Main Lesson Planning: Balance

Dear friend,

Since I wrote to you last about the need for patience, Leta has pretty much potty trained herself! Although it seems like "potty training" isn't the best way to capture this important transition. Wouldn't something like "potty autonomy" work better?

Waiting on Lady Spring has required patience this year too. We had two pretty big snowstorms since I last wrote you. This week it finally feels like spring here in New Hampshire. My small town is a riot of star magnolias and forsythia, one of my favorite things.

Full disclosure: I can't help myself; I actually love snow at all times, and in great quantities.

But it's been a long winter here for many reasons. Between a remarkable list of health annoyances, so many appointments, snowstorms, and childcare disruptions, it's been difficult to find time to write. I had to make some changes to make progress with the fourth grade curriculum so I'm experimenting with a couple ideas for getting more consistent time. I've been getting up early before the little ones most mornings to write (so far so good!) and next week I'm staying in an airbnb for a couple nights for a focused writing retreat (I'm nervous and excited, wish me luck!).

As I'm working on the Zoology Main Lesson block, I thought I would share with you some of the things I keep in mind while I'm designing and writing curriculum for the grades.

When planning a main lesson, how do you decide what to put into it?

Over the next few letters I’d like to explore that idea through three lenses: Balance, Rhythm, and Development.

The lens of balance helps us address the whole person we are teaching.

There are many ways to explore the complexity of a human being but for today let’s focus on a framework that Steiner developed called the “three-fold human being.” This is the idea that a human has three fundamental capacities: thinking, feeling, and willing.

We know that the human brain is not just designed for thinking. We use our brains to think and also to feel, and to will (to direct our bodies and do). Waldorf education aims to strengthen all three capacities and integrate them in every lesson. Educational methods that focus only on the intellect are missing an opportunity. A person’s intellectual forces are strongest when they are integrated with strong feeling and willing forces.

In Waldorf circles we have a shorthand for this framework: head, heart, and hands.

When I’m writing a homeschool main lesson plan, I always want to make sure there is a balance of effort by the head, heart, and hands.

Head, heart, hands is a helpful rubric to follow whether you are creating your lessons from scratch, combining resources, or using a curriculum. Do a quick check of each main lesson plan: are we using the head, heart, and hands for learning?

Let’s break this down and make it tangible:

Head stands for the child’s intellect—her thinking, cognitive capacity.

The head forces are engaged by cognitive processes: thinking, learning, memorizing, paying attention, discussing, making connections, processing ideas, recalling lessons, oral narration, written narration, reading, writing, editing, computing, designing, observing, capturing data, making diagrams, comparing, and so on. Anything in the traditional schooling categories of “reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic” go here, as well as the knowledge and skill-based components of subjects like history, science, and geography.

Heart stands for the child’s feelings—his emotional, spiritual capacity.

The heart forces are strengthened by connection and expression. Artistic work, stories, poetry, and music all go here. So do all of the emotions and feelings, inspiration, reverence, awe, purpose, and spirit. As well as connection and relationship, to people, to nature, to ideas, to stories, to art, language, and song. Waldorf education relies on storytelling as a central teaching method because of how stories told from one person to another are so powerful for developing the feeling self. Lessons weave in artistic work of all kinds for the same reason—not as a gimmick to keep children entertained but because educating the feelings alongside the intellect is a primary goal.

Hands stands for the child’s will—their active, physical, rhythmic, doing capacity.

The hand forces are developed by keeping lessons active and in the body and hands. This can be whole body movement, games, physical skills, dancing, sports, and anything in the traditional “physical education” class. It can also be handwork, drawing, form drawing, handwriting, knitting, woodworking, painting, crafts, and anything that uses the hands. To go a little deeper though, a person’s will is engaged by doing things and directing effort, not just using the body in movement and craft (although these are essential), but also by learning skills, creating things, engaging in rhythm, building habits, and finishing projects. Purposeful, physical, and rhythmic endeavors are all important for building the will. And a person with strong will forces integrated with his cognitive and feeling forces will be better able to direct himself in an effective way.

There can be plenty of overlap between thinking, feeling, and willing. Any particular activity can engage all three, or it can focus mostly on building in one area. The idea is to keep an eye on the overall balance of your lessons and your homeschool life.

Here’s to beautiful, balanced lessons!

xo

Kelly