Parents who know Waldorf education will naturally know that the main courses of Waldorf education are determined in response to the development of children's consciousness. For example, the first grade is mainly about fairy tales and folk stories, the second grade is about fables, legends and sage stories, and the third grade is about creation stories.
Now, the three children standing in front of us are Xiao Y, six years old, who graduated from kindergarten early; Little J, seven and a half years old, grade one; Little m, 8 years old, second grade. In this mixed-age class of Grade One and Grade Two, how can this class be taught so that every child can learn and make progress at his own pace?
Here, I would like to share the process of selecting and designing the content of Chinese courses from the perspective of practice and from our exploring teaching.
what is the subject of Chinese taught? I think there are two major directions. First, language, listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, and children's learning and mastery of their mother tongue are the basis for learning all other subjects and even their future lives. The other is spirit. We often talk about humanistic spirit, which contains healthy attitudes, emotions and values, everything in one's mind and spirit, and of course moral spirit. Our curriculum design covers these two aspects, and we don't despise the former, but also pay special attention to the latter.
There is no specific textbook to follow, but there is a vast sea of literature in front of me. I know that children before the age of nine are suitable for listening to fairy tales, folk stories, fables and legends, and sage stories, but how can I choose so many text materials?
One day I read such a short story from The Biography of the Buddha: It's about a deer, a turtle and a magpie. The Buddha said that this deer was his past life. Once it accidentally fell into a hunter's trap and endangered the moment. Its friends Tortoise and Magpie tried their best to save him. Later, the deer escaped, but the tortoise was caught by the hunter. This time it's deer's turn to find a way to rescue the tortoise. Finally, the three good friends escaped safely because they helped each other.
When I read this story, I saw a picture of three children arguing every day. Because they had just known each other for a long time, they didn't understand and tolerate each other enough, so conflicts and disputes continued. Isn't this story told by the Buddha the most suitable for the current state of these three children? I hope they can realize some sincere feelings and wisdom in the story, see themselves in the animal world and feel the preciousness of friendship.
So this story became the first lesson in the Chinese section. This story has been with the children for a week. They listened to the story in two ways, one is narrative, and the other is script dialogue. They also tried to retell the story together, recite the story poem written by the teacher, learn the words, phrases and idioms, draw the story picture in the main textbook, and write the learned words in the main textbook.
In the beeswax class, they try to knead deer, tortoise and magpie with beeswax, and rehearse this little drama in the last main and auxiliary class every afternoon. Three children happen to be the roles of three animals, and all this is just right magically!
a week later, when we are going to the next story, the children are also ready to perform this puppet show. To this end, let's prepare props and arrange scenes together.
The children were very excited about the first performance. They drew their own tickets and distributed them to everyone. The first lesson of Chinese, which lasts for one week, ends with a performance. Then, we enter the next story, The Prince Who Swallows the Sword.
This is a complete unit design of our Chinese class, with stories as the center, and artistic teaching methods, such as painting, clay sculpture/beeswax, poetry, songs, drama, etc., so that stories full of spiritual connotations and imaginative scenes can enter children's hearts in a quiet way, leading their spiritual growth and nourishing their emotional world.
After two months, when we see that the three children get along more and more harmoniously, they are more and more tolerant of each other, and unconsciously, there are more and more cooperation and fewer disputes between them, this may be the magic of the story. Sow seeds in children's hearts, water them and wait for them to sprout slowly.
If the experts who compiled the national unified Chinese textbooks take the general law of children's psychological development as the key link, they have compiled textbooks suitable for all children, then in our practice, we choose story texts suitable for their unique characteristics and needs based on our understanding of the children we have educated. It is immature and imperfect, but it is based on the sincere emotional link between teachers and children, and these "teaching materials" specially designed for "here and now" children can be used for reference, but they cannot be copied.
A Waldorf teacher, with his sincere feelings, rich creativity, and most importantly, with his sincere interest and deepening understanding of every child, shapes every teaching process and leads every child's spiritual and intellectual growth-this is exactly what we are striving for.