One morning last week, as I was driving to Windsong after dropping off my teenagers at high school, and having just heard about the points based discipline system that a teacher in training in the high school was instituting and it how it had no plan for students that came in having already read the chapter or done the work that was assigned, I was feeling pretty disheartened about the educational system and our expectations for these nearly adult children.
If they didn't get a chance to practice working with age appropriate expectations, to practice striving past the bare requirements, what would that mean for them? How would that translate into setting expectations for their lives? What would that mean for our country and our workplaces as these teens become a part of our society?
As I was ruminating, a news story came on the radio that caught my interest. It was part of a larger series reporting on The Nation's Report Card, and it shared that Louisiana's elementary students had made huge jumps in math, scoring above pre-COVID levels. As a professional educator, this piqued my interest. I listened on as the reporter raved about this new instructional method that hundreds of thousands of COVID dollars were spent on, that hundreds of teachers were now talking up and gushing about; how it helped students concretely experience math, how it allowed for reasoning and mathematical judgment to develop, all while building on foundational number sense ...
Wow, it sounded amazing! What was this new way that so strongly influenced huge educational growth for students?
I was on tenterhooks; would I hear what is was before I arrived at school?
I drove a bit slower. I really wanted to know! Perhaps it was something Windsong teachers could study more and think about applying in our classrooms ...
Well, I was more than a bit underwhelmed when it was finally revealed that the new method was ... using manipulatives.
Not because manipulatives, which are physical objects that students use to work through problems in a hands on way, aren't great. They are, and research has long backed their use as supporting student comprehension and learning, but because its something you already see in Waldorf classrooms for math and really for just about every subject.
Hands-on learning is a cornerstone of Waldorf education, especially as the curriculum moves away from concrete ideas into more conceptual learning. Abstract ideas are things that you can't physically see (like love, morality, or, in the classroom setting, the structure of an atom).
The first true concept students are taught is on the horizon for second graders: Place Value.
Developmentally, just as Waldorf teachers know students don't want a points system to dictate their educational experience, we also know when it's the right time to introduce something new. With the 9-yr change on the horizon, perspectives are changing, 8-yr-olds are noticing details and asking questions, wanting to understand the world they are becoming a part of. Also, second graders now have a strong foundation of numbers and number relationships with over a year of practice working with ideas like addition and division from concrete (beads, gems, etc.) to abstract (numbers/equations on a page). Now, they think about their work and engage in problem-solving as a habit, with interest and energy. So now we will move things along even more, giving them something to strive for, to pique their interest, to understand more about our world.
While Waldorf education intentionally chooses to deliver curriculum at a developmentally appropriate time, which sometimes differs from other pedagogies, it doesn't mean Waldorf teachers aren't clued in to what other pedagogies are doing. As a Waldorf school, we want to be responsive, not reactive, prioritize instruction techniques that are student-based, not score-driven, and utilize assessments that are directly used to improve student learning, not work towards scores that are used to direct funding. Waldorf schools know that learning is more about experiences, cultivating interest and curiosity, and building capacities that can be built on now and later and then drawn on in even later years.
Teachers and parents everywhere care about education and students; that is clear to me when I talk with colleagues in private and public schools, read about current research and new methods, and attend conferences as a parent or as a teacher. But that care and drive is thwarted at times by a bureaucratic structure that is far removed from students and teachers. What is lucky for us, as an independent AND teacher-led school, is that we can utilize methods and spend supply funds where it will directly impact our students' learning. We don't have to wait for surplus disaster funding or for a governmental entity to give the ok. We can implement methods and choose to use or not use them based on research and our direct classroom observations.
And we are allowed to hold high expectations for our students within an achievable framework that meets them where they are at, asks them to think and interact with their learning, with each other, and grow their abilities to discern and problem solve through real world concrete experiences that are then shifted to more abstract ideas and build deeper capacities.
I am grateful for this, for our pedagogy, and hopeful for our students' futures.
