Grade six

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Teaching as a Lively Art
Marjorie Spock, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1985.

etween ages ten and eleven, the imaginative thinking characteristic of early childhood metamorphoses into the ability to form abstract concepts. Before this time, thought has had a pictorial rather than a conceptual nature. Thought is literally imagination’s child, accounting for the emphasis placed on the cultivation of the child’s imaginative powers in the elementary school curriculum. Rather than forcing the capacity for thought into premature birth and functioning, Waldorf schools are based on this ripening in time. The thinking that emerges as a ripened power from a healthy, well-developed imagination is a warm and mobile thinking, the fruit of the living pictures with which the world has been brought to the child. They have awakened his enthusiasm for the world around him. The curricula of the next three years are shaped to provide experiences befitting this new ability.

The physical sciences begin with the study of acoustics, heat, magnetism, and static electricity. Acoustics leads from familiar experiences in tone and speech to experimentation with sound phenomena of other kinds. Concord and discord are perceived to be mathematical order and disorder. The children then bring their findings back to the human organism for a consideration of the structure and functioning of the ear and larynx.

Optical studies follow, beginning, like acoustics, with familiar experiences in the realm of beauty. Each color is studied for its own special attributes; then observed in relation to other colors. Study of color in the world begins with the sun. Experiments with artificial light and shadow in the classroom lead to the rainbow and prism. To determine laws of light refraction, the lens and camera are studied. In all these studies, the principles underlying the various light, sound and color phenomena are arrived at as end products generalized from concrete experiences, rather than stated theoretically before the experiments are made.

History begins with the transition from ancient to modern history, from poetic consciousness to a search for truth in the form of scientific concepts, because the eleven year old is also involved in such a transition. S/he is now able to grasp history as a temporal sequence. Cause and effect relationships are examined from the decline of Greece through the rise and fall of Rome and the effects of these two great cultures on civilization right up to the beginning of the fifteenth century. Once again, during the Renaissance, a great stirring in the human soul drove people to seek new physical and spiritual horizons.

Geography looks at the earth’s distribution of oceans, seas, continents and mountain masses and introduces climate studies and basic astronomical concepts. The children study the physical and cultural geography of Europe and Africa.

\Geology, the study of the mineral world, looks at the structure of the earth. Proceeding from the study of the flora and fauna of the geological ages to minerals, metals and finally, gems and crystals, it then considers the functions of mineral and metallic substances in the human organism.

Botany continues with an introduction to horticulture.

Mathematics introduces percentage, interest, profit and loss, ratios, proportion, estimation and an introduction to algebraic equations. Geometric design is accomplished with utmost accuracy through the use of instruments. Families of geometric figures are constructed and studied for the numerical laws they embody. Theorems are visually demonstrated, but not taught.

In connection with geometric drawing, perspective drawing is introduced. Black and white drawing, shadows, landscapes and color contrasts are taken up in painting.

In handwork, the children design a soft sculpture animal which they shape and sew. In woodworking, they carve an egg and a spoon, developing their skill with tools and their ability to create a three-dimensional object from a flat plane.

Music focuses on two- and three-part choruses, songs of the minstrels and Middle Ages, recorders in descant, alto and tenor voices and Roman music. Eurythmy introduces simple musical forms, with greater depth in alliteration, geometrical forms and transformations.

Foreign languages continue with reading of simple texts, humorous stories and free translation.

Physical education and games, as well as international folkdancing, continue.

K • grade 1 • grade 2 • grade 3 • grade 4 • grade 5 • grade 6 • grade 7 • grade 8 • high school