… to Indian classrooms.
Hello all. Welcome to the 104th edition of TEPS Weekly!
Imagine a pre-school where children spend all their time immersed in stories, painting, moulding clay and playing with natural materials, without the pressure of learning to read and write. Sounds unconventional? This is exactly what the Waldorf pedagogy – an educational approach started by Rudolf Steiner – stands for.
How would such an approach work in an Indian pre-school, whose entire purpose is to prepare children for formal mainstream schooling? And what does the role of a teacher look like in such a classroom? An expert in the Waldorf approach visited a Waldorf-inspired low-income private preschool in Pune to see how they do it. Let’s go through the journal entry written by the expert.
Observing a Waldorf-Inspired Indian Classroom
On Monday morning, the autorickshaw took me through narrow lanes, steering its way around cycles, pedestrians and street vendors before stopping outside a small pre-school. It was a small two-storeyed building with a bare playground next to it. I found my way to the classroom that had been adapted to suit the Waldorf approach. Apart from the chair kept for me in the corner, all the other furniture – the desks and chairs – was stacked along one wall. While lack of furniture isn’t necessarily a feature of a Waldorf classroom, physical movement is, and this seemed to be the only way to enable that in a small classroom. I looked around and saw a simple tent made from an old bedsheet draped over three desks, a shelf with hand puppets made out of old socks, buttons and thread, round bamboo baskets with crayons, flowers, dried leaves, twigs, stones, clay and old pieces of cloth. And then there were the typical charts on the wall with the letters of the English alphabet and numbers from 1-100,reminding me that I was still in an Indian classroom. There was only one window in the classroom that let in only so much natural light, but the light-coloured walls added a sense of warmth and calmness to the space. I took my seat. The children started to walk in slowly, and the teacher greeted them with a warm smile, bent down to their level, and engaged in a small conversation. The children also seemed excited to greet the teacher. She was able to do this for the first 6-10 children. But as more children began to walk in in bigger numbers, she wasn’t able to greet them all individually while also trying to manage the children already present. The classroom got noisy quickly, but the teacher managed to get their attention by ringing a soft bell, signalling the children to stand in a U-shape for Circle Time. The fact that they knew what to do immediately showed that this is how they started each school day.
Circle Time:
During Circle Time, the teacher led a clapping game, where children clapped, tapped their knees and stomped their feet in a set pattern – a multisensory activity. Spending time outdoors is important in the Waldorf approach, so the teacher led them outdoors for more such activities that involved reciting a poem connected to nature and movement. Some children participated in the activities eagerly, while a few just listened quietly without participating. The teacher did not say anything about this, allowing each child to engage in their own way.
At the end of Circle Time, the teacher sang the transition song that indicated to the children that it was time for the next activity. The children also joined in.
Language Time:
The teacher used the sock puppets as characters while reading out the story ‘The Little Bird That Lost Its Song’ and encouraged the children to flap their arms like birds, sniff like a fox and sway like the wind. What happened next was something that was very unlike the traditional Waldorf approach – the teacher distributed worksheets to the children on which they were required to trace letters. In the Waldorf approach, formal reading and writing instruction begins only around the age of 6 or 7, but this is not something that parents in India are comfortable with, as the mainstream focus is on academic readiness as early as possible. The challenge here was to bridge the gap between holistic learning of alternative education and the academic emphasis of Indian culture. I thought of how we could make alphabet learning more Waldorf-like and noted down suggestions for the teacher: Students could start by tracing letters in the air, in the sand or even make letter shapes using clay. The letters could also be drawn in the form of characters or objects from the story, for example – drawing ‘B’ in the form of a bird.
Art and Play Time:
After they sang their transition song, the children knew that it was their Art and Play Time, and they waited impatiently as the teacher laid out the bamboo baskets in different corners of the classroom. The children were free to use the materials however they wanted – leaves and twigs were used to make crowns, cardboard boxes were used to make houses, the tent was used as a palace, and so on. But mostly there was a lot of chaos. There was not enough of all the materials for everyone to play with. Most of the children huddled around the basket with clay. Some of them didn’t want to share. And some of them just seemed lost and did not engage in play. The teacher walked around, modelling to some of the students and challenging them – she picked up some stones and laid them in a circle and said,"I’m making a bonfire! Who can bring me some twigs? And what should we cook today?" But she was not able to go around doing this for all, nor was she able to monitor the play much, which means she was missing the opportunity as the children’s guide to push them to explore and express creatively. The level of unstructuredness that the Waldorf approach talks about might not always work for an Indian classroom with a large number of students and just one teacher. Maybe one activity could be done at a time. First, everyone could paint. Then, the class could be divided into groups of 5-6 each, with each given one tray of materials that they could use to play collaboratively. The trays could be rotated among the groups to ensure that they get to play with different materials every day. I noted this down in my notebook to tell the teacher later.
Snack Time:
Next, the children had their Snack Time, during which aspects of responsibility building were seen when the children cleaned up after themselves. The teacher gently reminded them to do so as well.
Nature Time:
After Snack Time, it was Nature Time – time spent in nature for open-ended freeplay and meaningful work. The children rushed outside excitedly and started to play, while the teacher remained inside to set up for the next session. The children were of course happy, but the bare playground did not have much of the “nature” element. Outdoor play and connection to nature is an important part of the Waldorf approach, where learning happens organically by being outside, playing with each other and exploring nature. So, I noted down ways by which the teacher could still help children to pay attention to nature while playing. The teacher could ask questions like, “What does the sky look like today? Is it the same as yesterday?” “Can you feel the sun/wind on your face? How does that make you feel?” She could also help the children maintain a few small potted plants or a kitchen garden to instill responsibility and real-life skills.
Numeracy Time:
When the children returned to the classroom, pebbles had been laid out on the floor. They started picking them up and playing with them. The teacher started the class with a grounding song to help them calm down after playing. After that, she explained the concept of ‘more’ and ‘less’ using the pebbles. The children also got to move around the pebbles and play with them, and then they moved onto doing a worksheet. This was a mix of the Waldorf approach, where the children started off by engaging with natural materials like pebbles and then moved onto the traditional academic approach of doing worksheets.
Closing Ritual:
The day ended with the closing ritual, during which the children stood around the teacher, who shared her favourite part of the day and encouraged five students to share. Then they sang a closing song, packed their belongings, said goodbye to their teacher and left.”
Implementing the Waldorf approach in an Indian classroom like the one we described is no easy task. Yet we can adapt certain features in the following ways:
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Edition: 4.11
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