Article 1. Life in an Educational Support Department

This is now my second year at Waldorf School of the Peninsula heading up the activities of the Education Support Department. Before I arrived, Cindy Baejma, a graduate of the Rudolf Steiner College Remedial Training, had held this as a part time position. Her work clearly paved the way for the next steps we are now taking. Cindy had a well worked out system of educational assessment, using "The Extra Lesson"™. She did movement sessions with some the students she assessed, while others were recommended to other professionals. The teachers and parents expected this to continue and to expand, given that the school decided to have a full time education support teacher, who would work to establish a department for this work, within the school.

When I interviewed for this position, I told the teachers that I intended to be here for at least two years… as long as it would take to set up a fully active department. I added that, in order to accomplish my intention, I would need to begin an internship program and that I would be looking for interns as soon as I had begun the work with the children of the school.

The first candidates for internship were suggested to me by teachers, who on occasion, had asked these people to be substitute teachers. The first candidate, Brenda Bean, had taken a class through the eight grades at the school and the second Pam York, was a respected pre-school teacher, who is completing her training with The Handle Institute and is a candidate in the Rudolf Steiner College teacher training at the Los Altos Campus. These two have been "by my side" for the past year and a half. We have added more people to our department since then. We now number seven. Two tutors, who come on campus to teach reading, math and writing, and two other part-time interns complete the team. The interns are active students in The Gradalis Therapeutic Education Training™ and are enrolled in the RSC teacher's training program. They are doing work, under my supervision here at the school. We are a lively crew, meeting twice monthly for departmental meetings and sharing the three main educational support spaces as well as carving out spaces wherever we can for meeting with individual children. We are fortunate, in that we have a room just large enough for our mats and movement work, another room for private tutorial and a private office for conferences and records:

An Overview of Educational Support by Grades…

Grade One: The teacher has requested our working with two students and their families. Both are making lifestyle changes (nutrition, rhythms, and stopping use of media). Both students are receiving individual movement and therapeutic education sessions on site, just after the class closes for the day.

Grade Two: The teacher requested that we screen a few children, using the Second Grade Sensory-Inventory Screening©. All the children in the class will be screened in February, however the teacher felt that some children and their families would benefit froming a partnership working with the education support department. After screening we determined that these children would benefit from being in one of two different "pull-out" focus groups serving this large and bustling class. While, this class is very well held by the class teacher, it is recognized that some children are better served in small group settings. Therefore, each morning, as an alternative to being in the full class for Main Lesson, six children come into our smaller room, and with more individualized help, complete the work of Main Lesson. This work is preceded by movement work. The second group of children of this class meets twice weekly working with Social Inclusion (as a pro-active preventative process) These children construct miniature scenes in small sandboxes and speak with each other about their "story world". This is called World Play and is modeled after the work of Margaret Lowenfield, an English educator who influenced Dora Kalff, founder of the Sandplay Therapy™ of the Jung Institute. (See later article about this work)

Grade Three: This entire class was given the "Waldorf Student Second Grade Sensory-Inventory Screening©" in the spring of last year. In the fall we gave a second screening to determine auditory discrimination, memory processes and basic reading and writing skills. We also gave the class orally dictated math problems to determine visual-spatial placement and auditory working memory. This assessment called "Waldorf Student Third Grade Basic Skills Screening©", provided the teacher with an over-all look at her class. She could then emphasize certain Waldorf grade-appropriate skills into her class work. In addition to working with the class teacher, we provide movement groups three mornings a week and some children are working one-on-one with movement, tutorial and World Play.

Grade Four: In the fall of the year, we gave the "Waldorf Student Fourth Grade Assessment of Basic Skills © ". The class teacher was given an overview of her entire class and from the results, we selected children to enter into a math practice and reading practice group. These small groups come to the educational support room for work at the same time the entire class is working on the same subjects. Many parents come into this class to give individual and small group work for the entire class. It is a fun and lively class with very involved parents. Some children are in the early morning movement groups meeting twice weekly and working with "The Extra Lesson™"

Grade Five: This fall we gave the entire class a screening called the "Brigance Inventory of Basic Skills ©" (I am writing a fall assessment for fifth grade at the request of the teachers as the current "Waldorf Student Fifth Grade Assessment of Basic Skills©" is designed for administration at the end of the fifth grade or beginning of sixth grade.) Until the new fall assessment is complete, we are using a very simple mainstream assessment of basic skills. After the entire class screening report was given to the teacher, we were able to determine which children would receive educational support. We now have two sessions of math per week being offered to this class and some children are doing individual therapeutic movement work. We also have worked with a number of the families initiating lifestyle changes. We hope to bring a block of mornings of "Extra Lesson ™" to this group in the winter.

