Two Weeks, Two More Schools

Well, I’ve been here two months! It’s so hard to believe! And I am still so much in love with Cape Town! I have spent the last two weeks visiting two more Waldorf schools. It was so great to observe all of the different classrooms! I was in 6 different classes, so I got to observe how differently the classrooms can be run.  The two coolest things that I got to witness and take part in were birthday celebrations and the Michaelmas festival.

I got to observe three birthday celebrations, which were all such special treats. In Waldorf education, for the younger ones, birthdays are celebrated warmly. Like in a traditional birthday, cake is eaten, candles are blown, and songs are sung. However, in Waldorf, there is more tender and spiritual celebration. The daily rhythm of the class changes to celebrate the birthday. The atmosphere of the classroom changes during the birthday. Some teachers changed the class the night before and some during the day. Regardless, a space in the room is dedicated to the celebration. In the craft, children all make a birthday card for the birthday child. Inside each card, the child gives a birthday wish to the birthday child. I had the fortune of writing the darling wishes and they ranged from two fighter jets to a golden rainbow. During ringtime, the birthday child gets to pick songs and games for the class to play. There are also special ringtime songs that only happen on birthdays. The birthday child wears a special birthday cloak and birthday crown. He/she chooses one or two children to be guardian angels, who also have crowns and cloaks. During the day, the birthday child and the angels get to wear their costume. Each teacher does the birthday celebration differently, however, they are similar in structure. The birthday child sits with the guardian angels at the birthday table, where they sit with the candles. The child’s parents are also present and involved in the ceremony. The teacher begins by telling the story of the birthday child, starting with when he/she was a star child. The star child desires to come to Earth, however, before the journey can begin, each star gives the child a wish. After the child receives a wish from each star (which are represented in rainbow colors), the child comes to Earth. The teacher then tells a short story of the child’s life, lighting a candle for each year. The children in the class participate in the ceremony by acting as stars and giving wishes. The child’s parents also attend. The ceremony, although it may sound cheesy, is completely adorable and beautiful. It is such a special way to celebrate a birthday, to celebrate the child’s life in terms of accomplishments, funny stories, and family history. I was so blessed to be able to see three of them.

The third term just ended for both schools that I visited, meaning that it was time for a festival. Woohoo! In the Waldorf calendar, the beginning of spring (at least in the southern hemisphere) marks Michaelmas, which is when St. Michael comes to tame the dragon. The story goes that Lady Spring is ready to come and begin spring, however, there is a grumpy dragon that does not like spring, and he would like it to continue to be dark and winter. So, he traps Lady Spring in a tower. St. Michael comes to free Lady Spring and tame, not kill, the dragon. Since it was leading up to this celebration, the classroom activities circled around the theme of spring and telling the story of St. Michael. In crafts, the children worked on sanding swords. And goodness, if you give a child a piece of sandpaper, that child will go on all morning sanding! The swords were eventually painted gold and the children glued on jewels so that they were ready to tame the dragon for festival. The children also made crowns that they wore. In story time, the stories were about the awakening of spring, Lady Spring, her gnomes, fire fairies, water pixies, and flowers, and the dragon who tried to stop it all. In ringtime, the songs also went around the story. And when the festival came, they were SO exited! It was so fantastic watching them run around the school with their swords (and yes, there were strict rules in place about using them to fight) and crowns that they had worked so hard on for weeks. The pieces came together and they were ready to tame the dragon and celebrate spring! It was such a great time to be in the schools, to get to see all of this happening.

When was not geeking out about schools the last few weeks, I got to be outside, which has just been amazing! I went camping with two friends in Bains Klof, which is a two hour drive outside of Cape Town. We left on a Friday afternoon and headed up towards the mountains. After navigating there, we reached a super twisty mountain road and that is when we knew that we picked the right spot to camp in. The mountains here are so beautiful! They are rocky at appearance, but covered in bushes and wild flowers. These mountains were no exception. We got to the campground at dusk and got everything set up. Good lord the stars here! I can never get over them and they continue to amaze me. The next morning we woke up and headed for the trail. Well, what we thought was a trail. This set the pace for the rest of the day as we guessed if we were heading in the right direction and were constantly on the look-out for trail markers. We found a small waterfall that had some pools around it so we stayed there for a while, jumping into the water, although it was FREEZING, and lying in the sun to get warm again. Afterwards, we headed for the larger waterfall, and once again, had consistent trouble finding the trail. And gheeze was it worth it! We stayed there for a while and then headed back to camp where we ate lunch and packed up. It was so great to get out of the city and explore a little bit more of the area around Cape Town! I have also been doing some hiking around the neighborhood. I am convinced that I live in the most beautiful part of Cape Town, although many people who are actually from here will probably disagree. Recently, we hiked to the top of Chapman’s Peak, which is a famous scenic drive. We started out just wanting a walk around that area, and then ended up hiking to the top. Haha, which we were not really prepared for, but the good news was that it was a stunnnnning day and not too warm for a hike that was straight uphill. The scenery was absolutely beautiful, and well worth the climb. On multiple occasions we thought that we had already reached the top because the real top was out of view. The hike overlooked the ocean and gave us amazing views of the mountain ranges of Cape Town. I really could not get over the beauty of it all! It was truly remarkable. And Sewanee kids, this joke is for you. Hiking with Germans is faster than trying to hike with Dr. Potter! No lie.

