Essential Waldorf

The Online Grade Six Conference

Click here to Register for Grade 6

Participants will receive links to all of these lecture/presentations on the first day of the conference, along with a Password that will enable you to access them for the 14 days that you choose. You may listen to or view them in any order and as often as you wish during the conference period. Topics in black are audio sessions; topics in teal include video or slideshow sessions. Topics are subject to change.

Suggestion:
Begin every session by singing along with Meg Chittenden
Click here for Meg’s Grade Six songs.
Click here for PDFs of words, music, and notes on the songs.

Introduction 6.0: Conference Introduction (11:00)

The Nature of the Sixth Grader

6.1: The Fourfold Human Being Part 1 (13:00)
The physical and etheric bodies. The nature of the etheric body. Anabolism, sleep, memory, and “immunity.” The Guardian Angel. From “Moon Sphere” to the Earth.

6.2: The Fourfold Human Being Part 2 (14:11)
The nature of the astral body. Catabolism, wakefulness, and thinking. The challenges of its incorporation. From the “Zodiac” to the Earth.

6.3: The Fourfold Human Being Part 3 (19:15)
The role of the ego in human development. How fully does each higher member incorporate in the physical body? Where is the ego in the Sixth Grader?

6.4: The Sixth Grader, Part 1 (10:36)
Changes wrought by the astral body. The “Twelve Year Change.” The streaming in of forces from the future. Parental karma and individual karma.

6.5: The Sixth Grader, Part 2 (19:49)
Relationship of birth horoscope and freedom. Astronomy. Perfection of the starry world. Sixth grader’s response to inner and outer changes. The “Terrible Twos” and the “Terrible Twelves.” Rejection of parents and parental relationship to their teacher.

6.6: The Sixth Grader, Part 3 (14:26)
Age Twelve in the life of Jesus. Steiner’s “Fifth Gospel.” Grade Six and puberty are often overlooked.The product of fourfoldness (Temperaments) and twofoldness (Personality). Fixation on etheric, rather than understanding of astral.


The Main Lesson in Grade Six

The Main Lesson, Part 1 (14:18)
Grade 6 involves about 50% more content than Grade 5: where do we find the time? Shorter “warm-up” times. The pros and cons of running around the school grounds. Bringing will into our speech. The demise of the “three-day rhythm.” Giving students more time for questions and comments. Teacher must remain in control.

The Main Lesson, Part 2 (17:00)
Raising hands before speaking; the sine qua non of classroom participation. Teaching students to take notes. The weakening of memory forces at age 12. Deconstructing the lesson. Differentiation and discernment. Note-taking as the bridge between the etheric and astral bodies.

The Main Lesson, Part 3 (13:30)
Reports and Projects. Positive and (mostly) negative aspects of individual student projects. “Individual research” mostly factual and dead. Time and energy drawn away from main lesson. Block tests. Parental anxiety and pedagogical assessment.

Geometric Drawing, Part 1: Slideshow of Student Work (16:00)

Geometric Drawing, Part 2: Slideshow of Student Work (21:20)

Geometric Drawing: A Guide for Teachers, Part 1 (1 hour)

Geometric Drawing: A Guide for Teachers, Part 2 (45:00)

Mathematics: The Background

6.7: Why Do We Teach Mathematics? (15:30)
A dumb question? The spirituality of math. Giving structure to the astral body, but affording an Ego experience. Odd and even grades. The practicality of “Business Math” and “Economics.” Age 11 – 12 opens new pathways in the math student. Cause and effect, correct or incorrect.

6.8: Challenges of Mathematics Instruction (15:45)
Math as the Achilles Heel of the Waldorf grade school. Antipathy of many teachers towards teaching math. Concerns of Waldorf high school math teachers. Parental scrutiny and uncertainty. The origins of “math specialists” in the grade school.

6.9: Specialists and Generalists, Part 1 (15:00)
The essential differences between math specialists and class teachers. Hereditary gifts and individual achievement. Overcoming fears as a model for sixth graders. The difficulty of challenging the role of the specialist in the grade school. Full-time and part-time employment. Economic concerns outweighing the true needs of students.

