“WE HAD FUN AT THE CEMETERY!”
Victory in the Battle of Boring
“BOOOORRRRING!!” This is sadly the modern child’s most lethal weapon against their teachers, homeschoolers or otherwise. One has spent ages lovingly preparing the lesson, making sure to include many elements of interest and stimulation. Then five minutes into the presentation, some rude little rascal interjects with the above. Your heart sinks, and your enthusiasm and sense of purpose evaporate.
But what to do? Desperately change direction in a futile attempt to accommodate your smirking tormentor. Yes, that’s it – but not the way s/he thinks! “Boring is it? ‘.’” you reply “That’s nothing compared with what I’ve planned for the rest of the lesson – and the afternoon as well.” One then proceeds to explain how one has to reluctantly jettison the afternoon nature excursion (whatever), to be replaced by some tedious activity; like washing the wall s! This increasingly common ‘boring’ attack is rarely genuine, rather a deliberate discourtesy; one which should be dealt with in the same spirit as if the miscreant had spat on your shoes!
If, however I detect a genuine creeping ennui in my young charges, I will spin on a sixpence to revitalize the lesson. And in Steiner Education, we have many resources to do just that. Most come under the general banner of creativity. Human beings are at their most innately creative as children – less so as adolescents. As Steiner teachers, we are continually alert to tap into this well-spring of imagination and invention, whether it be academic, artistic or activity – head, heart, and hand.
Steiner Education is renowned for its life – filled, exciting and colorful approach; but even its founder advised that it is actually healthy for children to sometimes experience boredom. Life for children, as well as adults, is not meant to · be the cup that continually overfloweth with fun and fantasy. It is character building – inspires a sense of duty even – for children to have to knuckle down to the odd onerous task. Often the moral basis for suffering boredom_ (again less so with teens) is that the child is doing it for the adult. Of course, most of the child’s learning experiences should be joyous and fulfilling.
Our mentor further elaborated on the teacher rather than the content often being the catalyst for boredom, or more generally, dislike of learning. He described mirthless teachers confronting children as if they had a slice of lemon in their mouth. As well as a pervading lightheartedness, he advised that the children should enjoy at least one riotous belly -laugh in every lesson! Humor, an indivisible element of imagination, is a teacher’s most effective ally in vanquishing the behemoth of boredom.
And art – in – education is right up there as well.
There is virtually no lesson, no matter how intrinsically cerebral, which cannot be. enlivened with one or both of the visual and performing arts. A main lesson in Class 3 on Punctuation can become not just educationally scintillating, but be perennially memorable when the question mark, comma and dash are charmingly personified. The children paint, sculpt and draw them, poetize, and perform them. Meanwhile they are committing the surprisingly exact and, detailed language knowledge to their life – skills treasury – forever.
When a lesson is flagging, an appropriate change – of- scene can blow the boredom blues away. It might be a Local History lesson; what more interesting place to visit than the cemetery?! With a little luck (and some pre-planning) you might find the names of interesting identities and even references to long – gone events. Oh, and go for a swim on the way home; a common contributor to child lethargy is sluggish circulation. Movement is the physical equivalent to humor to a child’s well-being.
Steiner homeschoolers are the new storytellers of their age. This is due to being enjoined to create pedagogically – valid ·tales for any and every occasion. Some find it hard at first, but with practice emerge from the chrysalis of their pre-masticated programming to shine as polished fabulists for their pint – sized audience. For example: how more interesting is the biography of, say, Rocky Milestone, than a mere desiccated description of granite – forming.
Even maths can be vitalized creatively with an emphasis on hands – on activities rather than the standard dull repetition. Fractions can be both learnt and enjoyed by, for instance, creating a 360-kilometer rally track on a big sheet of paper. Each child has a toy car, which, on the throw of a die, travels the track in fractions. One space is one 360th, 180 is half the track, 36 one tenth – and 370 a vulgar fraction which, when simplified, becomes 37 over 36. (See my Spiritual Syllabus Series books for examples of all the above.)
One of the worst structural contributors to boredom is the anachronistic and discredited ‘period teaching’. This is based on the fallacy that children have a short attention span. Evidence of their natural play dispels this. Watch their sustained concentration all afternoon building a cubby house! Steiner rather utilizes the unit or block method; the same subject for a couple of hours each day for three weeks or so. Of course, there is a kaleidoscope of variety within the theme,
One so – called ‘stimulation’ we firmly reject is the electronic, whether computers or TV. Though the children seem engaged, they are actually mesmerized. Electronic learning stifles the burgeoning imaginative powers of the child as nothing else. From a higher, more wholesome standpoint, this truly is BOOOORRRRING!
Important Earthschooling Notes
Copyright Alan Whitehead & Earthschooling: No Part of this book, post, URL, or book excerpt may be shared with anyone who has not paid for these materials.
Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss.
END NOTE
Alan has presented dialogue in his writings in an expressive form, where he tries to capture the accent of the person he was with to give his writing more authenticity and to allow the reader to “be with him” in his experience. In no place in his writings is he using expressive language to make fun of or demean the speaker. So, as a person with a linguistics and anthropology degree I find this enriching and informative to me as the reader. Thus, we have made the decision to leave all expressive writing in its original form.
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