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An approach to meet the needs of this age
 In a Steiner school the kindergarten years are held to be unique and of great value. Education, like gardening, is a life process that requires time and care - like the plant, the child goes through various phases of maturing. Within a Steiner School there is recognition of three phases of child development: 0-7, 7-14, 14-21. The Kindergarten curriculum works out of and with the first phase, 0-7, with the understanding that what is done during these early years is not unlike the planting of a seed, with the flower only coming into full bloom many years later.
The young child is fundamentally trusting and totally open to the world about him. Like a little sense organ he absorbs and responds to all impressions, unable to protect himself from those that may be harmful or destructive. Impressions may thus penetrate the child so deeply that they may affect his development and future health and stability.
From the developmental picture as given by Steiner, we are aware that children of this age learn by doing, that there is a “participatory knowing”. This participatory or “tacit” knowing needs to be grounded in lived experience in order for abstract concept-building to emerge in later years. Through its physical, sensory, and motor activity, the young child comes to know the world. This is an immediate, participative way of knowing by which the child, through physical activity, and above all through imitation and play, first comes to know and to make the world its own. Attempts at this stage to teach the child analytical, conceptual thinking are premature, and may inhibit the full development of this tacit knowing that is seen to be so necessary for truly powerful, creative, and self-confident thinking in later life.
If we proceed from this understanding that the young child learns through imitation, through absorbing all actions and qualities around him, then we cannot but wish to surround the child with all that is harmonious, beautiful, truthful and endowed with goodness:
• Harmonious musical sounds and beautiful, flowing colours
• toys made of materials of natural beauty such as wood, sheep’s wool, shells, fine cloths, silk and hand made dolls
• Adults who are mindful that each action be worthy of the child’s imitation
• An atmosphere of calm and order, though there may be moments of intense activity
A Steiner approach acknowledges that children need to play and be active until their seventh year and that “education” before that age needs to be offered imaginatively and non-intellectually, through play, physical activity and through the opportunity for spontaneous imitation. |