6.10: Specialists and Generalists, Part 2 (12:00)
Why are most math specialists unhappy? The predictable shifts in parent attitudes about math classes. Do specialists raise “math scores”? What can the generalist give that the specialist can’t? Confronting colleagues. Living with the inevitable.

Mathematics: Review and Goals

6.11: The Goals of Grade Six Mathematics (13:50)
Mental Math. Estimation. Extrapolation. Charts and Graphs. Percentages and their relationship to fractions and decimals. Double-entry bookkeeping. Balancing a checkbook. Simple interest. Formulae: Interest, Perimeter and Area of Rectangles and Triangles, Circumference and Area of a Circle. Geometrical constructions. Basic concepts of Geometry.

6.12: Mathematics Assessment (15:30)
Quizzes and math sheets. How do you know what they know? The challenge of time. Ditto sheets at daybreak.

6.13: Mathematics Remediation (13:50)
Tracking classes and extra classes. Time. Working with parents.

6.14: Mental Math, Part 1 (15:15)
An underutilized method in the upper grades. A means of structuring and vitalizing the student’s new inner life. Left to right movement. Analytical, breaking down. Numbers held in reserve. An accurate reflection of the higher members at work.

6.15: Mental Math, Part 2 (15:00)
Complementary numbers as an aid to mental math. Multiplication. Sample problems. Practical applications.

6.16: Review of Grades 1 – 5 (14:50)
Taking nothing for granted. Four operations. Place value. Keeping measurements (time, space, fluid, and solid) alive and active in math reviews. Fractions, fractions, fractions.

Mathematics: Economics Block

6.17: Economics Main Lesson Block, Part 1 (16:27)
Begin with examples that children have experienced. Barter, Money, Trade, Banking. Mathematical steps: Percentages, Charts and Graphs, Interest. From self-sufficiency to barter.

6.18: Economics Main Lesson Block, Part 2 (15:00)
Assigning value. Canoe and bowl. Commerce and portability. Commodities and imperishable substances. From barter to money. History of money. The priestly quality of money.

6.19: Economics Main Lesson Block, Part 3 (12:50)
Athene, Alexander, and Caesar. Money becomes secular. The gold standard and trust. Using coins to introduce percentages.

6.20: Economics Main Lesson Block, Part 4 (13:34)
Money and risk. The Knights Templar. Money as a document. The origins of modern banking and credit.

6.21: Economics Main Lesson Block, Part 5 (16:36)
Importance of class discussions about money and economy. 6th Graders very awake concerning money, but have their misconceptions. Banks, depositors, and borrowers. A loan can be a very personal thing.

6.22: Economics Main Lesson Block, Part 6 (13:30)
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” Modern life necessitates both borrowing and lending. The origins of Interest. Depersonalizing loan money, but cultivating a healthy business relationship. Money “grows” as human activities enhance its value.

6.23: Economics Main Lesson Block, Part 7 (16:30)
Quantitative and qualitative aspects of loans. The Interest Rate Formula. Student participation in creating a formula. Applications.

6.24: Economics Main Lesson Block, Part 8 (14:15)
Challenging faster students. Checking and savings accounts. Credit cards. Stocks and bonds. Forming a class “business.” Parents as guest teachers.

Economics: Slideshow of Student Work (14:45)

Astronomy

6.25: Why Do We Teach Astronomy? (11:00)
Is Astronomy a 6th or 7th Grade subject? The Seven Liberal Arts. The reawakening of medieval memories. The starry world and the script of Destiny.

6.26: The Content of the Astronomy Block, Part 1 (15:00)
Books by Hermann v. Baravalle, Norman Davidson, H. A. Rey. Constellations -- or Inspiration? Reports on Greek myths. Extrapolation and Thinking.

6.27: The Content of the Astronomy Block, Part 2 (15:50)
Apparent movement of the stars. The Pole Star and its relative positions. The phases of the Moon. The complementary nature of the Moon and Sun. Eclipses. Tears and triumphs.

