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Summer 2018
Letter from the President
Dear Friends,
We wish you all a joyful culmination of this year’s activities with the schools and individuals many of you support. This has been an exciting year of transition for us as we have launched the new design of our website. We especially appreciate the dedication and ongoing work of our website committee; Elyce Perico, David Eichler, Peter Chin,and other Board Members for creating, and Pamela Champagne Design for implementing, our new platform.
Please do visit http://www.healingeducation.org to learn about:
The new cycle of AHE classes, including individual workshops
Inspiring upcoming events/trainings such as the visit of Joep and Erica Eikenboom in Ann Arbor, Michigan
WEF grant applications underwriting student support specialists to visit your schools
Articles and video clips to enhance your work as teachers and therapists
Membership benefits
This edition of the newsletter will be the last of a series of free newsletters that accompanied the new design of our AHE website. To learn how to continue receiving AHE newsletters please journey to our website.
We are pleased to extend a warm welcome to our new AHE Advisory Board Members; Melanie Reiser and Jeff Tunkey, and re-welcome Joep Eikenboom. We also have a new AHE Board Member joining us, Renni Greenberg.
We hope you enjoy the thoughtful contributions to this summer’s newsletter. Articles include “Classroom”, “Nap time for High Schoolers”, “Extra Lesson practice in Spain”, and “Meeting an Adolescent with the Extra Lesson”. Thank you to our authors for lending their thoughts on ways to meet the students coming before us in this new era of our education. Let us know if you would like to share your experience as a support teacher as you implement practices individually, or through whole classwork, by writing an article for our newsletter.
Sincere regards to all,
Betty Jane Enno
President
Association for a Healing Education
CLASSROOMS TODAY
by Paul Gierlach
Students come to Waldorf schools because we have something they need. The assumption that they, their angels and parents have is that we will provide it. What is that ‘it’? How do we provide it? The first question arises when we teachers look more deeply into the pedagogy we practice; the second is the teachers’ cries for help in educating the many students who have different learning styles.
For nearly one hundred years we educators have been defining Waldorf education from the point of view of what it is and what to do with it. Times change, though. Students seem to bring different needs these days: there was a time when one could say as a teacher, “these students want to be taught, and I have something for them.” Now, their primal need is to be seen. They need to know that someone is interested in their essential selves. That is the ‘it’ for this generation.
This ‘it’ is not necessarily accessible by traditional pedagogical practices – not even those practiced in Waldorf schools for the past century. Our teaching paradigm focuses on the class and presumes that it includes individuals who as students respond in a somewhat similar manner to our presentation. Over a period of twelve years, the individual emerges, or begins to, and is immeasurably strengthened by the experiences she has had in the thousands of lessons that she has shared with her classmates. Subtly, Waldorf education, its curriculum and pedagogy, nurture the two most important components of social life: the individual and the society.
Classes have changed as much as the individual student’s needs, though. I no longer stand in front of one expectant group of 25 individuals; rather, I stand in front of 25 expectant individuals who are age-grouped together for developmental reasons. Great demands are made on me as a teacher. As a teacher I certainly don’t want to lose the inestimable social benefit of creating an environment that enables an evolving student to feel in her very bones the relationship of an individual and society. On the other hand, I don’t want to feel that every class I teach is a failure. How do we provide what is needed?
Let’s look at our pedagogy and our use of it. If we deepen our appreciation and practice of it, we will be able to simultaneously accomplish two things: 1) we will discover the child we look for, who needs to be ‘seen;’ and 2) focusing on the how-to-accommodate question, we will then be able to look into the many responses that are brought to us from mainstream sources and forge a working relationship that shares wisdom.
Our curriculum is student-based, and always should be. Most of the previous pedagogical research mentioned above has explored this insightful paradigm of Rudolf Steiner. In fact, age-appropriate education has worked its way into other educational approaches. We could and should deepen our awareness and use of our pedagogical practices, though.
When Waldorf education came over to the United States from Europe, we novice teachers took the forms that were offered. Most of us did not reflect upon the nature of something as formative as the main lesson sequence: verse, artistic activity, review, lesson, activity of a will nature. We followed it, and it worked. Subsequently, with more experience behind us, we noticed that the formal sequence had a certain power. It represented a cognitive progression that supported development of consciousness: the review of yesterday’s work was a doorway for the child into the new material that the lesson offered, and both were more or less consolidated in some will activity at the end of class. When we still taught classes of individuals as if they thought in the same manner, these two observations were enough for success, generally speaking.
