by Ashley Brickeen | Admissions Director, Early Childhood – Grade 8 and by Catherine Dwyer | Class Teacher
Form drawing is a unique part of Waldorf Education. At Waldorf schools, students mainly practice form drawing from First grade through Fifth grade. As with most subjects, each year brings increasing complexity and new challenges to students’ spatial abilities, fine motor skills and focus, among other things. We can easily recognize how the act of form drawing lays a foundation for writing and drawing. More intriguing is that it also builds visual thinking, anticipatory thinking, spatial thinking, complex-solution thinking, and mathematical thinking.
So what is form drawing? Simply put, form drawing is the free-hand drawing of variations of the two universal forms – the straight line and the curved line, from which all forms are born – done through “repetitive drawing of symbols and shapes—both linear and lateral, zigzag or congruous knots. This freehand creation of patterns is more about process than product…” (“The Practical and Creative Art of Form Drawing” – Beverly Amico).
As a parent, the most important thing to know about form drawing is that last part: that form drawing is about the process, not the product. This process- how the drawing is done and not just how it looks in the end- is the “form” discussed in this Messenger article. Because it is this exercise of form drawing, like the exercise of any complex physical movement, that develops the brain and character of the student.
Often it is easier for us to see the value in that carefully controlled practice/form when it comes to teaching our child a physical skill, such as a rond de jambe in ballet. We patiently take our children to lessons where they practice a movement over and over until their body and brain are finally able to work fluidly together to create a perfect freestyle swim stroke or a beautifully executed hinge kick.
We forget that smaller movements, such as those of the hand, are also physical movements and that, as physical movements, they also require fluid communication between the brain, the eyes and the hand.
For form drawing, teachers often have the students walk the form, air-draw the form, or even draw the form with their foot on the floor, before they begin to draw the form on paper. During a form drawing exercise, teachers encourage students to draw continuously, without lifting and reorienting the pencil or paper. Students often want to move the paper around on their desk or start and stop a drawing to make it easier and to make it more “perfect.” They want to get the product- the final drawing- “right” as quickly and easily as possible.
This requirement to not move the paper or lift the crayon can seem arbitrary to parents, creating needless frustration for students- it makes getting the drawing “right” easier if you break the drawing into smaller parts or shift the paper around so that the brain has an easier time orienting itself to the image. So why would the teacher discourage the student from doing this?
This would be like a ballet teacher allowing your child to “perfect” their turns by simply walking around in a circle. Sure, they’ve turned 360 degrees, but that is not an actual ballet turn. A student walking their ballet turn hasn’t developed the muscle tone, coordination, balance and brain/body connections that are needed to execute an actual ballet turn. In short, they’ve been deprived of both the physical and mental growth that they would gain by carefully practicing the ballet turn over and over again until they can execute it as fluidly as possible. It may never be “perfect” but they will have gained those strong mental and physical abilities through the practice.
So what might it mean if your child wants to pick up or shift that piece of paper? What do they gain when a teacher does not allow them to “walk their ballet turn” by doing so? It could be a sign that they are struggling with crossing their midline. Crossing the midline is important because it shows that children (and adults) can use “both sides of their brain to coordinate smooth, controlled, complex movement.” (link) Children typically first start crossing their midline when they are 4-6 months old and master the skill when they are 8 or 9 years of age. For this reason, we expect that 1st and 2nd graders will struggle to keep their papers straight and thus have to cross their midline to draw the form. But as adults, we know they need this practice to support healthy brain development. Sometimes that practice, as with occupational therapy exercises, can be frustrating, but the process of doing the exercise- of sticking with the form in form drawing- is key.
When a child struggles to learn something challenging, reassure them that they will get better with practice. Remember that there are plenty of times during the day when they are allowed to start and stop a drawing or move their paper around their desk to avoid crossing that midline. But the form in form drawing is there for a purpose. It’s just another way that Waldorf Education supports the healthy brain development of the growing child.
Curious to know more about the role of form drawing in Waldorf curriculum? Keep reading!
