The Art of Planning a Main Lesson: A Balance of Form and Freedom | AWJ #16

Planning a Main Lesson

In this episode I go through my process in planning my main lessons and how the two contrasting ideas of form and freedom come into play.

Mentioned resource: The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum

The aspects of my lessons that bring more form:

• The curriculum (the particular block, must-tell stories) — History blocks tend to be a bit more prescribed than other blocks.
• Resources — The resources I use certainly form and limit my lessons.
• Skill-building benchmarks — Some skill-building activities (like reading and writing) are non-negotiable.
• Time limitations — Time is definitely a limiting factor that makes us pick and choose wisely.

The aspects of my lessons that bring more freedom:

• Teacher interest (with both content and activities)
• Student interest (content and activities)
• The transformation of the content that occurs in the night.

We can’t have our lessons be at either end of the spectrum. We couldn’t plan out every aspect of our lessons months in advance, without leaving time for any freedom or inspiration.

By the same token, if we don’t plan our lessons at all and allow teacher interest, student interest and the whim of the day to dictate where our lessons go, we run the risk of missing out on some of the gifts of the curriculum and the development of certain required skills.

So accomplishing this balance is definitely an art. In the rest of the episode I talk about my experiences navigating this balance.

At the end of the episode I share a listener question about whether Waldorf teachers, especially kindergarten teachers, can wear the color black. I give my opinions and feelings about it, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Share in the comments.