Astronomy: Slideshow of Student Work (42:20)

Language Arts

6.28: Watch Your Language! Part 1 (15:10)
Speech Formation and Grammar. Muscles and skeleton. Relaxation of standards in teacher training. Dearth of examples of good usage. Common errors of teachers. Lie and lay.

6.29: Watch Your Language! Part 2 (15:40)
Latin and Latin Grammar. Fading away of “case” in English. Pronouns after “than.” Weakening of understanding of “I” as subject and preference for “me” as object. Present Perfect and Past Perfect. Teacher’s usage must become more grammatically complex in the upper grades.

6.30: Why Do We Teach Language Arts? (15:40)
Why teach Language Arts as a separate subject? The interplay of the etheric and astral bodies permeates everything done in 6th Grade Language Arts. Will a Language Arts specialist help? Examples of student writing in History and Physics blocks.

6.31: Narrative and Expository Writing (10:20)
More samples of student writing in Physics block. “Out there” and “In here.” Etheric supports narrative experience (inward) and Astral stimulates expository presentation (outward). Structure of the Physics demonstration report.

6.32: Triads of Tenses, Part 1 (16:35)
Tense at ages 10 and 12. Interplay of physical/etheric and astral/Ego. From simple tenses to “perfect” tenses. Past Perfect and the penetration of the physical world.

6.33: Triads of Tenses, Part 2 (13:31)
Present Perfect tense. We “have” our past experience with us in the present. The Hermes/Mercury forces of the higher astral body. In Present Perfect the astral body reflects upon itself. From Saturn evolution to Earth evolution.

6.34: Triads of Tenses, Part 3 (13:47)
Future Perfect Tense. We “will” the future, or we “are going” to the future. The astral Mercury forces look to the Ego, and the future takes on great specificity. Like Aeneas carrying Anchises on his shoulders, Future Perfect carries the past and the present into the future.

6.35: The Subjunctive Mood (24:35)
Verb tense and verb mood. Moodiness and the 6th grader’s perception of reality: “Through a glass darkly.” Indicative and Imperative moods. Wishes, hopes, dreams. The Subjunctive as a portal into the world of becoming. “Gearing down” verb tenses in “as though,” and “as if” clauses. The power of clauses beginning with “if.” Subjunctive only introduced in Grade 6, and examined with greater depth in Grade 7.

Physics:
A Special Section with Roberto Trostli and Eugene Schwartz

Physics Lectures by Roberto Trostli

6.36: Physics 1. The Purpose of Physics (12:20)

6.37: Physics 2. The Grade 6 Physics Curriculum (11:50)

6.38: Physics 3. Methods of Teaching Physics, Part 1 (12:35)

6.39: Physics 4. Methods of Teaching Physics, Part 2 (9:00)

6.40: Physics 5. Practical Aspects of Teaching Physics, Part 1 (10:40)

6.41: Physics 6. Practical Aspects of Teaching Physics, Part 2 (7:40)

6.42: Physics 7. Preparation and Materials (14:35)

6.43: Physics 8. The Task of the Teacher (12:05)

Physics Demonstrations: Videos with Roberto Trostli
Acoustics, Part 1 (23:45)

Acoustics, Part 2 (23:55)

Heat (31:45)

Magnetism and Electricity (33:00)

Slideshows of Student Work with Eugene Schwartz
Physics 1: Acoustics / Slideshow of Student Work (9:30)

Physics 2: Color & Light / Slideshow of Student Work (30:00)

Physics Classroom Teaching with Eugene Schwartz
Acoustics Main Lesson Excerpts (13:30)

Color & Light Main Lesson Excerpts (18:00)

Before you listen to the History Lectures, spend some time with our innovative Grade 6 History Timeline . . .
To aid teachers in organizing the wealth of information and events that fill every moment of Grade Six History blocks, we have created a rich and robust Rome and the Middle Ages Timeline. All of the 175+ entries on the Timeline are replete with images and helpful descriptive passages. This Timeline places disparate events in a spatial and temporal relationship to one another and allows the teacher to visualize the complexity of the course of events presented in Grade 6. The Timeline may be viewed in 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional mode.
Click Here to watch a video guide to help you navigate the Timeline.
And the complete contents of the Timeline are available as a PDF. Click Here to download.