Now, if we are to teach students of today, we need to understand more deeply what we are doing, especially with something as programmatic as the main lesson sequence. This pedagogical activity is not just a useful form or a good idea: it is a path of incarnation. Every day we help these ‘new individuals’ incarnate: the verse is a turning to something higher than ourselves, something present that we can’t touch; the artistic activity helps me as an individual breathe differently: the activity lifts us out of our own individuation in the classroom into a communal space; the review shows what each individual is capable of bringing from its latest sojourn in the spiritual world; it shows us in a most blatant manner who ‘she is’ at that moment in time; in the lesson we accomplish what we have always accomplished: we bring the world to the child, and she makes it her own: yet! how different our awareness and our striving is when we focus not on the ‘world’, but on the ‘her;’ with the willing activity we bring this student to the earth in a way that she sees and feels where she ‘is’, and joins us in our observations.
This ‘spiritual’ understanding of this pedagogical activity clearly jives with the observation that we have a number of individuals who could become a group if we handle the situation properly. It is completely consonant with the Michaelic thought that lies at the heart of Waldorf education: we are not human beings who aspire to being spiritual, but rather spiritual beings who are trying to be human, freely, ethically, consciously human.
This concept does not seem useful at first, but when taken to heart, it provides for us teachers a true foundation for how we teach everyone in the room. I will, in the space remaining, give a smattering of examples of what can be done.
FACT: up to 40% of the students sitting in your class have either an assessment that has generated accommodations or simply learn differently from the others. That sounds like trouble. But in fact, up to 80% of all accommodations that are recommended are already provided for in our Waldorf pedagogy when we use it. We know we have eye-children and ear-children in front of us – thus we need to write on the board what we say out loud. Everything? Of course not, but enough for the students to find their way through what you are teaching. Homework can and should be written and spoken, if you care about it. Just as we incarnate on the earth, the students incarnate into our classrooms: the environment should be healthy and welcoming.
Our pedagogy accommodates much more than the environment: as you could expect, it speaks to the whole gamut of ’demands’ the students make on us.
FACT: students have difficulty remembering what you teach. Mainstream insights make distinctions when speaking of incapacities of memory usage: working memory, short- and long-term memory are the most common denominations. These insights can be very useful when we want a student to overcome something. However, if we expect a child/student to know who she is, more is needed. What grounds our distinctions concerning memory? We talk of four-fold human beings. Bring this together with memory. On the earth, this human being has a physical body – which has its memory, found in the muscles and organs; a human being has an etheric body – which has its memory, discoverable in habits, especially the rhythmic; a human being has an astral body – which has its memory, memorably found in opinions and thoughts and desires and the like; the human being has an ego-organization – where I am myself a part of a larger memory that cannot be encountered easily on earth.
It is very important that we understand the qualities of memory when we create situations in our classes that help us work with the memories of different students, when we utilize movement (for the physical body), repetition (for the etheric or habit or time body), interest (for the complicated astral body, often called the music body) and intentionality (for the ego-organization.)
Who says we can review only once a lesson? With some classes, I review three times: I give a short summary of what we have already accomplished, and I include a preview of what we will do in the next twenty minutes. Done creatively, it rhythmically rests the etheric and attracts the interest of the astral. Note taking can involve the student in the daily lesson and necessarily tie it to what will follow the next day. Use the Cornell Note taking schema which lays out spaces on a piece of paper for taking of notes in class, reviewing of notes in the evening, using of yesterday’s work creatively in the new day’s work. Do we have what it takes to let students take notes, not in words, but in pictures, as a mural? (It is immensely satisfying.)
Any style of note-taking fosters discipline, ours and the students’. Waldorf education concerns itself with the Will. The topic is as broad as memory – it is that significant for our own and our students’ incarnation! Executive Functioning is the mainstream term for the inability of students to take up, work on, finish and turn in assignments – or accomplish anything! We teachers have to deal with it every day.
