Teaching physics, the Waldorf way
Gopa Malaker David
With inputs from Shailaja L & Ameer Khan
In the early years, in a Waldorf school, the kindergarten is spent in free play and listening to stories. Here, learning takes place primarily through imitating and repeating what the teacher does. As we move on to the grades, children learn more out of love, trust, and respect for the teacher. Around the 12th year of the child, there comes a realization in the children that the adults around them are not all-knowing. Now there is a tendency to question everything around them. This automatically paves the way for critical thinking. The time is ripe for physics to be introduced to children in class VI.
To put it briefly, the teaching of physics in a Waldorf school can be described as totally sense and phenomena based. Rather than the concept being given first and followed by an explanation later, the children are made to observe and experience an experiment and then asked to recall the sequence of events and their observations of the phenomena. They are given time to write and draw the experiment. The act of drawing helps bring clarity to their observations and highlights the main theme of the experiment. The level of detail in the description and observation and also in the drawings is indicative of their individual capacities of perception and observation. However no conceptual explanations are done on the first day. The following day, the teacher does a ‘review’ through a carefully planned questionnaire that tries to elicit from the pupils what they understood and learnt from the experiment the previous day.
It is also a time for questions from children and discussions of individual experiences. The language used in class VI is more of what the children use to explain in simple terms what they have experienced and understood from the experiment rather than technical or theoretical words which name things that they cannot yet see or directly experience. The experiments are planned sequentially to enable a step-by-step understanding. Effort is made to place these experiments in the context of daily life and how the laws of nature can be applied in our lives.
The topics covered in the class VI curriculum are Sound, Light, Heat, Static Electricity, and Magnetism. The chosen experiments highlight different aspects of sound – the factors determining sound production and its quality, where sound travels best – through water, air, wall, wooden door, or a string? Sound is experienced through the playing of different instruments by the children – the piano, the drums, the guitar, and even the violin.
The teaching of light begins in absolute pitch darkness. This is done in order to experience the all pervasive quality of light. The invisible quality of light, connection between colour and light and light and shadow are shown through different experiments. A big question – What is the colour of the sky? – often asked during the geography and astronomy block1 is finally answered by passing light through milky water in a fish tank and seeing the colour of light from the lit end and from the dark end. This is also apparent when the colour of light changes as layers of paper are peeled off from a powerful torch.
The last Light experiment is light from three candles passing through an arched doorway and falling on a paper wall. To watch the patterns made on the wall by the light is an absolutely breathtaking experience.
The experience of heat and cold begins with the morning ‘handshake’ where the sense of touch is consciously kindled to experience body temperature.
Other experiments in this series mainly involve experimenting with hot water and ice cold water. The experiment with ink in hot and cold water evokes interesting observations from the children.
Static electricity is exciting especially when children discover that by touching a charged metal bucket along with several other children, he/she can actually pass the charge and ‘shock’ a child without insulation.
The last topic for class VI is Magnetism that involves playing around with magnets in the classroom to discover that magnets attract only iron. The children go back to playing in the sandpit, this time to separate iron powder from sand using a magnet. This iron dust, when poured around the magnet creates a visually attractive, intricate, magnetic field. The impact created by the intricate pattern is admired for its aesthetics, and the phenomenon behind this is discussed animatedly. They see how a nail is first magnetized and then made into a simple compass by placing it on a dry leaf floating in a bowl of water. It also brings home the fact that magnetism has something to do with the geographical North and South Poles.
In class VII, greater complexity is brought into the relationships between various phenomena. The topics covered are Heat and cold, Optics, Electrical Phenomena, and Mechanics. For each topic, formulas are derived based on the detailed observations of the learning that happens on the previous day. For example, making a pulley work and then studying how the ropes work on the wheels leads to finally learning how the load gets to be so much lighter.
Working with different mirrors gives them a feel of visually forming reflection laws. This forms a sound basis for the working of the eye and laws of optics. In electricity, especially, the flow of the current through zinc and copper plates is felt through the taste they produce on the tongue and then through connecting a series of these plates on the tongues of many pupils. When the last two ends are connected to a small bulb, lo! it lights up. This would be the first human battery they get to see.
To begin this five-week long journey of learning physics, the first task is to measure music using a Monochord. This beautifully demonstrates the mathematical relationships between sounds. There is no better start to understanding the logic of complex phenomena. The laws and the formulae unfold from now on.
In class VIII, Heat is dealt with thermal physics. Optics now is about the laws of the lens and refraction. Other subjects like hydraulics and aero-mechanics and electromagnetism are also dealt with. The learning from the experiments is taken forward by asking the children questions which require more subtle understanding. By now the children are tuned into making minute observations and are able to write and draw clearly what they experienced. The old method of telegraphs, the working of the electrical engines and the role of electromagnetism gives them a significant insight into the detailed work that flows later in the years. Hydraulics deals with water pressure which has become a daily knowledge as far as its uses are concerned. So it is good to begin to understand the laws that govern this phenomenon. Aerodynamics brings them closer to the working of airplanes and how air pressure and altitude play their roles. Acoustics is about vibrations, waves, speed of the sound and vacuum (for instance, how to a sound proof a room).
The teacher also endeavours to link physics with other subjects like history, geology, and astronomy. This approach builds a stronger connection between the children and the real world. It makes them more aware and perceptive to their surroundings. This in turn helps to develop concepts that link up phenomena. It also does not require rote learning; rather the learning is through the experiment that stays with them. In case of confusion, the children have the freedom to revisit the experiments. The apparatus is left at their disposal.
According to Dr. Rudolf Steiner, the teacher should take care to develop the concept of physics from life itself. The big question is how does a class teacher2 who may or may not have high school training in the sciences teach the subject? Steiner has a very simple bit of advice to give the teachers “…you must develop the capacities that allow you to… become as absorbed by the subject as the child is by the lesson…but not in a childish way. We must transform what is more mature into something childlike.” Instead of giving them verbal definitions, he advises that teachers show the connections between the concepts and the phenomena.
- In a Waldorf school, subjects are taught in blocks lasting 3-4 weeks instead of a daily or weekly basis. In class VI curriculum, Roman History, Geology, Astronomy, Percentages, Business Mathematics and Physics are taught.
In class VII, the blocks are Perspective Drawing, Geometry, Alegbra, Medieval Ages, Emergence of Islam, Indian History – covering the Delhi Sultanate, the rise of the Mughals and the Bhakti movement, Renaissance, Age of Explorations, Geography of Australia, Africa followed by World Climatic Zones and their governing factors, Practising grammar and working with different writing skills (Wish, Wonder and Surprise), Physics (described above), Chemistry and Astronomy. - The grade teacher starts with a group of children from class 1 and takes them up to class 7, teaching them practically all subjects other than second and third language, handwork and sports.
References
Practical Advice to Teachers – Rudlof Steiner
Sensible Physics Teaching – Michael D’Aleo & Stephen Edelglass
Phenomena-based Physics – Manfred von Mackensen
The author has been involved with the Waldorf system since 2000. She teaches Class 7 at Abhaya Waldorf School, Hyderabad. She can be reached at gopamd63@gmail.com.