Roman History: Aeneas to the Republic

6.44: Why Do We Teach Roman History? (16:50)
“Touching the Earth,” more cliché than reality. Greeks embody the health of the etheric body, Romans the disarray of the astral body. Polarities as the key to Roman history Astrality and sclerosis, the hardening of the earth. America and the “ghost of Rome.” Roman culture and history and its influence on American life.

6.45: Overview of Roman History (17:20)
From myth to history. The essential and the non-essential. The Aeneid as preface to Rome. Greek and Roman gods. Threefold structure of Roman history: Kings, Republic, Empire. The Roman City. Civitas, civility, citizen, citizenship. Architecture and engineering, the Roman army. Noble Romans. The failure of the Republic and the life of Julius Caesar. The Empire and its Emperors. The life of Jesus. The christianization of Rome, and the romanization of Christianity. The decline and fall of Rome.

6.46: The Origins of Rome, Part 1 (16:00)
The Aeneid, the Latin Odyssey. The poet Virgil’s importance for medieval culture. Aeneas as the bridge between the old clairvoyance and Roman materialism. Romulus and Remus, sons of Mars. The ravenous wolf forces flow into the life blood of Rome’s founders. Aggression and fratricide set the scene for the nature of Roman life.

6.47: The Origins of Rome, Part 2 (13:40)
The “maleness” of early Rome. The Sabine women. Patricians and Plebeians, the prototype of Rome’s political polarities. The Seven Kings. Tarquinus Superbus and the throne of blood. Horatius and his sister. Brutus and his sons.

6.48: The Roman History Main Lesson (18:50)
How many History blocks should be teach in Grade 6? The teacher’s ambivalent relationship to Rome. Rhythms of incarnation. The importance of Rome to today’s student. The structure of the main lesson blocks. The structure of the daily main lesson.

6.49: The Republic, Part 1 (15:45)
The “Three P’s” of Greece and the “Three C’s” of Rome. Patricians and Plebians. Democracy and Republic. The Senate and the Consul. The American Electoral College. The contrasting paths of Coriolanus and Cincinattus.

6.50: The Republic, Part 2 (14:00)
The 6th Grader needs heroic models. On the cusp of myth and history. Camillus, the “third C,” and the first invasion of Rome. Rome’s rebuilding in stone. Earthquake and chasm. Marius Curtius. Self-sacrifice replaces involuntary human sacrifice.

Roman History 1: Slideshow of Student Work (25:00)

Roman History 2: Slideshow of Student Work (33:30)

Roman History: Apotheosis, Decline, and Fall

6.51: From Republic to Empire (17:05)
The Word as deed. Cato and the power of repetition. Cicero. The weakening of the old virtues. Greek philosophy and Roman values. Greek ideas and Latin words. Cicero, Caesar, and Mark Antony. The Twelve Caesars. The Five “Good Emperors.”

6.52: The Caesars (14:25)
Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula, and Nero. Archetypes of the relationship of power and dissolution. Lessons for our time: “All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton). “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce” (Karl Marx). Is the Empire striking back?

6.53: The Life and Death of Jesus, Part 1 (16:00)
The Mother of All Rubicons for the class teacher. Comes at the time of year when students - and some class teachers, too - are awakening to their individual Karma. Many schools discourage teachers from bringing Jesus into the History curriculum. Personal antipathies and fears arise concerning this subject. Eugene’s experiences in a school with a large Jewish and non-Christian population.

6.54: The Life and Death of Jesus, Part 2 (16:00)
Alexander the Great and the conquest of Jerusalem. The Maccabees and Rome. The withdrawal of the House of David and the rise of the Priests. The Hasmonean Dynasty. The conversion of the Idumeans. Herod. The Roman occupation.

