Bowl of Light

Monday morning and the beginning of a new week.....

'Teachers today need to be fantastic, spontaneous, improvisational educators' said an elderly Austrian anthroposophist at a conference for Steiner teachers some lifetimes ago.

And so we began the day with a new song in preparation for our spring equinox celebration this week, sandbags ready to be moved in various ways around, under, over, and across our bodies.

'Waking with the sun, busy bees here we......'

A child moves towards me, tentative, sad-faced, as our sandbags move from side to side.

'Lynne, I feel REALLY tired and also my head is aching a bit....can I lie down on the pillows?'

'O.K yes...up the back you go'

'Right, everyone, let's start this again....Waking with the sun, busy bees here we..

NO don't throw that sandbag over the heads of the children in front!'

'Right, here we go again....Waking with the su....standing up boys, heads off the desks!'

'OK let's try to get to the end of this first verse with NO MORE INTERRUPTIONS please Class 1'

Big deep breath.

'Right, moving our sandbags GENTLY from side to side...here we go...Waking with the sun busy bees here we...'

'Lynne, my knitting's tangled!'

Deep breath.

'Put your knitting away and pick up your sandbag. We have a new song to learn for our Spring celebrations. Put it away now. 1.....2......OK. Now get your sandbag ready. Here we go...again...Waking with the sun, busy bees here we come, visiting the flowers one by one...beautiful singing everyone! And thank you so much all these children over here who still have their sandbags in their hands. Let's try the next verse.'

Monday mornings can test the skill of any experienced, devoted teacher.

It's a wonderful opportunity to practise those compassionate communication skills, learnt at a professional development workshop once upon a time. And the deep, slow breathing is essential, as well as a sense of humour.

The song was completed. Sandbags returned to desks.

'Recorders out everyone. Put them on your chins. Let's really practise only making a sound at the right time......Here we go, let's start with some 'echo playing'..well done all those children who are sitting with both feet on the floor, chairs facing the front...please take your feet off the desk over there....chairs facing me, left hand up, right hand down....no don't swallow your recorder ...ready everyone...1,2.......beautiful...now let's play 'Starlight' REALLY softly.'

'LYNNE...I just heard his recorder make a noise!'

'I REALLY need to go to the toilet!'

'I am feeling SO hungry, is it nearly Recess?'

'Can you please change my wool now?'

'Yesterday we went to play at my cousin's place...'

'I think I left my silkworm box out under the mulberry tree and the magpie might get them.'

We played several songs on the recorder. Two children were asked to take their crayons out to the lunch table and draw various suggested drawings. One child talked at every moment when I was not talking, and sometimes when I was talking, including during the recorder playing. Another child managed to do everything but play the recorder. Several found the effort overwhelming and lay on their desks or sat back and began to make various wool string patterns with their hands.

Moving on to our writing practice.

We began to write,

'WAKING WITH THE SUN...'

in our most beautiful writing, straight lines very straight, curved lines beautifully curved, the words in capital letters across the crayon-shaded page, remembering to place a two finger space between each word and a good space underneath each row of words, letters 'so high'.

Walking around the classroom I found an encouraging word for each effort. Some children, interestingly, were using a different 'font' to my simple blackboard script....huge, thick block letters, Roman style, curly ends. I spoke to them all about practising 'simple' writing at the moment and that 'down the track' we would be able to have lots of fun with different lettering styles.

We placed colourful busy bees in and around our letters and words. Flowers blossomed on the pages and children, heads bent over their work, created their own unique expressions, each a window into their own beautiful selves.

And so to another rendition of our new song before going out for morning tea.

Teaching is such a gift.

Following is a piece of Hawaiian wisdom, 'Bowl of Light', which has followed me from year to year and appears at the beginning of every new class program I write:

'Each child, at birth, has a bowl of light. If she tends to her light, it'll grow in strength and she can do all things: swim with sharks, fly with birds, know and understand all things. But if she becomes envious, jealous, angry or fearful, she drops a stone into the bowl and some light goes out. Light and the stone cannot co-exist. If she continues to put stones in the bowl, the light will go out and she will become a stone herself. A stone does not grow or move. If at any time she tires of being a stone, all she needs to do is turn the bowl upside down and the stones will fall away and the light will grow once more.'

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