It lies within the mystery sphere of Waldorf pedagogy that pictures (imaginations that the student of all ages can live into) and stories and musical phrases can lift the student out of a lethargy and, perhaps, enkindle an interest; it lies within the mystery of human nature that warmth and interest in the child is more effective than logical steps or punishments; it lies within our scope as teachers to arrange our work in the classroom in such a way that we model, model what we expect. For instance, by using the last ten minutes of every academic class for homework, one does not lose ten minutes of content-teaching but rather creates an actual moment of connection with someone who is in need: an example: I can assign homework (hopefully orally and in writing on the board); I can expect it from everybody; I can stand quietly in front of a student who can’t start the assignment and be a human reminder (if the issue is memory as well) or model (if the issue is more astral or ego-oriented) of what is expected. I overtly stood at the desk of a student for one-half the year: gradually she took up the pencil on her own accord and began to do her assignment. Admonishments were worthless; warmth and the humor of the situation turned the tide, so to speak. It was time well spent. The entire class benefitted from my overt attention with one student: we all lived in the same expectation. This is important because we need to feel that all students are benefiting from the healthy classroom we are inventing.
These days, I find it very useful to do a review at the end of every academic lesson. “Let’s see what we have done?” I often say. I wait for the class to be quiet and still. With a grade school, I move from earliest events to the most recent; in high school, more often I will work backwards. Let’s do it right now: at the end of my comments on Executive Functioning, I raised a thought that is very important: are all students benefiting from the attention placed on the needy (as the phrase offensively goes.) In effect, I’ve left you with something to mull over from the point of view advocated in this article: how to help the incarnating child? Before that I introduced the four-fold memory of the human being, a topic rife with potential study. Before that, I tried to take the classic main lesson paradigm and re-enliven it for our own demanding times. All of this was to support an assertion I implied: Waldorf pedagogy tells us how to meet the incarnating child in an imaginative – not fanciful – manner.
Most high school teachers leave the students with a thought to ponder before the next class. So, I leave you with something that can ‘tie together’ all that has been said: what is the true role of rhythm in human lives? In the classroom, which actually is a microcosm of life and living? This homework is not busy work. We teachers know that nearly one hundred years ago Rudolf Steiner added eurythmy and form drawing to the otherwise conventional academic classes; they work overtly on the etheric bodies, the habit bodies, of students and teachers. We haven’t added any new ‘subjects’ to our curriculum – but working with the increasing need for educational support work in the classroom can awaken us to the hidden secret of Waldorf Education: the third magisterial contribution of Rudolf Steiner to education is discoverable in rhythm – as a concept and as an activity.
Paul has been a teacher of students and other teachers in Waldorf schools for over forty years. His formative experiences as a grade school and high school teacher lead him to concentrate a lot of his attention of the learning styles and needs of students wjho somehow seem outside the norm. Since his retirement from full-time teaching, Paul works in high school trainings in the United States and China, hoping to create pedagogical environments that are inclusive in every possible way.
Nap Time for High Schoolers
As we know supporting the Sense of Life or Well-Being for high schoolers can often be challenging. Enough sleep can be hard to incorporate with fluctuating hormones for the adolescent human being. A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to teach a Yoga/Qigong class for high school students in our school. When the instructor, Kate, asked me to teach the class she said to be sure to include shavasana, which is the relaxation part of the practice. Kate informed me that the students particularly enjoy this exercise that they call “nap time.”
I found the students grateful to practice the exercises but indeed were particularly appreciative of the relaxation time. There were six students and all six fell asleep for 20-30 minutes during the relaxation. They woke refreshed and prepared to carry on with they’re demanding high school schedule and evening homework and activities.
In retrospect I feel if we consciously incorporate a deliberate pause in the afternoon for our high school students, the benefits may be tenfold. We understand the importance of and incorporate the “pause” after practicing Extra Lesson exercises for maximum benefit of assimilation. The physical and etheric bodies can then provide a vessel for the astral to become healthily anchored if we allow the time for this. As kindergarten teachers we extol the virtues of nap time. I think high school students as well could benefit from an additional opportunity to integrate and assimilate the beautiful curriculum they are regularly partaking of by incorporating an afternoon short nap!
Happy rest time to all.