As with everything in Waldorf Education, form drawing is multifunctional in its effects and has many educational benefits. As described by Angela Lord in her book Creative Form Drawing, “The true aim of education is not primarily to gather information for the sake of it, but to awaken genuine capacities of perception, judgment, creativity, and reliability in relation to life and living. Form drawing contributes in a meaningful way to healthy education.” She goes on to discuss that two important benefits of form drawing are integrating sensory experience and spatial awareness.
Form Drawing was brought to Waldorf schools by Rudolf Steiner, who worked with many groups of teachers in the early 1900’s. Steiner believed form drawing was an essential practice for education. “A kind of visual measuring through cognitive feeling is developed in the child by solving such form problems. By completing the other half of a form that the teacher has drawn on the board, the child can find his or her inner balance and a sense of natural harmony.
Rudolf Steiner said in the fourth chapter of The Kingdom of Childhood: ‘In this way [through form drawing] one educates the child toward a real feeling for form, toward a feeling for harmony, for symmetry, and toward a feeling of relationships. In this way one can guide the child into those harmonies which also exist in the world around us.’ And further on he says: ‘…the child will develop on the one hand more thoughtfulness in his observations and on the other hand more intuition in his thinking.’ One could say a kind of moral imagination is introduced through such exercises that insist on the virtue of veracity and visual truth.” (“Language of the Line: a Reinvented Art-form of the Waldorf Schools” – Van James)
Van James goes on to say, “Metamorphosis exercises [in form drawing] encourage a mobility of thinking when one follows a form through a process of development that can include inside-out and upside-down reversals. This is a very helpful preparation for the organic sciences (such as Class 5 botany) and bears a direct relationship to projective geometry. Again, flexibility in thinking is encouraged entirely through the pictorial.”
Form drawing in all its aspects is an amazing process to nurture and encourage a child’s full growth. The students find it fun to do and enjoy using the forms they learn in their own lesson work and throughout their day, such as in handwork or eurythmy.
Form drawing is another unique aspect of Waldorf education that enlivens a child’s expansion into their full potential.
On September 10th, WSP students and I, their handwork teacher, participated in a Living History event “A Walk Through Time” at the Sunnyvale Heritage Park Museum.
Representing the “golden days” of the rancho period, 1833 through 1846 in California, WSP’s booth “Fun with Wool” was a great success. Under the enthusiastic and patient tutelage of WSP students in period costumes and myself, visitors learned through hands-on activities how a sheep fleece is processed into yarn. Guests had an opportunity to card wool, build spindles from rocks and sticks, and spin yarn.
Sunnyvale’s Vice Mayor, Alysa Cisneros, joined the fun with demonstrations using a spinning wheel.
Many thanks to Juli, Sahar, and Anne-Mare in sixth grade; Mascha in eighth grade, and Maia twelfth grade for their wonderful ambassadorship and representation of our school.
Note: Two WSP alumni parents, Katharina Woodman and Kim Thurgate are volunteers at the museum where Kim serves as event coordinator who planned this festival. When Kim was looking for an activity that would tell the story of the sheep pastures and wool processing, Katharina suggested Kerstin and her students, having witnessed them practicing wool processing in handwork class.
by Ashley Brickeen | Admissions Director Nursery School -Grade 8
What are the children doing when they bake bread in Early Childhood?
They are:
developing fine motor strength and control: kneading the dough and shaping the loaves strengthens the hand muscles and improves manual dexterity.
exploring with their senses: baking engages the senses of sight, touch, and smell. Working with the dough, children notice how the dough becomes smooth with kneading and how the stickiness and tension of the dough changes as they work with it. Later, after baking, they experience the taste of the fresh bread and how the application of heat transforms the uniform dough into a crunchy outer layer with a soft inside.
strengthening bilateral coordination: developing good bilateral coordination skills can help children to tie shoelaces, cut with scissors and draw a line with a ruler. Rolling balls of dough, and flattening dough with their hands allow children to develop their bilateral coordination skills.
developing attention and goal setting: baking bread requires care, patience, and a willingness to delay gratification. Children carefully follow and mimic the movements of their teacher, paying close attention to her words and movements. They need to wait for the delicious bread to bake before they can enjoy it.
