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.'

'

Kingfisher Wrapped in Paperbark

Back to a normal school day today I thought after a mountain climb and a Fun Activities Sports Day last week......

A child came running up to me 'Quick Lynne, he's dug up the kingfisher!'

Sure enough, the small kingfisher that had been found dead last Friday and lovingly enterred in the earth then decorated with flowers and a small twig fence to mark the spot, was now lying still in Buzz's open hand, it's beautiful feathers dusty yet vibrant.

'Why did you dig it up?' asked one child in obvious dismay.

'I wanted to see what it looked like' was the calm reply. Of course.

Several children gathered and examined the bird which was then re-interred back into it's hole in the ground.

Later that day, in the Indonesian lesson, I told the children about a friend of mine who had written about a burial she went to in a small village in Bali. The special and very sacred ceremony of it all....the priest saying prayers for the spirit of the grandmother, the sprinkling of the holy water, flowers placed over the eyes, ears and mouth, offerings woven from palm leaves, the careful wrapping of the body in a special white silk cloth with yellow silk ties and finally the wrapped body placed in a specially woven grass mat tied around with strong fibres.

The children were fascinated.

'That's SO nice Lynne!' was one boy's comment.

Children of this age are naturally imitative.

At lunchtime when I returned from my lunch break a cluster of children around the resting place of the buried kingfisher caught my eye. One child was sprinkling water from his cup over the bird's resting place and singing quietly, others were solemnly placing flowers and twigs to mark the spot. The Balinese priest's bell from our classroom was quickly collected and brought back for the 'ceremony at the temple.'

'We dug the kingfisher up again Lynne!' was the happy remark from the water sprinkler.

'Now, I really think that it is time to leave that bird in the earth and.......' I began, when a voice cut in, 'we got some paperbark from the tree and wrapped up it's body and tied it with grass and we have just finished burying it.'

'I think it's spirit is happy now' added another child 'just like my dad'.

This child's father passed away, very sadly, four years ago.

The wisdom of letting children do what needs to be done...and getting out of the way so they can do it.

Spring Silkworms and a Fair

Silkworms have come around again.

Cycles of nature are so reassuring in our world of constant change.

The mulberry tree outside our classroom moves and sways with it's branches full of children gathering silkworm food. Sometimes, like today, I am sure I can hear it groaning. Goodnaturedly, it continues to bear it's load of sap-green leaves, slowly ripening fruit and multitudes of children, gathering. Occasionally a child tells me that they have found 'a really ripe one'. But I don't believe them. And I have stopped telling children that green mulberries are not good for their tummies. All that swaying around up there in the sky-high leafy greenness counteracts the effects of unripe mulberries. Or that is what the mulberry fairies tell me.

Boxes of silkworms and leaves come to school each morning. This morning we had a box with a Queen and many King silkworms. The kings are smaller I have been told.

'They feel so soft when they crawl across your nose Lynne. Do you want to try?' I am asked by the owner of the Queen and Kings. I decline graciously. But perhaps tomorrow my nose will be ready.....

The budgerigars are back too. Lily, the green and yellow male now has a friend, the beautiful blue female Luke. 'Lily...the boy, Luke....the girl?' I ask the owner who is sitting up in the mulberry tree at Recess while Lily and Luke perch happily on a small branch in the tree. 'Yes, well, because we already had called the boy Lily we thought it was best to even it out and call the new girl Luke.' Of course.

The children knit happily at any moment of the day, counting rows, stitches, colours and measuring the length of their scarves. At lunchtime most of the children were sitting with their knitting, either outside around the lunch table or laying back in the quilt and cushion corner in the classroom bamboo knitting needles flashing.

Four boys sat happily in the cushion corner, talking about life, while the wool wound in and out 'In through the front door, running round the back, peeping through the window and off jumps Jack.'

It makes me smile when I see them. They look so comfortable and content. They help each other, tying knots when the wool colour changes, suggesting which colour would look best next, advising on holes and missed stitches.

This morning we began a new 3 week lesson with a focus on 'Local Geography'. The children have moved desks into their new groups. One child told me happily that she has all her best friends in her new group and another said that every child in the class was her best friend.

We learnt that the word 'geography' is very old. 700 years old in fact. An ancient Greek word that means 'earth writing'.

Tomorrow we will do our first field trip and see at first hand the physical geography of our beautiful local area. A 2 hour climb up the local high point 'Mount Chincogan'. And back down again.

And the golden moments continue........

Me preparing the class for our painting lesson:

'OK Class 1, get everything off ready for painting.' (referring to removing the crayon box from the desk)

Child

'Do we need to take ALL our clothes off Lynne?'

Last week we completed two days of 'Bike Skills' with our PDHPE instructor Chris from the High School. Lots of fun and some interesting challenges! And after the cross country ride around the borders of our large school campus the children arrived back at the classroom sweating, hot, happily tired and definitely inspired.

And to end our week, on Saturday after a cancelled start the Shearwater Spring Fair got underway.......and what a delight.