Every subject in Waldorf education is carefully woven around the child. Each subject complements the other, and together address the physiological and spiritual changes the child is going through as he/she carries on their journey of incarnation. When children enter Grade 1 at age 7, there is a tremendous change in them both physically and within. They start to see everything around as outside of themselves, separate and are desperate to learn, to read and write. However eager they are, they are physically still developing into full human beings, and so the Waldorf curriculum brings learning and academics to them in a gentle way aligned to what they are internally experiencing. For eg: A Grade 6 child experiences heavy bones and growing limbs, thus is overall physically more sluggish than before. They are also entering Puberty, and this is often accompanied by mood swings and lethargy. At this age, the Waldorf Curriculum introduces formal Geometry using instruments. The need of precision and focus on quality is being inculcated at a time when the child is inherently sluggish.
The Handwork curriculum weaves itself in an out of all the subjects in the curriculum through the grades. For eg: the child is introduced to numbers and counting in Grade 1, and alongside the child starts knitting the first project of making an animal, counting the rows as we move along. In Grade 8, when the child is learning in history about revolutions such as the French one or the industrial revolution (age of machines); children are introduced to the sewing machine in handwork and stitch something using a sewing machine.
Handwork thus is something that carries over learnings to/from the other classroom subjects enobling the child to face the future. A child should never feel that“ she/he is not good in handwork”. As parents we must encourage them to carry on even when they are disappointed with their efforts as the purpose is not the finished product, but more the process of making it. Is not about how lovely and neat the knit bunny looks at the end when its ready, but instead the 1st graders efforts to count the rows correctly when knitting the square to make the bunny.
I am passionate about handwork, and through this pandemic and schools experimenting with online sessions in India, I felt children were missing out on the benefits handwork was bringing to them. I started a handwork community for kids “The Handwork Club” where I shared patterns for children to pursue in their own time. This has been going quite well, but I now feel the time has come to offer more. From April onwards, The Handwork Club will also be offering online classes for children who want to learn handwork from scratch through grades 1 to 6 (age 7 to 12). The online classes will be available to Waldorf children as well as non Waldorf children and I encourage parents from conventional schools to also give it a try.
If you would like to know more about The Handwork Club’s initiatives please write to me at info@magicplayhouse.in