developing an understanding of process and sequence: in class, children will grind wheat to make the flour. As they prepare the dough and knead it, they see that the process of baking bread has a beginning, middle, and end as it moves from wheat to dough to bread.
developing a sense of efficacy (“I can do it!”): young children need opportunities to do real, meaningful tasks. In baking bread, they make something delicious that they can enjoy and share. Baking and other “chores” contribute to children’s emotional development and self-assurance as they build confidence in their abilities and understand the meaning behind their work (we bake so we can eat bread; we clean so we can have a tidy classroom). It also encourages independence as children learn to take responsibility while following directions and solving problems.
developing a sense of community: we bake bread together as a class and then sit down together to enjoy it. During snack time, children and teachers share conversation and stories.
In the Waldorf curriculum, especially at the Nursery School and Kindergarten level, the emphasis is on the process, not the product. Worrying about achieving perfect, smooth loaves would defeat that purpose. The learning is through doing.
In the same way, over-explaining the purpose of an activity robs the young child of the chance to explore, discover, and observe on their own. It takes away some of the magic of discovery.
These are just some of the reasons we bake bread as part of the Early Childhood curriculum.
by Ashley Brickeen | Admissions Director, Nursery – Grade 8
On Tuesday, October 12th, along with many parents in Silicon Valley, I joined the Common Ground Event ‘The Essentials of Executive Functioning – Building the Skills to Flourish’ with Dr. Adele Diamond. Dr. Diamond is a leading expert in the field of executive functioning, a host of cognitive skills children need to develop not only so they can thrive at school, but also later in life.
Studies consistently show that strong executive functioning skills are a better predictor of successful careers and happy relationships than IQ scores. In part, this is because IQ tests measure something called “crystallized intelligence”- which is mostly how well you recall what you have already learned. Executive functioning, on the other hand, is related to your ability to use that information – to be creative and problem-solve with it. In other words, executive functioning relates directly to fluid intelligence
As Dr. Diamond says, “If you look at what predicts how well children will do later in school, more and more evidence is showing that executive functions—working memory and inhibition —actually predict success better than IQ tests.”
Executive functions begin to emerge in early childhood, and, like the developing brain, do not fully mature until early adulthood. In order to develop, they need constant work and reinforcement.
Given how important these skills are, you may wonder how WSP and Waldorf Education support the development of the four categories of executive function skills. The four categories are:
Focus – In order to learn or carry out a task, we need to be able to control our attention – ignoring some things while zeroing in on the activity, skill, or lesson we wish to fulfill. This is true whether we are a young child struggling to tie a shoelace or a manager crunching numbers for a mid-year report. Nothing gets done without focus and attention.
Working Memory – Working memory is the ability to hold pieces of information in our minds while adding to it, updating it, or working with it to create something new. Dr. Diamond highlighted oral storytelling as a way of challenging working memory. When a student is listening to a story, they have to keep track of the actions, words, and interactions of the various characters in order to understand the whole story.
Cognitive Flexibility – This is the ability to think creatively and problem solve. Without cognitive flexibility, it is easy to get stuck. Cognitive flexibility is also the ability to see someone else’s perspective; the ability to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity or admit to a mistake.
Inhibitory Control – We do not often think of the ability NOT to do something as an important skill, but anyone who has taken a few deep breaths to control an impulse has practiced such control.
So, how does the teaching of executive functioning show up in Waldorf education, particularly here at Waldorf School of the Peninsula in Silicon Valley? I see it throughout the curriculum. In fact, every recommended activity that Dr. Diamond identified as supporting the robust development of executive functioning takes place at a Waldorf School. From Early Childhood through high school, our core curriculum attends to each of the four categories of executive functioning skills. Executive management skills are also directly addressed through the high school years, often as a focused topic of study for incoming high school students. Here are a few of many examples across the curriculum:
Oral storytelling Dr. Diamond talked about a study of First Graders that found that the children who heard a story, rather than having it read to them with pictures, had improved vocabulary and an ability to recall (working memory) the details of the story. Every day in Early Childhood, teachers tell stories to their children. These stories feature advanced vocabulary (with words such as “precipice” and “horrendous”) and challenge children to remember the actions and interactions of various characters. Verbal storytelling features in the early grades as well, but the teacher now adds a review, challenging students to recall details of the story the following day.
