that time, the eyes are still in a process of development. The unnatural hand and eye movements required for writing and reading must be learned. In writing, the hand must be able to move across the page from left to right in a controlled manner. In reading, the eyes must be able to make this same movement, over and over. In daily life, one would rarely (if ever) move one’s eyes in such a way for any length of time. Instead, the eyes would be constantly moving back and forth, up and down, near and far, in a very different pattern. Emerald Dechant (author of “Improving the Teaching of Reading”) asserts that the child of six is usually too farsighted to see objects as small as a word clearly and with ease. Some authorities have even suggested that children are made myopic (nearsighted) through premature attempts to adapt to the demand of close vision.

Visual Proficiency Tip:

At the end of clean-up time I ask the children, one at a time, to use their “eagle eyes” and find anything that is out of place. You can do the same at home, and make a little game of it.

Auditory Proficiency

Unless the child is able to differentiate the sounds that make up a word, he will not be able to form the proper association of spoken sound to graphic symbol. In fact, it has been found that listening is generally more effective than reading as a learning device for children under eight years.

Listening is the first language art that the child develops. This power of mastering new sound discriminations decreases as one grows older. A baby will easily pick up the language with which he is surrounded and imitate the precise intonations necessary. Contrast this with the adult trying to learn a foreign language; it is much more difficult for him to master, partly due to a fixation of the speech organism, but also in a large part due to an inability to distinguish sounds. Often an adult retains an “accent” in the foreign language because he doesn’t perceive the subtle difference in the phonetics or cadences of the new language as compared to his native tongue.

Research has shown that good listeners rated higher than poor listeners in intelligence, reading, socioeconomic status, and achievement, but not on a hearing test. This indicates that the activity of listening is not necessarily bound up with a person’s physical, auditory acuity. Listening occurs only when the child organizes and remembers what is heard. It requires the active engagement of one’s thinking processes. Obviously, a hearing impairment would create difficulties for a child, but clearly, the physical capacity only provides the basis for the activity of listening to take place.

The ability to listen is basic to the learning of reading. It is generally recognized that this ability must be consciously fostered, as children enter school with quite varied degrees of listening ability. Dechant names several ways in which listening can be taught: through storytelling, conversation, dramatization, singing of songs, reading of poems and reading or speaking rhymes. Some schools have so-called “listening centers” with pupil-operated devices consisting of a CD player, earphones and response sheets which are filled in by the pupil. It has been noted that the listening center equipment does little to improve empathic listening, reactive listening, projective listening or interpretative listening which seem to be better fostered in face-to-face situations, which is what we emphasize in Waldorf Schools.

Auditory Proficiency Tip:

Find a stringed instrument such as a lyre or guitar, or a chime bar or xylophone that rings. Play one tone (by plucking the string or chiming one bar) and have your child tell you when they can no longer hear it. Or get a big conch shell and hold it to their ears to see if they can “hear the ocean” in it. Or go outside in the woods and listen for the birds calling. And when you despair that you have to call them at least ten times before they come, start training them to come the first time you call them (let them know that you are going to call them and you will only say their name once – then go get them silently and take their hand if they weren’t listening. Eventually they will get it, and then you can give them a lot of praise!)

Physical and Sensory Development

In addition to what has already been mentioned in the way of physical development, there is a great deal of new information available in the area of brain research. As Carla Hannaford, Phd., says in her book “Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All In Your Head”: “The notion that intellectual activity can somehow exist apart from our bodies is deeply rooted in our culture. It is related to the attitude that the things we do with our bodies, and the bodily functions, sensations, and emotions that sustain life, are lower, less distinctly human…Thinking and learning are not all in our head. On the contrary, the body plays an integral part in all our intellectual processes from our earliest moments right through to old age. It is our body’s senses that feed the brain environmental information with which to form an understanding of the world… And it is our movements that express knowledge and facilitate greater cognitive function as they increase in complexi…”

Einstein once said: “Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.” So much of what we learn is taken in through our senses, especially as young children. The more we can give our children hands-on learning, the more we are allowing them to learn through experience. If we are constantly talking at them, and explaining, we are robbing them of the possibility of learning through observation.

Physical and Sensory Development Tip:

Children often ask: “What are you doing?” or “What are we going to do now?” or “What are you going to use that for?” Often adults feel that they are obligated to explain what they are doing. Try saying: “Watch and you will see.” And then carry on with your work. When the child sees that you are not going to tell him, he starts to pay attention and his interest shifts to a whole new level. It is very satisfying for him when he figures out what is going on through his own observation. Sometimes a child will ask “what are we having for snack?” I might say “what do you smell?” or “what did we chop together this morning?” If I just quickly answered “bread” or “soup” they haven’t been encouraged to pay attention to their own senses. When we quickly provide very detailed and complete answers to all of their questions we are training them to be inactive and always look to someone else, rather than trying to find their own answers. Of course, there are certainly times when you want to use the “teachable moment” to explain something; but don’t be too quick to jump in or too detailed at first. They need time to take it in and process the information. Start with simple, pictorial explanations. The child will continue to mull it over and think about it more if you leave something for them to discover.

