New Year, New Habits: How We're Building Healthy Ones

The beginning of the year is always a time for remembering and rebuilding healthy school rhythms and routines.

Every year we teachers give conscious intention to reminding students of old habits and teaching them new rhythms that will support their learning into the future. And while lessons about recording assignments in your planner or remembering to bring your homework folder home may not be the most exciting content, lessons like these are an incredibly important part of our work.

Giving our attention to this aspect of learning is even more important in a year like this one when the typical habits of working at school feel pretty rusty. Luckily, this time of year is perfect for turning a new leaf: teachers and students alike are filled with the inspiration of a fresh start and it just feels good to work on our habits!

Here’s why habit-building is such an important component of the year together:

Learning How to Learn

In elementary and middle school, students are “learning how to learn.” We, teachers, recognize that every single day we’re shaping and forming your child’s attitudes and ideas about all future learning.

Yikes! No pressure!

We want students to enjoy the process of learning, and we also want them to learn how to take ownership of their learning themselves.

We see that our task is to set students up to be lifelong learners. We want these little humans to become adults who are curious about the world and know how to use the tools at their disposal to find out more about it.

So we provide them with interesting content so they know what it feels like to have their curiosity engaged. And we also actively teach healthy habits like caring for your materials, organizing your desk, writing down your assignments, and putting papers in your binder.

Activities like these really do make future learning possible.

Will Training

You know that feeling when you’ve got a task that you’ve been dreading, and you put it off for a while, but eventually, you knuckle down and force yourself to do it anyway? (And, of course, completing the task wasn’t nearly as difficult as the contemplation of it was.)

You were able to push through that resistance because of a well-developed will. And, let’s face it, there aren’t many shortcuts to developing a strong will. When it comes down to it, you just have to have many, many, experiences of facing something you didn’t want to do and doing it anyway. (Sorry, kids.)

But, the good news is that routine is one of the few shortcuts to will development.

Have you got a challenging task that you don’t want to face? Build a routine around it. I guarantee it’ll be easier.

The best example of this from my own life is packing lunches. Oh man, I can’t tell you how glad I am that I don’t have to pack kids’ lunches anymore! I hated that task with a passion! But it was so much easier when I figured out an assembly line routine and a weekly menu rhythm. (I never did figure out how to make UNpacking lunches any easier, though.)

Developing Classroom Culture

One of the hidden gems of doing this work is how much it can help form a classroom culture that supports our learning throughout the year.

As teachers emphasize these little habits (gushing with positivity and enthusiasm for homework folders), students feel good about accomplishing them. We share ideas and strategies for remembering assignments, studying for spelling tests, and taking care of our supplies. Students start to remind each other, share ideas for assignments, and stay after school to put up chairs for friends who forgot.

When this starts happening, the community of students takes over the work and takes ownership of it themselves. That’s when we teachers know that building and reinforcing these habits at the beginning of the year was worth the extra time and effort.

Curious about a Waldorf education for your child? Let’s connect!

Meredith Floyd-Preston was a long-time Cedarwood teacher and last led the class of 2025. She discovered Waldorf education when she graduated from UC Santa Cruz and was looking for a school for her young son. After attending the Michaelmas festival at the Santa Cruz Waldorf School, Meredith jumped in with both feet, signing her son up for preschool and enrolling herself in the San Francisco Waldorf teacher training directed by Dorit Winter. Now in her tenth year of class teaching, Meredith credits the past decade with some of the richest experiences of her life. While teaching, she backpacked through the wilderness of northern Idaho, hoisted sails on a historic schooner, discovered how seeds sprout, invented the compass and became Joan of Arc — all accompanied by a robust classroom full of students. She currently teaches Cedarwood’s Class of 2025.