Betty Jane Enno
Kindergarten Teacher Austin Waldorf School
Yoga/Qi Gong Instructor
Meeting the Adolescent with the Extra Lesson
by Connie Helms
Developed over thirty years ago by a Waldorf school educator from England named Audrey McAllen, the Extra Lesson is an assessment plus a series of movement, drawing, and painting exercises. The premise is that difficulties in reading, writing, and math could be due to inadequate spatial orientation, poor body geography and to sensory integration difficulties if a person has missed a stage in the first seven years of development. Afterwards, a program of specific movement exercises is recommended to help the person overcome hindrances so that learning may occur with greater ease, both physically, mentally and emotionally.
Joe came to my office accompanied by his mother shortly before his fourteenth birthday for an Extra Lesson assessment. Almost immediately after shaking my extended hand, he sighted a large green physioball and sat down on it. Rather than waiting for a cue on where to go, he zeroed in on the thing that unconsciously he knew he needed to address—his balance issues. My observations from the first half minute already told me volumes about Joe’s needs, and I thought he would be well-suited to the Extra Lesson work.
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My office is a large space with a soft wool carpet, simple wall adornments and many objects familiar to Extra Lesson practitioners: blue and red balls, bean bags, a balance beam, a basket of jump ropes, shells, kaleidoscopes, a table and chairs, books at various reading levels, and art supplies such as watercolor paints, wide brushes, soft lead colored pencils and beeswax crayons. In one corner are three different sized physioballs which are used to roll on or sit upon in order to strengthen balance. This is where I began my work with Joe, observing his inclination to sit on the ball.
When asked about his favorite thing in school, Joe answered “Social studies and 2:40,” which is the dismissal time. Least favorite things were math and gym. The rest of the hour was spent engaging Joe in physical activities such as walking on a long rope, hopping on one and two feet, skipping, and tracking a pencil with his eyes. More observations about Joe became clear after he wrote a few sentences with misspelled words in disjointed print, tried unsuccessfully to copy some geometric forms, and drew some pictures that looked younger than typical seventh grade drawings. However, he read aloud very fast with few errors and excellent comprehension.
Joe’s mother initially called me because her son was struggling with penmanship and coordination. These were obvious in the assessment, as well as his struggles with balance and spatial orientation, which means knowing where our body is in space and knowing what is around us. When I met with his mother and father a few days later we reviewed Joe’s developmental history. He was born by caesarean, was a fussy baby and startled easily. He breastfed for a year, although latching on was initially difficult. At four to five months, he pulled himself to standing and was frustrated with the crawling process at six months. He crawled in an asymmetrical pattern at seven months. Verbal at an early age, Joe spoke in complex sentences by eighteen months. He sucked on his shirt sleeve in the early school years, and a current habit was fiddling with an object such as a small slinky he kept in his pocket. He also taught himself to read at a very early age––before his fourth birthday.
I explained to his parents that taking up the Extra Lesson work would serve him well. He would apply for his driver’s learning permit in a year and they would want him to have a stronger sense of where he was in space before getting behind the wheel of a car. I added that it takes a year for the physical body to change in terms of releasing old habits and adopting new skills. I also recommended a few Craniosacral sessions to help Joe’s body be freer from restrictions in the central nervous system. Thus, Joe began the Extra Lesson sessions just before his birthday.
The picture that was confirmed for me as I began to work with Joe was that he did not successfully navigate through the developmental stages of the first seven years. While his speech and intellect were clearly superior, he did not appear to fit well in his body. He was clumsy and appeared to be disoriented in space. As we began our weekly sessions, I noted his entry into my room: he dropped his backpack on the floor in the path of the entry, slid off his shoes and left them scattered on the floor, and often went to sit on the large ball. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow! And he’s going to be driving in a year?”
This quality of being disorganized and appearing to be lost in space is known as vestibular dysfunction. Found in the inner ear, the balance or vestibular system affects vision, hearing, and our relationship to gravity. It mediates all sensations traveling between the brain and the body, so that if we have a proper relationship to gravity, school learning is relatively successful. But in Joe’s case, not being centered in his body was causing him challenges. Symptoms of vestibular dysfunction may include poor balance, dislike of crowds and theme parks, poor organizational skills, poor motor planning and clumsiness. These fit the description of Joe.