I have been reading a book about play that has given me a lot to think about. One thing that it talked about were the emotional benefits of play. The author said that when people look at play, they tend to only see the intellectual benefits to it, myself included. I never even considered what play can do for a child’s emotional well being. Play can help a child recover from a troubling situation, prepare for one, or create an empathetic feeling in the child. I witnessed this in one class the last week. A child was working with playdough with his mother. They were creating their family, down to the last detail. Well, the last detail also included constructing a grave for the cat that died many years ago and the rabbit that ran away. According to the mother, the child always requested to create the grave. Creating this situation with his mother, the child was working through a memory that was particularly challenging.

And a funny story to leave you with. If you know me, you know that I get these hiccup type things, referred to as “meeps” by some friends. I have had them since I was 16 and I get a couple each day. I have no idea what causes them, neither does my doctor, or WebMd. While I was sitting with a little girl at school I had a hiccup. She looked at me with a curious look on her face and said, “what was that?” I told her that it was a hiccup. She looked me straight in the eyes and said, “no it wasn’t.” She then went onto telling me that hiccups involve more than one sound and I just had one sound, so it couldn’t be a hiccup. This girl was 6 years old and I tried to explain my meeps to her. I can’t even explain my meeps to people my age!

I love spending my day with children! They are so intuitive, it continues to amaze me. The intuition even stretches across the cultural barrier, when I have had the fortune of seeing in my children. This was something that I learned in my psychology and education courses, something that I heard from my Professors, but it was never something that I experienced firsthand.  And goodness, it is awesome! J 

On a different note, I am now really into vegetables. Brussels, beet roots, turnips, leeks, butternuts, all kinds of yummy things! I'm sure those of you who are familiar with my eating habits find this hilarious! 

Wildflowers and Chalk Covered Jeans

It is starting to warm up here, which is fantastic! So, last weekend I went with my host family on a spontaneous trip to the wildflowers. It was so beautiful! The wildflower region stretches from about an hour from Cape Town all the way until Namibia. Another fun fact, I learned that South Africa has the most diverse flowers of any range in the world! Neat-o, huh?! There is really no wrong or right way to see the flowers, so we just drove and stopped when we saw something nice. The first place that we stopped was a flower preserve off of the highway. We got out and each took time to walk around and take in the surroundings. The most amazing thing about the wildflowers were that you could walk 10 feet in one direction and see something completely different or see one flower, just one, and never see that kind again. The different flowers were stunning! There were daisies, lilies, critters, and butterflies. It was a perfect, sunny day, so all of the flowers were open. We stopped a few more times when we found huge fields ridden with flowers. It seemed as if a paintbrush had just painted over the grass. The air smelled like honey and we were all reminded of “The Wizard of Oz” as we sat down and had a picnic. Afterwards, we drove to the town Darling, which besides having the most wonderful name, is also a very cute small town. Luckily, there was a street festival going on and so we had a break and enjoyed all that the festival had to offer. When we drove home that night all of the flowers were going to sleep, sadly, but it was still so enjoyable just to see them. When we were heading into Cape Town, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Table Mountain. It is truly one of the most amazing sights that I have ever seen. I cannot get over how regally it stands nor how flat the top is, haha, which I realize sounds a bit silly. The whole day was fantastic! If you feel like looking at about 100 pictures of flowers, the photo page has been updated.

Things at the school are continuing to go very well! The kids have really reached my heart, and no matter how far my patience is stretched, I always smile whenever I think about school. Here are just some tidbits about school:

-I learned that if you give two children your tennis shoes, they will spend 20 minutes trying to tie them. I loved the way that they were so attentive to the knots that they made. For example, after they learned that pulling the knot tighter would not un-do it, they had to think about another way to solve the problem. Getting to sit there and watch was a gift.

-The girls’ new favorite game is “salon” where about 3 or 4 of them surround my head and pull and twist it into different shapes, braids, and pony tails. Needless to say, I often have a headache at school haha.

-My new favorite accessory is chalk all over my pants.

-I had a moment that I never considered before. The children have a craft rhythm, which means that on each day they do something specific. One day a week they use dough (playdough) to shape and mold into their hearts desires. I was always sad when we did dough because each child does not get a lot. I would always think, “what on earth can someone do with just a little bit of dough?” So, this past week, we inquired about borrowing some dough from downstairs so that the children can have some more. Our teacher said no, because the dough that we use is thick and hard, and it works on the fine motor skills of the children. I had never even considered this! But it is so true! We use dough and beeswax to model, and although each child only gets a little bit, a lot goes into changing the shape of the dough. The children really have to work, especially with the wax, which I attempted for the first time this week. I was amazed how difficult it really was, and I only had a small bit of it.

-I have come to love ringtime, which is when the children sing and play finger games. It amazes me how the nature of the children change from song to song. Our teacher does a fantastic time about varying the rhythm, pace, and volume of the songs that we sing. I learned that the reason Waldorf uses ringtime is that the children are still coming into their bodies. Ringtime helps them to not only learn how to interact with their classmates, but realize new movements on their own. 

Next week I will go to a new Waldorf school. I am excited to explore a new place!