Can Learning Really Happen on Zoom?

None of us ever imagined that we’d design and deliver a Waldorf education via Zoom.

But when the COVID Pandemic closed down our beloved school building in March of 2020, we knew that we had a commitment to uphold to our community: we promised our program would be dynamic, hands-on, and responsive to the children in front of us — whether that be in a classroom or on a screen.

Now that we are several months into a new school year of distance learning, and Cedarwood Connected Learning 2.0, we thought we’d check in with a few teachers throughout the school and see how things are going!

Handwork
with Gia Davis

In my many years of teaching handwork, I would never have dreamed that I’d be teaching first graders to knit, third graders to crochet, and seventh graders to make a Waldorf doll through a live streaming computer!

In fact, if it were printed in a job description for the handwork teacher position, I would never have applied for that job! But here we are, in the middle of a pandemic, doing that very exact thing and doing it with love, enthusiasm, and enjoyment.

I wake up every morning to get on screen with the kids and show a new hand sewing technique or a new kind of casted-on knit stitch. The kids love to share stories of their handwork experiences and although most stories are of success, some of those stories involve struggle and upset. Here is a great opportunity for us to talk about how, sometimes, when you are on the edge of mastering a new learned skill, you may go through a really tough period of hard, seemingly insurmountable work and even tears may flow.

That is when the 3 Ps come into our work: Patience, Practice & Perseverance!

What a wonderful opportunity to build these life skills, and while we are chatting together I can certainly related my own life experience with these 3 Ps. Even mother nature can tell us a story about them, as described in the many attempts Ms. & Mr. Robin make in order to build the perfect nest for their precious eggs to be laid in!

Yes! It is possible to teach a Waldorf handwork curriculum on Zoom. The biggest difference is that Ms. Schumacher and I are not there to correct the mistakes as we would be in person. Also, it calls on the students to correct their own mistakes.

I am amazed daily at their fortitude, especially when I see something like the feat of a second grader picking up a dropped stitch!

If you have any questions about the handwork program, please don’t hesitate to contact Ms. Davis!

Juniper Early Childhood Class
with Cecelia McClellan

Cedarwood and its early childhood team of teachers did something that has never been done before. We created an online early childhood program with multiple live Zoom classes throughout the day.

In the heart of service to our community and being thoughtfully progressive, we created the Juniper class. In naming and holding the formulation and imagination of this class, we knew it needed a name that held the unique and special qualities of being sustainable and flexible during these strange times.

Juniper is about warmth and fire. Juniper helps warm people up and is a strong fire-dominant tree, suggesting many associations with this element: passion, energy, warmth, and the sun.

Juniper offers hope in dark times. Juniper berries have long been a staple through the darkest of winters, and I see this both physically and metaphorically.

Juniper offers regeneration. Juniper’s ability to grow in places few other trees can demonstrates that this tree is a true healer, offering us hope in these challenging times.

Building upon the Waldorf early childhood pedagogy, our Juniper class time is built upon rhythm, creating social and emotional growing opportunities, and teacher-led activities. Rhythm and the teacher’s imitative forces hold the space for these age-appropriate developmental milestones. Focusing on these teacher-led moments of circle time, activity time, and concluding our day with story time provides the framework for our Juniper class. Through these daily lessons, the children are receiving the foundation of the early childhood curriculum and their parents are supporting their playtimes, walks in nature, and mealtimes.

The children arrive to school on Zoom each morning ready, alert, and on time!

We begin each day with a little bit of sharing and saying good morning to each friend. We then creatively shift into our seasonal circle time with singing, rhythmic work (like bean bag time) and traditional early childhood games. Our next lesson after a quick break is our morning activity time. We have painting day, drawing day, playdough day, handwork (finger knitting and sewing) and beeswax day! It is absolutely a wonderful miracle that we are able to accomplish all of this great work all on Zoom!

The conclusion of our Juniper time is story time, when the children have the choice to be in a quiet cozy place or sit up and do a quiet activity, like drawing. We have had several times when mamas or daddies join in to also receive this gift of story time. Before story time, through a little rhyme, I remind the children of all of our good work of the day, and then we invite the helpers of story land, the golden bells, Silent Sandy, our story candles, and the fire faeries. At the end of story time, we watch together how Silent Sandy, a little hourglass with sand, quietly does her work (she has waited patiently for her turn all morning long), and I play the kinder lyre while the children watch the sand filling up.

At the end of our day, I offer time for the children to “play.” This has organically happened, and it is a great opportunity for those children who want a little longer time to be social. They get to ask each other questions, show each other their rooms or special toys, play and be silly. Most importantly, the children’s thirst for friendship is being quenched by these simple moments.

Later in the school year, the older children will stay on with me to do their special “six year old work.”

I am amazed every day that I get to be the Juniper class teacher. This group of children and their parents and I are all divinely placed together and collectively have held hope for all of these children. We all have been brave enough to “try” something new, to believe in it and to keep working hard together. This all began with a thought and it has continued to flourish, with the children thriving and learning.