Christianity as History (approx 1.5 hours long)
Excerpts from four 6th Grade main lessons on the Life and Death of Jesus of Nazareth taught by Eugene Schwartz in Green Meadow Waldorf School.

6.55: Constantine, Rome, and Christianity, Part 1 (16:50)
The chaos of 4th century Rome. Constantine’s vision, and his interpretation of what he saw. Christianity as a force of conquest. Consolidation of power in Rome, and Christianity as the state religion. New wine in old bottles: Rome’s allegiance to the old gods. The move to Byzantium. Was Constantine Christian?

6.56: Constantine, Rome, and Christianity, Part 2 (14:25)
Constantinople. The codification of Christianity. Constantine and Helen, his mother, dictate the forms of Christian worship, architecture, observance etc. The resistance of Roman physical and etheric bodies to the Christ impulse. Constantine’s profound influence on the Christian churches of today is underestimated. Church and State are conflated. Bureaucracy and legalism are the new pillars of Rome, whose decline and fall are but one century away.

Early Medieval History

6.57: Why Do We Teach Medieval History? (19:00)
Rhythms of incarnation. Some souls on the Earth today are drawn to millennial transitions. The “shock-wave” of Golgotha and the “Dark Ages.” The death of old clairvoyant forces. Estrangement from the spiritual world. The Age of Faith. The Monastery and the Castle, the Monk and the Knight. Understanding Aspergers and ADHD.

6.58: Overview of Medieval History (11:05)
Arthurian Legends. The rise of Feudalism. King and Pope. The Life of Mohammed and the rise of Islam. Charlemagne. The First Crusade.

6.59: Clovis (17:45)
The youthful forces of the northern tribes. The 15 year-old king and warrior. Clovis and Clothild. The fairy tale as reality. Conversion to Christianity.

6.60: Mohammed (18:22)
Animism and Theocracy. Monotheistic impulses of Christianity and Judaism. The vision on the mountain. The simplicity and mobile nature of Islam. The Koran. Goethe’s fascination with Mohammed’s writing and Islam. The explosive growth of Islam. Islam’s theocratic nature.

6.61: Islam and Europe (9:41)
The banishment of the Greek philosophers and cosmologists. Christian theology threatened by ancient philosophy. “Protection” of European soul life. The ancient teachings move east, to the Muslim Caliphates. The Court of Haroun al-Raschid contrasted with the Court of Charlemagne.

6.62: The First Crusade (21:00)
The “Holy Land.” Materializing Christianity. The Saracens and the Seljukian Turks. Peter the Hermit. Urban II and the Council of Cleremont. The Peasants’ Crusade. Tragedy and victory in Jerusalem. The triumph of the Franks. A good place to pause until Grade 7.

Medieval History: Slideshow of Student Work (24:30)

Religion in the Waldorf School (approx 3 hours long)
Three lectures given to parents by Eugene Schwartz in Green Meadow Waldorf School.

Geography
6.63: Why Do We Teach Geography? (17:00)
The geographical foundations provided in Grades 4 are seen from the point of view of the child’s Angel.In Grade 5, the higher perspective required by the astral body comes into play. An archangelic point of view. Grade 6 continues work with the Archangels. Greater interplay of cultural and physical geography. Europe or Latin America? Suggestions will be given for teaching both, and to both grades.Which hemisphere and which direction? “Economy in teaching” as a principle in Geography teaching.

6.64: Europe (20:10)
Teaching Europe in Grade 6: Tracing Caesar’s path of conquest. Polarities are essential in Grade 6, e.g. Mediterranean and North Sea. North and South. East and West. Mountains and flat lands. Granite and limestone. Nations with coastlines and landlocked nations. The metals. Salt. If the block is taught from a “content-first” perspective, then student reports on individual nations are inevitable; but there are other ways of teaching Geography.

6.65: Latin America (29:10)
The challenge of teaching about colonization in grade 6. Polarities in Latin America. Resource-rich and resource-poor nations. Extractive and work-ethic approaches. Landlocked and coastal nations. Differences between Spanish and Portuegese-speaking nations and nations colonized by French and British. Polarities in the tropics and the temperate zones.