Roleplaying Starting at around four years old, children transition from something called parallel play into the richer world of role play. Here they work with friends to create worlds together and populate them with characters and actions. When a child is role-playing, they need to inhibit the desire to go “out of character”; they need to keep their character and other character’s words and actions in working memory; they need to respond flexibly when their friend does something unexpected, and they need to remain focused on the story and all its moving parts. Dr. Diamond described role-playing as hugely important for developing executive functioning skills. Fortunately, the Waldorf school day provides lots of time and space for children to pursue such play and not only in the Early Childhood. In the first and second grades, formal instruction ends at 2:05 pm so students can have an open class period, which allows for role-playing and social interaction.
Traditional games and toys WSP’s Early Childhood program abounds in open-ended toys such as blocks and play cloths. A block is simply a piece of wood – a child needs to think flexibly in order to make it into a chair, table, part of a slide, or a cave. In the grades, teachers frequently play games with children that require them to keep a sequence of movements in working memory. Properly executing the sequence of movements requires focus as well as inhibiting the impulse to move when they are not supposed to move.
Eurythmy also involves keeping a sequence of movements in working memory while focusing and inhibiting impulses. In fact, Dr. Diamond specifically cited storytelling, dance, art, music, and play as being healthy and powerful drives in developing executive functioning skills. She described the distinction between “academic” and “enrichment” activities as arbitrary and wrong. In addition to developing vital executive functions, these activities also address social, emotional, and physical needs.
Avoiding the negative impacts of stress and “teaching to the test” Dr. Diamond opened her talk on executive functions with a discussion about stress. She cited studies that show that, while some people perform well under mild stress, many people perform markedly worse. She was clear that even those who performed well under mild stress did not perform better – they were just less negatively impacted by the mild stress.
For this reason, Dr. Diamond dislikes the emphasis on tests and grades, and especially “teaching to the test.” Research shows that this emphasis leads to lower executive function, less critical thinking, and much higher rates of stress among students.
At WSP, we foster a healthy rhythm of learning that’s free of unproductive stress or competition. Faculty ensure that students are evaluated on articulated, visible and relevant learning goals, and encourage students to strive for excellence in order to reach their highest potential rather than do merely enough to arrive at an arbitrary end.
Student crafted lesson books Opportunities for developing and strengthening the capacities to organize and synthesize are inherent in Waldorf students’ lesson book work, which goes considerably deeper than simply recording data. Students capture not only information but also their impressions and feelings. From learning how to form letters to composing thoughts via well crafted sentences and paragraphs with neat handwriting along with artistic elements such as drawings, paintings, and well-balanced colored backgrounds deftly support executive functions. Even creating page borders helps with framing content, context, and contemplation.
Students take on more initiative and self-direction as they progress through the grades with the creation of their lesson books across a vast scope of studies. Many WSP alumni have reported that they use the “Waldorf lesson book method” to help with organizing and synthesizing their college studies.
All you need is love Dr. Diamond emphasized that the single most important thing parents can provide for their children is love – that our caring is more important than our knowledge, skills, or resources. In the journey through the grades at WSP, the teacher generally stays with the class for grades one through eight. This enables students, teachers, and their families to learn and grow together over time. The security from these long-term relationships supports learning, confidence, and healthy development of social and emotional skills. At the high school, our small, supportive and close-knit community helps ensure that each student is known, respected, valued, and challenged.
From early childhood all the way through their senior year, students build the capacities to organize, manage and synthesize, step by step, so that they may function productively and with purpose as individuals–and in the communities in which they choose to participate.
So what is form drawing? Simply put, form drawing is the free-hand drawing of variations of the two universal forms – the straight line and the curved line, from which all forms are born – done through “repetitive drawing of symbols and shapes—both linear and lateral, zigzag or congruous knots. This freehand creation of patterns is more about process than product…” (“The Practical and Creative Art of Form Drawing” – Beverly Amico).