Physical and Sensory Development Tip:

Since children don’t get to move as much as they used to (it is popular and sometimes easier to take them everywhere in the stroller or the car) give them as much time walking as possible. And if your child missed or hurried through the crawling phase, play crawling games with them! (Mama Bear and Baby Bear, or Papa Turtle and Baby Turtle, etc.) Walking over varied ground (such as hikes in the woods) is fantastic. Go to the beach in the summer and let them experience walking barefoot on the sand.

Physical and Sensory Development Tip:

Games to play for developing sensory awareness…Place three familiar objects under a cloth. Ask your child to reach under the cloth and identify the objects through touch alone. (This is a great game to play when you are waiting – in a doctor’s office, or a restaurant, or an airport.) Another game for the sense of hearing is to have your child close his eyes and then you play different instruments (for example a flute, or bell, or drum) and have the child identify the different instruments. Another game for the sense of smell is to put three pungent substances in three containers and (with eyes closed) have your child identify them (for example, lemon, ginger, cinnamon). You can keep the same objects and do them over and over, every time you play the game, so that your child can get confident in the identification. They love repetition! When you have done it many times you can change to new objects. Just remember to keep these games light and playful rather than “instructional”.

Physical and Sensory Development Tip:

Any songs or games with “body geography” are helpful, such as “Heads, shoulders, knees and toes” or the finger game “Two Fat Gentlemen”.

Social and Emotional Intelligence

Although research has shown that a mental age of six and a half years is the optimal age for beginning reading, intelligence is not the only factor that should be considered. Emotional and social maturity is also important. Mason and Prater found that: “…younger children make less progress than older ones of the same intelligence when they are exposed to the same program…” Although many studies have shown that it is possible to teach children under the age of five to read, it is important to consider whether this is desirable. Research has shown that the teaching of reading in the kindergarten tended to increase negative social behavior among the boys, and that learning was a much slower process than with first grade children.

It would therefore seem unwise to push children beyond their emotional or social maturational level, since reading disability is often caused by starting a child in a reading program before he is ready. As Dechant asserts: “Such a child cannot handle the day by day learning tasks and finds himself farther and farther behind as time goes by. He becomes frustrated and develops antipathy toward reading. He actually learns not to read.”

The relationship between reading disability and emotional and social maladjustment is often a “vicious circle”. If the child has difficulty reading this leads to a loss of self-esteem and a stigmatization which can become a tremendous social difficulty. But it is equally true to say that if a child comes to school with emotional problems or social handicaps, it is very possible that he or she may experience difficulty in learning, and this includes writing and reading.

In her book “Is Your Child In The Wrong Grade?” by Louise Bates Ames, Phd., of the Gesell Institute of Child Development, the author makes the point that a large proportion of school children are being forced to perform at levels beyond their ability, thus creating behavioral problems, and antipathy toward school and learning. Ames asserts that a high I.Q. can give the illusion that a child is ready for more advanced work at a higher grade level, when in fact, the child’s emotional and social behavior is not capable of more demands. Clearly, it is important that a child’s emotional and social behavior be considered in deciding when to begin writing and reading; and any activities which foster this maturational development would seem to be beneficial to the development of the child’s reading capabilities.

Social and Emotional Intelligence Tip:

Young children are constantly learning through their play. They learn a great deal when they play on their own: including working through and digesting many sense impressions and emotions and reflecting on things. Children also learn an enormous amount when they play with others: how to interact, how to share, how to stand up for themselves, how to be compassionate. It is a constant give and take. Provide opportunities for both solitary, creative play and creative play with others. Don’t overschedule your child with school all day, and then provide constant, structured activities and playdates after school. They need time to digest their school experiences. But if your child is having social difficulties it can be helpful to invite another child over for a playdate so that social skills can be practiced in a relatively quiet, focused way, in a familiar and secure setting.

Some basic social skills include:

1. Learning to say “No Thank You” to someone who is bothering them (pushing, taking a toy, speaking rudely, etc.)
2. Learning how to enter into other children’s play, for example, knocking at the door of their “house” and saying “knock, knock, knock, may I come in?” and conversely, inviting in friends who want to come in and play.
3. If two children are fighting bring them together rather than separating them. If one has hurt the other, let him go and get a tissue and cup of water for his friend. Let them take hands and say “sorry, friend” then give them a task to do together.

A shortened version of this article was published in the Spring 2012 Mosaic Newsletter of the Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School (PDF).