We celebrate that we “get” to do this work together! We have celebrated moments from Michaelmas, to a lantern walk, and now Diwali. We celebrate our birthdays and make birthday wishes and mail them to our friends. The children receive handmade gifts from me. Stories come to life with puppet plays and sometimes even Nibbler the House Mouse comes for a visit.

We are creating the magic of a Waldorf classroom at home!

First Grade Class
with Mende Coblentz

It is definitely a beautiful day in our first grade online neighborhood!

We begin each day with a song from Music Together, say good morning, and check to make sure we can hear each other before leaping into our day. We start with movement activities, songs, and rhythmic activities. After we are a bit more awake and warmed up, we settle into focusing on our letter sounds, counting, and writing!

The children sing, dance, recite tongue twisters, visit with each other during break time, and raise their hand to enthusiastically share their thoughts. When a page is completed, they hold up their book to the camera to show the good work they are doing at home. When they’ve worked for a time on our books, they’re up jumping rope, practicing ball-handling skills, or practicing our Folk Dances with our invisible partners.

During our Friday social, we show up in our pajamas, bring our warm drinks, share jokes, stories, and treasures from home. We listen to stories about family, pets, and misadventures.

We laugh, giggle, and express our support to our classmates non-verbally through sign language throughout the week. While this certainly isn’t the way I had envisioned teaching the first grade, it has been a delicious surprise to discover what fun we can have online!

The foremost concerns members of the community had regarding online learning for first grade were whether the children would become a cohesive group, remain engaged with a Zoom lesson, or would acquire new skills. Happily, I can share that the children have made connections in their cohorts, gained quite a few skills since the year began, and are eager to learn. They are loving and kind to one another, curious, joyful, hard-working, and insightful.

We are longing for a day when we can play more closely together, sing and hear each other’s voices, and dance with our partners. However, we are grateful for this opportunity to connect and learn together during this unusual time. Any day spent together in the first grade (even online) is a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Third Grade Class
with Marlis Sandwith

About a month ago, I was across town and a gentleman happened to hear that I was a teacher at Cedarwood. He was familiar with Waldorf education, and when I told him we were providing a virtual learning model, he was pretty shocked.

“Waldorf online???” He couldn’t imagine it. Up until last spring, I couldn’t really either. And coming into the fall, I had many plans and visions for exactly how I thought it was going to go, but I have since revised those plans (more than once) based on my practice of responsive teaching. Virtual teaching requires a different kind of attentiveness, a new kind of seeing.

What I am seeing each day is quite amazing. What I see are children showing up, ready to connect, to bring themselves to our work together.

We spend the first part of our lessons doing form drawing, singing, moving, doing speech work, playing wooden flutes, even whistling and yodeling (yes, yodeling) and coming together as a group. Are there hiccups? Yes, of course. There are tech issues, pets who want to chase the balls we use to do Bal-A-Vis-X exercises and recite our times tables. Supplies that get lost in our homes. There are students who tell me they are frustrated. I try to give them tools to move through the frustration, and find new ways to adjust. I tell them, “We are here to make mistakes together, and to encourage one another.” And they do. We do.

Even more amazing is how caring they are for one another, even over Zoom. When a child from another cohort comes to visit, it’s as if a very special guest has come to dinner; they are so excited and welcoming.

In our daily lessons, we paint with wet-on-wet watercolor, practice cursive (theirs is exceptionally beautiful, I must say), create individual and class compositions, learn math through various games and even recently began using Zoom breakout rooms for some of our math games.

Last week, I could tell several of the children were feeling some heaviness. When I asked if that was the case, many heavy heads nodded, so I decided to bring a little levity to our morning routine. We stand on our chairs and, incorporating various movements, recite Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Eagle.”

*He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath *him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

And at the end, we jump off our chairs, each of us now a little more ready to take on the day together. It’s really pretty magical.

*We alternate with she/her

Sixth Grade Class
with Natalie Norman

We’re having an incredible autumn in the 6th grade!I’m in complete awe as to how well the students are interacting with our curriculum and each other within our Connected Learning program.

I have to admit that before entering into this school year, I felt some trepidation as to how I would be able to bond with a new class of middle schoolers on Zoom. Yet from the first day of school, we quickly developed rhythm, warmth, and connection.

If you were a fly on our Zoom screen, you would see students engaged in playful discussions, sharing humorous pet stories, and getting up out of their seats to stretch with me as we warm up to our lesson time. With a swift transition back to our seats, you’d then find us taking up a timed math challenge or a Latin root word puzzle before heading into some calligraphy work with our fancy calligraphy pens.

Our daily two-hour lessons unpack like a well-designed hiking sack: dependable, comfortable, and with pockets of treasures waiting to be explored. Over just a couple of months of classes, we’ve traveled around the world and throughout time to examine the history of geometry and the rise and fall of the Roman empire. We’ve worked with compasses and protractors, pastels and polymer clay, map and compass skills, and so much more.

We are fortunate to have the technology and the tools to meet the challenges of our times. I feel utterly blessed to be the class teacher for these children and look forward to being with them in a virtual way every school day.