We started our hour with a handshake and a verse from Rudolf Steiner, founder of Waldorf education. The uprightness needed to stand and recite was in itself a significant aspect of our work together. Over the months, we spent every session using different ways to strengthen Joe’s balance. He sat on the physioball, and fell off too, while we recited times tables and threw a ball back and forth. He rolled across the floor in a not so straight line at first. Week after week he persevered, and in our seventh session he rolled in a straight line. He stood on a balance board, trying to stay on and even toss a few beanbags at the same time. Here was a fourteen-year-old boy, slipping and falling and yet the inner drive was evident; he wanted to succeed in mastering control of his body, the task of every preschool child.
Most challenging was walking on a balance beam. In the first few weeks, Joe tried to run across the beam just to get to the other side. He fell off it repeatedly. His work was learning to trust, to walk slowly, and to put one foot assuredly in front of the other while looking straight ahead. With small increments of progress, I felt he was ready for a new challenge, adding speech to the balance beam walk. After taking a break from the beam for about a month, I began to have Joe walk across it saying a five to seven word sentence. He could walk and talk across the beam but not in the rhythm of one step, one word. Only after several months was he able to coordinate this. He also learned to walk backwards and repeat the words in the sentence backwards. As speech was already a strength for him, speaking a seven word sentence backwards was easy. The challenge lay in the synchronization of speech and steps. The added motivation for this teenager was that most of his sentences were comments about national politics and scandals; each week I looked forward to his wry comments!
As Joe’s balance grew stronger, he continued to seek out the very activities that addressed his challenges, and as he practiced, his vestibular system grew stronger. What a great feeling of accomplishment for Joe when he was able to look back, a year later, and see how well he could execute the balance beam with confidence and compare this to his initial struggles.
Probably the most significant activity of the Extra Lesson is the copper ball exercise, which works very deeply on the breathing system, helping to connect the head (thinking) with the limbs and metabolic system (willing) via the heart area (feeling). Joe would lie on the floor and lift a heavy copper ball in each hand in a sequence of arm movements. The feet must also squeeze a soft ball to keep them actively engaged. While he did the movements, I played scales on a small glockenspiel in order to guide the sequence.
After almost five months, Joe became less erratic in his movements. It is easy to lose focus in this exercise and this happened many times. A full year later I began to have Joe use glasses of water instead of the copper balls. The glasses were heavy crystal and rounded at the bottom so they resembled holding a ball but had the added challenge of water which could easily spill. Luckily warm weather had arrived!
A week before his birthday, Joe spilled a lot of water. Then there was a three-week pause in our sessions, and when we resumed I asked him if he wanted the balls or the water––to my surprise he chose the glasses of water. He spilled some, but only if he went too fast or lost focus. The next week he did the exercise better than he had ever done. He switched back to the copper balls and steadily he continued to improve in most of the remaining sessions. What transpired was that Joe became more centered in his whole being. This exercise helped to integrate all the many coordination tasks we worked on, helping his lower body and upper body to function in visible harmony.
Other activities contributed to Joe’s improved balance, coordination, and spatial orientation, including drawing geometric forms and painting the many watercolor exercises from the Extra Lesson. For example, the same painting was done at the beginning of each session, a viridian green and magenta wash from left to right across a large vertical surface. The task never varied, yet it took Joe a year to really do it well. When his spatial orientation improved so that he innately understood “left to right” and “top to bottom” and he learned to use less paint instead of creating puddles all over the surface, the result was a success.
Other paintings included series of geometric forms such as spirals and five-pointed stars. Joe’s first paintings of a five-pointed star were blobs. I had to lay out yarn in a large star on the floor and have him walk the shape for many weeks in order for his body to develop a sense of the archetypal shape. His subsequent paintings were much better.
After each session I wrote notes; every small success was recorded. As I glanced through my notes over the months and thought about who walked in that door each week, a theme emerged:
Three months: he walked in upright and ready to begin
Five months: great humor and better eye contact, walked in with more uprightness, Joe’s mom reports they’re seeing improvements all the time
Six months: walked in with assurance and great eye contact
Seven months: feisty today, little antics, laughter, intrigued with form drawing
Eight months: learning to jump rope, perseverance, so much more in himself
Ten months: walked in so tall and upright
Eleven months: left his shoes by the table instead of spread out in the entry path (first time!)
