the waldorf maths post

The children attended a Waldorf school for three terms and I worked there too. I had read lots of Steiner over the years and always liked the whole ethos of it but I was unprepared for how it would look in real life as it were. Before I wax lyrical about the maths I do want to say this is not meant to be an advertisement for Steiner schools. It was a better system for my children than state but only by a few small steps. There were some highly unfortunate things going on there that really would never happen in a government school. Nuff said, on with post…

However the numeracy we liked :) I worked with class 1 and 2 and it was the maths that amazed me. At first I looked at all the singing and dancing a little sceptically – would they actually learn anything? Yes – I was state school indoctrinated though I didn’t think so at the time. I had just come from working in a combined primary 1 and 2 class there which was so different. The children struggled with maths. They were confused, so was I. But here at Waldorf the level of understanding and mathematical ability of similarly aged children shone out.

So what were they doing? Singing, dancing, throwing beanbags, playing with pebbles. All very multi-sensory. The teacher explained that the children had to understand and feel the knowledge in their whole being before writing it down. If it was written down first then blocks could occur. Umm yes, we made them write it all down with no understanding in the state… and then expected them to pick things up as they went along. Wasn’t working. Early counting in Waldorf involved learning about ancient number systems and encouraging the children to invent their own ways of recording numbers. I loved the way they taught Roman Numerals with fingers – when all five fingers are up the thumb and forefinger make a V. Cross the two thumbs (2 hands making 10) and you have an X. Easier to show than to write. We worked on number partners to ten and twenty with much beanbag throwing. Tables were sung with a little jumped dance, marching and clapping games not written down and read over and over like my poor children had been forced to do. Natural pebbles were used for counting and simple adding/subtraction instead of plastic blocks. The heavy feel in the hand helps. Many simple maths games were played like shut the box, dominoes of different types, dice with many different faces such as 11 and 13 were thrown, magic squares of allsorts filled in. Interesting and unusual abacus from different countries were used. There were seperate hand knitted gnomes for each sign: – + division and multiplication. Scenarios were enacted with them as we learned what they did. There was a very scruffy, disorganised gnome (and I feel so bad that I can’t remember his name) who needed a great deal of help with place value. A house with many rooms was used for this and lots of dried beans. I remember a pleasant morning helping the class ones sew little bags of ten beans for use with this. I also remember a more fraught occasion when the class twos make a board game each. It was of a house that was on fire and we had giant dice to play with for going up and down the ladder. We sang songs in a circle that involved counting upwards going forwards and then counting backwards while walking backwards (there were a few mishaps!). This was adjusted to counting in 2s, 3s, 4s, etc. We all became very good at that fast :) Skipping was done by most classes first thing, to “get the children centred in their bodies” and many numeracy songs came into this too. I always felt it was very good way of giving them a bit of a run around before sitting down for main lesson.

Higher up the school things became more orthodox. Charlotte was in class 4 and they still used things like pizzas and cakes - real ones, it was great fun - to teach fractions. By class 6 where Daniel was it was much more written and formal, in fact the maths teacher seemed to have severe emotional problems which the children bore the brunt of, but that’s another story best left untold I think. It was noticeable who had benefitted from the Waldorf early maths and who had come in at later stage with their maths already messed up, or that’s how it seemed. Remedial maths groups were run for these children. After that it all follows along with state school with the higher classes studying for Standard Grade maths. Not all waldorf schools do these exams though – I have heard of other diploma type things being done instead.

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