Tag: waldorf education
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School Subjects
I’d like to explore why we teach the different school subjects and make a case for each. Although this post is applicable to all teachers, I usually talk to homeschoolers many of whom unschool. It’s becoming increasingly trendy to walk away from academics entirely, preferring instead to learn building, survival skills, gardening, navigation, tracking, etc.…
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Building Neuroplasticity
Last week’s post was called Brain Hemispheres in Education. There, we discussed the differences between the right and left hemispheres of the brain and how this knowledge can inform education. In this post, we want to give some more practical indications for bringing this wisdom into our teaching and homeschooling. We want to understand the…
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Brain Hemispheres in Education
In this post, I’d like to explore the brain hemispheres and their relationship to education. Modern neuroscience and Waldorf pedagogical science are finally coming together in some exciting ways. We can use those insights to help us in our teaching and thereby bring more balance to our children. Are you right brained or left brained?…
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The Benefits of Homeschooling
The benefits of homeschooling have struck me again. I had the enchanting opportunity to meet one of my students and his family for a picnic at a beautiful botanical garden today. The whole family came along, including mom, dad, and his two siblings. Since much of my teaching is online I often don’t get to…
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Mentors for Teens
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Today, we will turn to the age old conundrum that has no doubt plagued parents for centuries. It goes something like this, “Why doesn’t my teen listen to me anymore?” We’ll unpack this all-too-common challenge and propose a solution that has to do with finding mentors for teens. The Need to Rebel It’s true. Adolescents…
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Nature and Learning
In this post, I’d like to discuss nature and learning. That is to say, specifically the seasonal cycle and how it affects students’ ability to learn. Perhaps it’s because in the spring, students seems to just fall off their seats laughing for no apparently good reason. Or, perhaps it’s because it takes us fifteen minutes…
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The Four Temperaments in Education, Part I
In this first of two posts, we will examine the four temperaments in education. For Part I, we will characterize each of the four temperaments. In Part II next week, we will look at how to work skillfully with them. To begin, what is a temperament and where does it come from? To answer that,…
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Teen Mental Health
The world has never experienced a mental dis-ease epidemic like the meaning crisis we currently face. There are many reasons for this, materialism being the most pernicious. Like a deeply rooted weed, it infests the garden of society’s soul. We have grown accustomed to looking at everything from the outside in and trying to remedy…
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Homeschool Vs. Public School
In this post, we will discuss the common question of homeschool vs. public school. A recent article reported a number of studies indicating that on average, homeschoolers outperform public schoolers on common assessments like the SAT and ACT. Critics suggested this was due to more favorable demographics like parents’ income, marriage status, and level of…
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The New Economics
Last night, I went to a lecture by Jac Hielema of Economy Transformers on the new economics. It was life changing even for me who have been studying this for several years now. Extraordinarily, Jac and his colleagues in the Netherlands have managed to put this into tangible practice. I’d like to tell you a…