It had become very clear to me that Joe was growing into his body in a healthier way. He seemed to be able to navigate space better, he seemed more in command of his body, and most of all, he seemed to be feeling good about his newly acquired skills.
One night as I drove home, it was dark when I stopped at an intersection with a stop sign. In front of my headlights flashed a person walking a dog across the street. My brain registered the archetype first: upright human being walking a dog. Then, my brain registered an amazing recognition: it was Joe, walking his dog! That moment, at that stop sign, I saw the archetype of the upright human being, the archetype that separates us from the animal kingdom which lacks this vertical quality. Joe came to me as a teenage boy who had appeared unsure of the space around him because he was not quite fully settled in his body. He had to spend almost a year learning how to become more at home in his body until he reached a state of truly being a vertical human.
The first year anniversary passed and Joe turned 15. We continued to work weekly until July came when he went off to camp. When he returned in August we had only four sessions left before he was ready to start high school. Imagine the sense of pride I felt when Joe arrived one day with his driver’s manual in his hand. Inwardly I smiled to think of how far he had come. His handwriting was still not great, although improved, but his sense of himself was clearly more assured. The next time Joe came, he said he had driven to the session, and his mother confirmed that Joe was a good driver! It is with deep gratitude that those of us trained to do the Extra Lesson have the privilege to work with persevering individuals who become more upright human beings, ready to meet their destiny.
*[END:IF]*
This article was previously published in LILIPOH Issue 50 Vol. LIL 12 Winter 2007
Connie Helms, M.Ed. is on the board of the Association for a Healing Education (AHE) and runs her practice, Balance in Childhood and Adolescence,
in Williston, VT. She is Co-director of AHE’s Educational Support Program and a consultant to Waldorf Schools.
Cycle 11 Students Visit Extra Lesson Practitioners in Spain
Carolina Gonzalez and Sofia Taromona
As students of the Educational Support Program at AHE, we are given the task to visit Waldorf Schools in order to observe professionals who are currently working with the Extra Lesson. In 2017, we had the amazing opportunity to visit and observe Mary Jo Oresti at the Detroit Waldorf School. The love and respect that each child clearly showed towards Mary Jo during each one hour session was unforgettable. This was our first opportunity to see Extra Lesson in action, and it opened a window of possibilities in us that made us want to explore more.
We both work in the school, Papalote, in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where we speak Spanish as our main language. Because of this, we felt the need to experience our following practicum in our native language and going to Spain immediately came to mind. We initially dreamed about this idea, not thinking it would actually be a possibility, but something we have learned since we began studying the Educational Support Program at AHE, is that if you put your heart and mind into something, the pieces weave together to make it happen.
We started our trip on March 23rd with a two week visit to different cities around Spain, being welcomed by friends and family. We were astonished to discover how Form Drawing is rooted in different cultures that put their seed in Spain, whether it was in a Cathedral, a Palace, a Museum, or even on sidewalks and regular houses. The clearest example of this was the Alhambra, an ancient mosque and palace in southern Spain. The amount of detail, symmetry, and perfection of the forms carved on its walls is breathtaking. It is remarkable to see how these forms, that characterize Waldorf classrooms and the Extra Lesson work around the world, are rooted in our past.
After traveling for several weeks we arrived in Madrid ready to accomplish the objective of our trip. Our first stop was Escuela Libre Micael, where Nelida Guerrero hosted us with open arms. Here we observed Neli work with a 15 year old student and later on with a 10 year old boy. P. walked through an entire assessment where Neli carefully observed each of his movements and coordination (walking, crawling, standing on one foot, etc.), retained immature movement patterns and lateralization. It was certain that P. struggled daily in school and we observed how Neli was able to make him feel good about himself, even if it was for that one hour period. As she carefully observed him she would explain how each one of his movements told her something about his attention, memory and academic skills. Followed by this she said, “You are like a type of diamond. You need to look closely to find what is there.” P.’s face lit up, and his gestures reflected sympathy and gratitude. The next hour was spent observing C., an enthusiastic child. Neli asked him to walk us around the school. His explanations of each area demonstrated how proud he was about all of the little details around school, the handmade mosaic bench in the entrance, the vegetable garden, the playground and of course the Educational Support classroom. During the Extra Lesson session it was incredible to see everything that we learned in class put into practice as we observed C. engaged in the handedness pattern, the flower rod and person house tree drawings and several of the movement exercises.
