On Friday, I went to the closing assembly at Aurora Waldorf School. On that day, the last day of school, each class presented something from the year's curriculum on stage to a full auditorium. The event opened with children, teachers and parents singing a round led by the music teacher.
Then the presentations began. The following glimpse of what each class brought does not begin to describe the light in the children's eyes, the warmth of the teachers or the overall sense of community in the auditorium but here's the nutshell anyway:
1st grade recited several verses from memory.
2nd grade sang seasonal songs (including one they wrote the lyrics to).
3rd grade played their recorders and recited a poem about a house
(3rd grade curriculum focuses on house-building).
4th grade performed poetry with movement in a circle.
5th grade is the year of studying ancient Greece including participating in the Greek Olympics (along with other Waldorf schools)so they wore their togas (with their own painted designs)and recited odes they had written.
6th grade dressed in early Americana style and square danced to the fiddle music of a classmate and when the dance was over, they tossed their straw hats in the air (ah, the last day of school!).
7th grade spoke aphorisms and then jumped double dutch rope, in perfect synch, hopping in and out at just the right moment and providing many variations on the theme.
8th graders stood alone on stage and recited inspiration sayings from famous people they studied.
Then the first graders gave a rose to each of the eighth graders. The classes had built relationships throughout the year by having snack and recess together every Monday after starting the year with a similar rose ceremony, only in reverse. In the fall, the eighth graders each gave a rose to one of the new first graders and then it comes full circle at the end of the year, ultimately at the end of the eight year cycle. Why do I always forget to bring tissues to this event?
As you can imagine, it was a beautiful assembly and it brought to light what works about Waldorf education. On the other hand, when my husband and I were gardening Saturday afternoon at the Lafayette site, we saw a gathering in the yard behind us. We talked with the parents and found that they were meeting to form a team to fight the high stakes testing going on in their children's preschool classes in a popular public school. The parents understood that the tests are unreliable for children that young, that the time invested in test prep could be better spent and that they needed to do something about it to protect their children from what they described as nonsense. The children and parents were no different from those I was with at the assembly on Friday but the school's curriculums were very different.
These back to back experiences reminded me of why we are opening the Rose Garden Early Childhood Center in in Buffalo and what this educational model provides. It's an alternative that works. Children have only one childhood and it's a golden opportunity to learn what is true and of lasting value, accumulating rich resources and memories for a lifetime.
