Monday 20 September, 7pm

Please refer to the flyer for details on the upcoming Adult Education Workshop:  Twelve Senses - Part II.

Next week we will announce the details of our final Adult Education workshop for Term 3 - a practical Art Workshop focusing on wet on wet painting.  Keep an eye out! 

The Steiner Curriculum and the Development of the Child - a review by Karen Thrumble 

I don’t think anyone would have thought we’d be spending a wet Monday night discussing what it means to be human and later trying to wrestle our neighbour to the ground. But those were just two moments from Janet Malloy’s fascinating talk on The Steiner Curriculum and The Development of the Child.

Janet talked us through how the Curriculum guides the children of class 3 through their insecurities and worries as they move from the early stage of childhood and start to question ‘who are you?’ The teacher as benevolent leader, Moses, leading them through the Old Testament, providing security through the change. In Class 4 as the children ask, ‘who am I?’ and ‘where am I?’ the main lesson focusses on Norse myths – the separation of gods from the earth and helping bring their children fully into their physical being. This corresponds with the age where the children are full of energy – much fighting and trickery. In class 5 the children ask, ‘where do I stand in the world?’ and this year focusses on balance and beauty. Balance in nature and physically within the child (hence the wrestling where we were trying to knock each other off balance!). Main lesson focusses on ancient Greece, a culture that embodies both. My favourite was Class 6 which is the where the children are in a particular argumentative state – there are no grey areas in their discourse. This year focusses on polarities and the main lesson is the Romans (who believed they were always right). And art that year- everything is black and white! She carried on through the transition years and the upper school and showed the linkages between what is taught across the span of the years. What was very clear was that nothing in the Steiner Curriculum is there by chance. It is there at that moment and that particular form to help best guide our children through childhood to give them the best chance of emerging fully equipped for the next stage of their lives.

Hopefully you will be able to join us at future events which will be announced in the Bush Telegraph soon.