Our next stop was Escuela Waldorf Aravaca. Here we shared Extra Lesson experiences with Elena Martin, who is in charge of Educational Support Program in the school. Elena welcomed us with a cup of coffee and the cozy café where several mothers gathered and ate homemade baked goods. Once in her classroom, Elena described her daily routine, sharing how she supports classroom teachers, and how she organizes individual sessions. She talked about the number of students she serves in one-to-one sessions and how she works with small groups. It was great to listen to her speak about her interactions with parents and teachers. Everything she shared was familiar to us, and even though we work in different countries, we experience similar situations, questions and difficulties.
Being at these two schools was absolutely gratifying. Whenever we are learning something new, many questions arise. During our Extra Lesson studies we have had doubts, doubts whether we are doing things right or not. After this practicum we reaffirmed that we need to trust our instincts, and no matter how much information we have, there are moments that you will still have doubts. Doubts are good as they give you the possibility to look into different directions, to think, to break a habit and establish a new idea, and then finally, to make things happen.
With our brief experiences in Canada, the United States, and Spain, and comparing it with our work in Mexico, we see how Waldorf Education and Extra Lesson are universal and speak to the heart. Each one of the professionals we have observed in this process has proven to us that the key to working with children with learning difficulties is observation. This complex activity leads us to understanding and once we have determined the root of the difficulty we need to work with the natural basic developmental path. There is no point in working with the top of the iceberg when the base is not firm.
After visiting both of these Spanish schools our faces were lightened up with joy. The warmth, love, and sense of community that is transmitted at Waldorf schools is heart filling. We reaffirmed we are on the right path. We are preparing the soil; rich with the nutrients necessary for the bountiful harvest we call childhood learning.
Carolina Gonzalez, Educational Psychologist, and Sofia Taramona, Psychologist, have been working together hand in hand for the past five years in Comunidad Educativa El Papalote, a school in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. They will soon graduate from the AHE’s 11th Cycle of Educational Support Training in Ann Arbor, MI.
Alhambra, Granada, Spain
Check out our new website!
AHE is pleased to announce the launch of our updated website to better serve the community of schools and educators who address the needs of children worldwide at healingeducation.org
Browse and view our offerings of Professional Courses, Educational Support Trainings and the ever-expanding selection of helpful resources.
Connect with us soon to take advantage of upcoming benefits and discounts for current and new members! We hope you find value in our offerings and visit us often!
Please let us know how we can better serve you…
healingeducation.org
Blessings!
Association for a Healing Education
The Association for a Healing Education has recently made changes to our membership fees. Individuals may now join for $25 per year and School membership is reduced to $35 per year.
As the number of children with special needs continues to grow, AHE works to help educators, parents and therapists develop their professional skills to serve children in their care. We recognize that many children need a deeper level of understanding during their school career and that they can be strengthened with classroom accommodation and/or individual attention.Through our Educational Support Program, workshops, publications and conferences we strive to be a listening ear to the needs of educators and the families and children that they serve, remaining faithful to both Waldorf pedagogy and researching new innovations. Your support is greatly appreciated! Please see our website: healingeducation.org to join.
There are still spaces open for this not to be missed conference!
Human Archetypes and the Extra Lesson
with Joep Eikenboom
Graduates of all Educational Support Programs are invited to attend a four day intensive on deepening the Extra Lesson work. Our main presenter will be Joep Eikenboom, lecturer, class teacher and author of Foundations of the Extra Lesson.
In the afternoons we will have painting with Erica Eikenboom, presentation of research topics and collegial seminars for sharing. We would like to hear from those of you who have research projects to share, an interesting case study or a topic you would like to suggest.
The sessions will take place Monday, July 23rd through Thursday, July 26th, from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm at the Rudolf Steiner House, 1923 Geddes Ave, Ann Arbor, MI. The closing plenum will be on Thursday at 4 pm.