Grade Six: At the request of the teacher, the entire class took the "Waldorf Student Fifth (spring)-Sixth (fall) Grade Assessment of Basic Skills ©" The teacher has used this "view" of her class, to emphasize certain basic skills in math and writing within the course of her regular main lesson work. Three times a week, a math specialist, the educational support teacher and the main lesson teacher team up and teach math. Thus, giving individual support to students yet keeping them in the full class group. Thus far it has been successful. Some children in this class have been individually assessed and are working individually with tutors or therapists.

Grade Seven: The entire class was given the "Waldorf Student Survey of Basic Skills for Grade Six (spring) Grade Seven (fall)". This group has educational support help twice weekly during math lessons. In addition, a number of families have received help through individual testing and intervention as well as coaching for lifestyle change.

Grade Eight: Some children in this class have been individually screened. We are currently preparing portfolios and recommendations for their next moves into the various high schools of the region.

In all, our department has in some way, served seventy-one children. Much of our work is done in partnership with the teachers and the parents. We do not work with a student unless we have been asked to do so by the class teacher. After the student has been observed in his/her classroom setting, we will meet with the class teacher, schedule a meeting with parents, go over our protocol for assessment and make suggestions. As we do charge for our thorough assessments, which include a professionally written report, we give the parents choice as to where they wish to go for assessment. Most choose the school's educational support team. I think they make this choice mainly because it holds their child within a paradigm of Waldorf Educational Philosophy. Secondarily, parents may choose our services as they will get a wholistic screening, in many cases using the same assessment tools as would be used elsewhere and at less than half the cost.

My office is small, artistically cosy and quiet enough for conference meetings, which I often have with parents and teachers. I have a private phone line and am often returning phone calls and emails, setting up conference times or, doing follow-up on a Student Educational Plan meeting. Many parents appreciate being coached to change their life routines to better serve their challenged students. I am often helping parents make decisions… find recipes for healthy snacks and lunches, decide which after school activities to do, and which to drop…how to establish good family rhythms around hygiene, bedtime and morning routines. I have found that, when we team up, the students change fairly quickly. When a student, who is feeling lost, confused or beginning to loose self-confidence, begins to turn around, we all get so exited and feel such a purposefulness to our work as we watch hope and joy return to the faces of our students. This is what keeps us going… the sense that we are working to help remove the impediments to a child's destiny… we are ever reminded of words of Rudolf Steiner, founder of Waldorf Education, here paraphrased:

Our rightful place, as educators, is to be removers of hindrances… each child, in every age, comes bearing divine and unique gifts, and we are to help them have the will to give these, thus fulfilling their intentions. To serve a child, we must have courage to help them remove the impediments, both bodily and psychical so that they may go forth, in full freedom, into living their life.

While we try to meet the needs of the children, in house, in Waldorf Schools, we need the help of other professional colleagues who are specifically trained to offer to the child, a part of what they are seeking… thus, some students may need to go to vision or auditory therapy, while others benefit from Sensory Integrative work, the work of the Handle Institute or cranio-sacral therapy. Some individuals may need to enter a short or long term psychotherapeutic relationship. Many need the expertise of the medical doctor, who focuses on constitutional well-being. The Remedial Teacher, or Therapeutic Educator, has a sufficient understanding of the work within these therapies. When assessing a person's response to life's challenges, the whole of the person needs be "taken into account". Thus, bodily, and psychical hindrances are fully addressed.

Our department seeks to work, in a respectful and healthy way, with local professionals, whose intention it is, to give their expertise in the service of freeing the willing, feeling and thinking of the human being. Thus, through working in "the village" we all go forth in freedom, fulfilling our intentions, by giving our unique gifts and thus maintaining the true basis of a healthy life.

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