March,
2010
Dear
Prospective Parents and Interested Visitors,
Welcome!
As we begin to plan for the next year and enter into this
new stage of our journey here at The Cottage Garden we wanted
to share with all of you a bit more about why we do this work
and what it means to us.
The
foundation of everything
that we do in The Cottage Garden is built upon the understanding
of life and human development presented in Waldorf education.
We believe that there is an intrinsic dignity to each stage
of human development, and we honor this dignity in the daily,
rhythmical life of our program in deeply practical ways.
We
run our program on the belief that there are certain experiences
that are essential for the healthy development of young children:
love and warmth; an environment that nourishes the senses; creative
and artistic experiences; meaningful adult activity
to be imitated; free, imaginative play; protection
of the forces of growth in childhood; gratitude reverence,
and wonder; joy, humor and happiness and adult caregivers
pursuing a path of inner development. We'd like to give you
a little picture of how we try to provide your children with
these experiences at their particular stage of development.
Love
and emotional warmth, rather than any particular early childhood
pedagogy, create the basis for the children's healthy development. We
strive to have these qualities live in our relationship to
each other, in our relationships with the children, in the
children's behavior toward one another and in our warm respect
for each of you.
The
essential task of the Waldorf early childhood teacher is to
create the proper physical environment around the children. We
want the children to experience the environment in our home
and garden as ensouled and nurturing. We have created a space
that provides the children with varied and nourishing opportunities
for their self-education—experiences in touch, balance, lively
and joyful movement and quiet inward listening. We also
create simple, organic meals, consisting primarily of whole
grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables so that the children,
when not in your care, will continue being nourished through
their senses as well as nutritionally.
In
a Waldorf early childhood classroom, the art of education
is the art of living. We try to be artists in how we
perceive and relate to the children and to the activities
of daily life. We sing and recite little verses, as you
know, but we also orchestrate and choreograph the rhythms
of each day, each week and each season in such a way that
the children can freely explore and create within a living
structure. We recognize a deep aesthetic element living in
the children's chosen activities. We see in the creation of
the sweet little sand-piles appearing all over our backyard
how they are working with the elements and shaping them to
their own satisfaction. We feel that this, at their stage
of development, is more important for them than formed, teacher
directed activities such as coloring or painting. Those will
come later on.
We
believe that real, purposeful work, adjusted to the abilities
of the children, is in accordance with their inborn need for
movement and is an enormously significant educational activity. We
focus on the meaningful activities that nurture life in The
Cottage Garden home. Cooking and baking, gardening, cleaning,
creating and caring for the materials in the immediate environment
and taking care of the bodily needs of the children creates
an atmosphere in which each child can be active. We have
recently observed them becoming more and more interested in
working with us. They sweep, set the table, rake, stir soup
and make sure that each of the sippy-cups are filled with
enough water for their friends. We don't just intend for the
children to copy our outer actions; we also hope that they
experience something of our inner attitude toward the work
we are performing—the devotion, care, sense of purpose, focus,
and creative spirit. They inspire us to try to be worthy of
imitation.
Little
children learn through play. They approach play in an entirely
individual way, out of their unique configurations of soul
and spirit and out of their unique experiences of the world
in which they live with their families. Based on our daily
observations of the children we continually work to create
an environment that supports the possibility of their healthy
play.
We
offer protection to the forces of growth in childhood. We
want the children to remain as long as possible in the peaceful,
dreamlike condition of their early childhood years. Any
instruction is more implicit than explicit; we model for them
rather than offer explanations, we offer them the opportunity
to do something instead of asking them if they want to. We
practice slow childhood at The Cottage Garden.
We
try to model an atmosphere of gratitude, reverence and wonder
for the children, believing that this, rather than just our
outer expectations for their good or polite behavior, will
grow naturally in them. We hope that the capacity for love,
which we believe is deeply embedded in each and every child,
will grow in this natural way as a gesture from them toward
the whole world.
Our
wish to cultivate joy, humor and happiness in our program
can't be expressed any better than what Rudolf Steiner said
in his book, The Education of the Child; therefore, we humbly
quote his words for you: “Joy of children in and with their
environment must therefore be counted among the forces that
build and shape the physical organs. They need teachers who
look and act with happiness and, most of all, with honest,
unaffected love. Such a love that streams, as it were, with
warmth through the physical environment of the children may
be said to literally ‘hatch out' the forms of the physical
organs.”
With
an educational philosophy that includes such an understanding
of life as what we have just quoted, we take our own self-development
and our responsibilities towards your children and you very
seriously—also joyfully and with deep gratitude.
Warmly,
Celia
Riahi & Barbara Audley