General fee is $375.
AHE Graduates and current members – $350.
(To become a member, at our new price of $25 per year, please go to healingeducation.org )
Conference registration after July 1, 2018 only if space is available
Priority is given to those who register and pay early.
If one needs to cancel, a $50 administration charge is deducted from the refund.
Registration may be done online, with payment either by PayPal at www.healingeducation.org
or by check paid to AHE
Please submit questions to Connie Helms: conniehelms@gmavt.net
Check payments to AHE can be mailed to;
Connie Helms, 2886 Mountain Rd, Bristol, VT 05443
AHE Educational Support Program Scholarship Fund
Attending the Association for a Healing Educations Educational Support Program is a rewarding experience that can lead to professional and life changing experiences. With its fall and spring weekend sessions and the summer two week intensive, the program is designed to be affordable, allowing attendees to work and care for themselves, and perhaps a family, during the time they are enrolled. That said, what is affordable financially to one person can make attending impossible for another.
Through the ESP program scholarships are available for those who apply, but the amount is limited and must be shared among those who are seeking financial support.
When ESP Cycle 10 was in our final days and preparing for our graduation, we wanted to leave something behind that would show our appreciation and gratitude for all we had learned and experienced. We also wanted others, no matter what their income level, to be able to attend the program and thus spread this work, the support for all students, into as many schools as possible. In that light a group of us decided to create a scholarship fund and the generous donations from our group brought in over $800!
These scholarships are awarded in Year Three and a small amount has been retained as seed money so the scholarship can continue to grow and serve ESP students in not only Cycle 11, but into the future. The following testimonial confirms how important this support can be.
“I am so appreciative of the assistance and generosity of my AHE predecessors and now colleagues in passing along their well wishes in the form of financial support. As I begin my work in Extra Lesson, I see more and more clearly how much this important work is needed in the world, and how excellently my training is in meeting the needs of my students. Of course, Waldorf teachers are lifelong learners and this is an endlessly interesting field – I’ll be studying for a lifetime. But at this moment in my journey, your donation has created an opportunity for me that would have been much more complex to manage without your support. Please accept my heartfelt gratitude.”
Best,
A.
If you would like to contribute to this scholarship fund in any amount, please send your donation earmarked scholarship fund, of any amount, to;
Connie Helms
2886 Mountain Road
Bristol, VT 05443
Thank-you!
AHE is Pleased to Announce
Cycle 12 of the Educational Support Program
Are You Ready for the Next Step in Teacher Development to Meet Our Changing Times?
Attend Individual workshops in the first year
Choose One or Two Years for Teacher Development
Take Year Two alone for Extra Lesson concentration*
Join the full Three Year Program to be a Certified Specialist
Year 1 dates: October 18-21, 2018 • March 21-24, 2019 • July 15-26, 2019
Workshops are held in Ann Arbor, MI, with possibilities to offer workshops in other regions of the U.S. with sufficient numbers.
Each workshop module is 3.5 days (with extended weeks in July 2019 for full course participants).
October 18-21, 2018 – Classroom Applications and the Foundation of Educational Support The Developmental Path, The Twelve Senses & Foundation Senses, Activities for immediate use
March 21-24, 2019 – Deepening our Observation Skills and Activities for Whole Classes Constitutional Types, Whole class activities with Jeff Tunkey, Learning Styles
July 15 -18, 2019 – Early Childhood: Working to Create Healthy Movement Circle work, movement journeys, songs, games and whole child development
July 22-24, 2019 – Extra Lesson: Concepts, Applications and Practice Principles of Extra Lesson, Introduction to the Exercises, Case Studies
* For Extra Lesson concentration in year two alone, there are prerequisites.
For two or more people coming from the same school, there is a discount off tuition when attending the full year. Please inquire.
To be a Certified Learning Specialist, choose our Three Year Program, which includes mentoring and a practicum.
For thirty-three years in over 5 countries, AHE has been guiding teachers to better understand the children of today, using the Waldorf pedagogy and Anthroposophy as a framework for understanding the human being. In years one and two the curriculum will provide an understanding of the developmental needs of of children from early childhood to high school.
For more information, please see our website www.healingeducation.org
or contact Connie Helms: registrar@healingeducation.org