Handwork Teacher Training - Spring 2023

Applied Arts Program Cycle 11 at the Fiber Craft Studio, located on the Sunbridge campus (Orchard House), next to Green Meadow Waldorf School

Week One included

movement with Julia Lieberman
speech with Barbara Renold
lecture series with Harlan Gilbert
curative education lecture series with Sarah Deichmann
handwork with Nicole Rodriguez

readings

A Modern Art of Education
by Ruldof Steiner
available as a free PDF from the Online Waldorf Library
lectures 1 & 5 for Harlan


Education for Special Needs: The Curative Education Course
by Ruldof Steiner
lecture 2 for Sarah

notes from movement

Monday - games (turtle tag), cooperative exercises (balance beam, human machine)

favorite stretch: tennis ball spine

imagine that there is a tennis ball slowly rolling from the top of your head to your tailbone, and wherever it is touching your back, that is the place your body hangs from (like a puppet)

Tuesday - SNOW DAY

Wednesday - games (elbow tag), cooperative exercises

favorite stretch: dinosaur tail

bend forward and let your head and arms hang down; imagine that you have an enormous dinosaur tail (it's miles long) and slowly swing it back and forth knocking over things behind you

Thursday - games (fox in the henhouse, ghost train), juggling, tightwire

favorite stretch: giant porridge pot

sit cross legged and imagine there is a giant porridge pot in front of you, lean over and stir with big sweeping movements

Friday - jumprope scope & sequence in lower grades, rough & tumble games on the mat

best friend bear cub
kneel across from the other person on the mat, both stay on knees, try to PULL them into your den (the space behind you) while they try simultaneously to pull you into theirs

farmer & cow
the cow gets on all fours (facing the farmer) and the farmer tries to PUSH the cow off the mat by the shoulders

stubborn baby
the baby gets on all fours (facing away from the babysitter) and tries to crawl away while the babysitter grabs them by the ankles and tries to keep them from leaving

notes from speech

Monday - names, consonants, The Eagle by Tennyson (here as a PDF)

Tuesday - To Know the Dark by Wendell Berry

Wednesday - continue Berry poem, work with a partner to speak and create a corresponding movement for an unknown non-English word (we did not know the language of origin or the meaning), experience the sounds in this way, say the word but keep the movement internal

we later learned that all of our words meant "tree" (I had Mongolian)

мод
mod

Thursday & Friday - continue with speech exercises from Steiner and the two poems above

notes from lecture series with Harlan

Monday - grades 3 & 4 curriculum as moral education
grade 3 themes: moral principles, responsibility, stewardship, community
relevant blocks: Old Testament Stories (or, he said, one could do Confucius), Farming & Gardening, Housebuilding

grade 4 themes: inclusion, affirming unity within diversity
relevant blocks: Man & Animal (Zoology)

Tuesday - discuss the Steiner lecture 1, begin to talk about grade 5

Wednesday - discuss how Waldorf education is changing to meet the needs of the modern student, continue to look at grade 5 (Botany)

Thursday - discuss the Steiner lecture 5, consider grade 5 Botany and Ancient Greece (major themes: expansion & contraction, harmony)

Friday - grade 8 Age of Revolution

Sarah did the Twelve Senses on Thursday and the Pedagogical Law on Friday. She also recommended

notes from handwork

grade 7 Story Quilt (week long project)

Booklist for Story Quilts

Reading my quick notes here is in no way a substitute for being in the Applied Arts Program, which is incredibly rich and deep, so please do not think that I am sharing them with that intent. I hope to encourage others to take this valuable training with this glimpse into our amazing work. If you are finding yourself drawn to taking this training, please do consider it.

In fact, they are currently accepting applications for Cycle 13, which begins this summer!!

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