Mineralogy

6.66: Why Do We Teach Mineralogy? (16:30)
Little guidance available for this subject in Waldorf manuals. The intimate relationship of the starry world and the mineral world. The intimate nature of our body weight. Density, mineralization, and gravity come late, not early, in earth evolution. Studying minerals may be therapeutic for a 12 - 13 year-old with a proclivity toward eating disorders. The spiritual world needs humanity to penetrate and transform the mineral kingdom.

6.67: Mineralogy or Geology? (14:20)
No branch of science is as much at variance with Steiner’s cosmology as Geology. 18th century: Earth was thousands of years old. 19th century: Millions of years old. 20th century: Billions of years old. Lyell, Catastrophism, and Uniformitarianism. How long has the earth been “solid”? Try to work with the students’ senses, rather than geological theories.

6.68: Overview of Mineralogy (14:00)
Geology reference books will be full of diagrams and cross-sections, but use these judiciously. Polarities in the mineral world: igneous and sedimentary, volcano and cave, silica and calcium. Drawing and painting stones. No less aesthetic than animals and plants. Minerals as resources, linked to the Economics block. Petroleum and coal. The metals and mining. Precious stones. Steer clear of efforts to make mineralogy entertaining or “spectacular.”

6.69: Granite and Limestone (19:30)
Comparison of granite and limestone “landscapes.” Light-filled, upward-thrusting mountains, subdued, desiccated hills and caves. Skin and bones in the human being. Silica flows into water: gemstones. Limestone sucks water in: cement.

6:70: Minerals as Resources (20:15)
Students should be able to identify minerals in rocks. Coal and petroleum. Ancient forces of growth and modern fossil fuels. Sedimentary rock and fossil fuels. Coal and diamond mining. Electric cars and the illusion of “clean fuels.” The metals. The Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Fire and the mineral world. The teacher’s enthusiasm transforms the student’s mineral body.

Mineralogy: Slideshow of Student Work (19:15)

Parent Work: Now, More Than Ever
6.71: Parent Evenings (20:00)
Why do so many Grade 6 parents stay away from Parent Evenings? Past and future karma. Age 72. Karmic adjustments and their ramifications. Mothers and fathers, their essential difference. Deepening your relationship to Anthropsophy. Making meetings more interesting and useful. Connecting to fathers. Teacher must broaden and deepen, like the 6th grader.

6.72: Parent Evenings, Part 2 (16:45)
Be meticulous about the meeting’s beginning and ending times. Last-minute questions and crisis creation. Presence of specialty teachers. Students “divide and conquer” approach to teachers vs teachers and teachers vs parents. Presentations of child development and student work. Give parents practical, but also validating pictures. Domineering effects of details about class trips, fund-raisers, class plays etc. Fear and trembling concerning parent questions. Digital recording of meetings.

6.73: Communicating with Parents
Two lectures from the Grade Five Online Conference are inserted here. These provide sound and vital advice on parent communication, and will be as helpful to Grade 6 teachers as they are to Grade 5 teachers.

520c: Parent Work 3 (29:25)
How many parents does it take to get a teacher fired? Practical advice to enhance parent-teacher communication. Writing reports that parents actually want to read. The “5 Minute Manager” approach to parent conversations.

520d: Parent Work 4 (16:00)
Parent conferences. The need to compare a child’s work to her peers’ work. Importance of frankness in face-to-face meetings, as well as a written record.

Colleagueship and Its Discontents
6.74: From Drama to Karma, Part 1 (17:40)
The karma relationships of the 6th grade teacher also change. It takes 7 consecutive years of 6th grades for a school to understand what the teacher is experiencing. Withdrawal from some school responsibilities.

6.75: From Drama to Karma, Part 2 (13:30)
Two important steps to take in Grade 6 that should be presented to colleagues in advance.

Inner Work: A Matter of Survival

6.76: Strengthening the Etheric Body (18:10)
A healthy etheric body is the sine qua non for the Grade 6 teacher. The “Looking Back” exercise and the transformation of memory. Objectivity in the classroom is the antidote for emotional responses to students and parents. The seed contemplation and the challenging child. The hidden qualities of the seed.

