Instead of going to our regular school placements, today we visited the Waldorfschule (Waldorf school) in Bergedorf. These are also called Rudolf Steiner schools because Rudolf Steiner developed their pedagogical principles. This particular school includes the oldest school building in Hamburg that is still being used as a school. This is also where my host brothers attend school! :)

One of the stereotypes of people who attend Waldorf schools is that they can dance their name (they actually learn to do this though since they learn a dance move for each letter in eurythmy). The stereotypes seem a little bit similar to our stereotypes of homeschooled children with a bit of hippy stereotypes mixed in. If I haven't mentioned it yet, homeschooling is illegal here, which I find fascinating!

The school doesn't have to follow the state standards very closely, and you might think that this would be like a regular private school in the U.S., but 80% of tuition is actually funded by the state. In the upper grades, student take A-level classes and Abitur exams just like students in the state schools. However, students don't earn actual grades or scores until the 9th grade. Students do not use technology in the classroom until grade 9 either. (This is nice in theory, but technological literacy is a type of language too, and this seems like it would keep these kids from being “digital natives" despite being born in this technological age). Also, students have the same classroom teacher until grade 8. (In German state schools, I think students keep the same classroom teacher until grade 4.) There is one class of students in each grade, and I think some classes had around 35 students in them. Students attend the Waldorfschule from grade 1 until grade 13. Students have to apply to attend the Waldorf school and take a test to make sure they are ready and that it would be a good fit. When composing classes, the school also tries to create a balance of students with the four temperaments – melancholic, phlegmatic, sanguine, and choleric.

This is a picture of the front building of the Rudolf Steiner / Waldorf School. I think this is the oldest building that I mentioned.

Here is a picture of part of the grounds of the campus, but it was probably four or five times bigger than this, not counting the off-campus garden area.

Kara, Libby, Hannah, and I visited my host brother’s third grade class first today. This was a lot of fun, as he kept looking over and waving at us throughout the class. The circles hanging from the ceiling are the products from when his class studied different occupations. Each student shook the teacher’s hand as he or she came into the class. The teacher explained that this helps the kids mentally “check in." She told a story about one girl who came in late once and didn’t shake her (the teacher’s) hand, and she really wasn’t focused or present all day.This class involved a lot of routine-based and student-led activities. Students began by singing and playing the flute (recorder) for a total of maybe 30 or 45 minutes, and they did this from memory. Each day, a different student is selected to have the “light" at his or her desk, and today was also the selected student’s birthday. Another girl lit a candle at the girl’s desk using a match, and the class stood up and sang to the girl later on. As students moved from activity to activity, they set up the materials at their own desks and in front of the room as necessary on their own (plenty of autonomy evident!)

An interesting activity that took place during this class was that the students played a verbal game involving riddle clues. I think it is called Teekessel, and it is a Gesellschaftsspiel, or parlor game. In this game, the teacher would take two kids into the hallway and tell discuss a German word with them. This German word should have two distinct meanings. The two students return to the room and offer their classmates clues as they try to guess what the word is. For the game we watched, the word was “strom," which can either mean electricity or river/stream. The seems like it would be a great game for language development!

Students also practiced rewriting typed statements (interesting because of the lack of technology in the classroom) into their notebooks in cursive, alternating colors between syllables.

This is a picture of a grade 1 classroom. All of the classrooms are more round in shape and do not feature right angles because right angles do not occur in nature. (But buildings do not often occur in nature either…) Actually, I really liked the shape of these classrooms as they felt more open and inclusive.

This was a picture of the art room. The open ceiling and the art displayed along the outside of the room was kind of inspiring for us just standing in there. They also have a kiln in an adjoining room.

This is the craft room where students learn to sew, knit, etc.

The students have a woodworking room. Students were in this room working on projects (like making cups and checkerboards) alone.

This is the pottery room. There are spinning wheels to the left, and you can see some of the students’ art here!

After our tour of the school, we met with the English teacher (who was giving the tour mostly), another teacher, and a parent while having rolls and juice. We asked a lot of follow-up questions about what we saw. We looked through some informational books as well, and the chart of the Waldorf curriculum, as pictured above, was included in one of these books. As you can see from the photos of the campus and the curriculum chart, the various subjects of school are valued at more equal levels, striving for a more holistic education, at the Waldorf school. Looking at the sketches on the wall of the art room, I thought about the fact that if we believe that everyone can learn to read or do math, we should also believe that every can learn to make art.

After the tour, we walked for 5 or 10 minutes to the school’s garden complex, which is next to the Waldorf kindergarten. The teacher who works there showed us around and talked about the projects students have worked on there (and Anja and Raphaela translated). In the picture above, you can see a goose walking around and a plot of land to the right where one year of students (maybe 2nd grade?) each receives their own small square. They track the growth of what they plant, and they can keep whatever grows.

This is a greenhouse where students are growing seedlings. Part of this activity is trying to plant only one seed in each square of a flat. Students may be surprised to see more than one seedling in each square later on, and this is supposed to help them think intentionally about their own intentional thinking (metacognition).

Older students (10th and 11th grade I think) built this building! They developed designs and selected one, and then completely constructed it. The gardening teacher explained how projects like this one incorporate all the disciplines into one hands-on project (project-based learning). He also talked about a few students who were not the most successful in the classroom, but they would come to this place and flourish. They were able to feel that they had accomplished something real, and they felt successful. Students are also able to get outside and experience nature at the garden complex.

I was really impressed by a lot of what I saw at the Waldorf school, but many of us were concerned by the fact that this model for education cannot really be generalized for the entire population based on expense alone. Therefore, it seems that privilege is part of the core of this type of school because only a few students can experience it. Perhaps this is okay if the “right" students are receiving these benefits (after all, we dedicate more resources to students with special needs b/c equity), but it seems problematic at the very least. Observing the principles in action and how they affect students can still help influence what we do in our classrooms too though (for example, we can try to cut back on technology, get out into nature more, and do more project-based learning).

After the school visit, I went into Hamburg and visited with Carry and Martin. We went to a Portuguese restaurant where the man working there tried to teach me German, and we had some ice cream. We walked around to the Outer Alster (the view featured below, but this doesn’t do it justice) and just had a nice time in general!