6.77: Encountering the Astral Body (23:30)
Sympathy and antipathy, the substance of the astral body. Unprofessional relationships with parents and their consequences. The Pedagogical Law and its ramifications for the teacher of grades 6, 7, and 8. Two case studies of work with sympathy and antipathy.

6.78: The Astral Body and the Ego (12:30)
The hour hand, the minute hand, and the second hand. Class teaching already demands that we overcome antipathies to new subjects and cultivate interest in all aspects of life. These are keys to developing our astral and ego forces. Life-long learning, the key to the Ego.

Instructional Videos
Painting with Patience (40:00)

Geometric Drawing: A Guide for Teachers, Part 1: (1 hour)

Geometric Drawing: A Guide for Teachers, Part 2: (45:00)

Grade Six Resources


Click here to access PDFs:

Although your access to the audio files of lectures and video files will expire after your 14-day participation period is over, the PDFs below are yours to download and to keep. Note: For best results don't view the PDFs on Dropbox; instead download them straight to your computer and read them from there. They will load much faster, and any PDF that you don't want may simply be deleted from your files.

Teacher's Suggested Reading List

Three Important Articles by Ron Milito
Ron is a retired Math and Science teacher from the Kimberton Waldorf School

Homework as a Sacred Cow Part 1
Homework as a Sacred Cow Part 2

Testing, Tracking, and Grading: The Woeful Trinity

The most thoroughly researched essays concerning all that Rudolf Steiner really had to say about homework. Important reading!

How Europe Became So Rich

The History of Money

American Money as a World Currency

The Fall of Rome and America Today

The Earth's Core

The Sentence as a Miniature Narrative



These articles may be accessed directly:

Sixth Grade Handwork: Students and Their Dolls

The remarkable relationship of the creator and his or her creation.

End-of-Year Reports
A sampling of narrative reports to parents.

Roma/Amor, a Grade 6 Class Play by Eugene Schwartz
The Black Stones, a Grade 6 Thanksgiving Play by Eugene Schwartz

Astronomy and The New Yorker

A Waldorf sixth grader fresh from his Astronomy block noticed that the New Yorker magazine had made a serious astronomical error on one of its covers. He challenged them and their army of fact-checkers, and they replied. Read it all here!

Science Tackles the Teenage Brain . . . .
Click here to read the New York Times article

. . . . and Has to Face Some Real Challenges
Click here to read the New York Times article

Supplementary Lectures

If you wish to go more deeply into some of the themes addressed in the Grade Six lectures, we invite you to listen to some lectures given by Eugene Schwartz in his course, Rudolf Steiner: The Man, The Age, The Path. If you want to go really deeply, we urge you to listen to the entire course, available from www.iwaldorf.com.

Evolution of the Earth and Humanity
Rudolf Steiner’s penetration of the concept of evolution lays the foundation for his teachings about history, Christology, and the genesis of evil. His metamorphosis of the evolutionary picture presented by Darwin and Ernst Haeckel led Steiner to a unique formulation of the way in which species, humanity, and the earth itself undergo ceaseless development and progress.
SC35 Introduction to Steiner’s Evolutionary Picture [13:32]
SC36 Perfection and Change; Saturn and Sun Evolution [23:22]
SC37 Light and Darkness [12:49]
SC38 Moon Evolution; Angels and Dragons [15:24]
SC39 Earth Evolution; Hindrance and Evil [18:57]
SC40 Densification, Lucifer & Ahriman [18:42]
SC41 Lemuria and Atlantis [29:28]
SC42 Darwin, Haeckel, Ontogeny & Phylogeny [14:24]
SC43 The Cultural Epochs [23:23]
SC44 Ancient Initiation Rites [29:46]
SC45 The Mission of the Israelites [23:10]
SC46 The Christ Principle in Evolution, part 1 [29:13]
SC47 The Christ Principle in Evolution, part 2 [33:26]