Chapter 6 — The wholes we have in mind for K-12 schools

Chapter 6 of a serializing of Growing Sustainable Children; and, Schools Worthy of Our Affection.
This is my best guess how, in the next 100 years, whole-child K-12 schooling can evolve worldwide.

Most educators today advocate a more holistic approach. How far this goes, depends on how encompassing are the “wholes” one has in mind ~ James Moffett in the forward to Keynoting School Reform (1992)

A good deal of this entire text concerns the “wholes we have in mind.” The goal? To invite each and every reader to consider and contemplate the wholes you have in mind for your child’s schooling, in your local community of stakeholders.

A circle of wholes

- Whole-child,

- whole-teacher,

- Whole-school (see chart)

- whole-person (adult, see PACME+Soul),

- whole-community (enabling local velocity of currency, multiple opportunities for healthy face-to-face group processes)

g-wholes-in-mind-school-circle

You can perceive this as a linear or as a circular progression, your choice.

Amusing to me, what I found in the year of writing this, is Waldorfians and the rest of us under-estimated Goethe and his science method. More on this later.

At the moment, what pertains is: Even tho almost no one can live a life of Steinerian clairvoyance, a large fraction of people can live a life performing their own Goethean experiments, in ordinary daily life.

Life can’t be lived as one Steinerian insight after another. However life CAN be lived as one Goethean experiment after another. Many of these experiments will be on the physical level, fewer will be imaginal; unless you are a farmer or gardener, most of your daily experiments will be emotional or mental. If you are a parent of children, you may have noticed each new day is many experiments negotiating with a child’s level of understanding.

Pie chart graph of the whole education we have in mind

Whole-child education at its best converges several humanistic streams in education. In list form:

- Health of the child on all levels, physically, imaginally, emotionally, mentally and mythologically (“PACME” see Chapter 56).

- A comprehensive vision of child development. Adequate and sufficient understanding of the Sensitive Periods of each yearly age cohort (class),

- Transposing the above into yearly, fun, age-appropriate curricula.

- Teaching methods K-5: Best Practices in Group Process for children prior to puberty.

- Teaching methods 6–12: Best Practices in Facilitating Healthy Group Process and Interpersonal Competency.

- Hands-on, face-to-face practice with healthy group processes for all faculty, staff and parent meetings. Enlivening, diverse cultural activity for all who wish it, supporting adult learning and growth.

An image of this can be conceived. A pie chart graph is a helpful visualization for the relative proportions of one whole education:

dg-pie-chart-graph

Pie chart graph

80% Classic Waldorf child development, curriculum, methods and remedial work, colleague relations (Classic Waldorf is already mostly Best Practices in child-human development, gleaned from Goethean observation and experiment).

20% from outside Classic Waldorf, Best Practices in child-human development and interpersonal communication, documented in experiments, based on insights gained from Goethean exploration of the natural, lawful Unconscious Patterns.

The biggest chunk of this 20% is methods and training in healthy adult interpersonal communication from BluePrint of WE and NVC; or, something better. Before children can take Emotional Intelligence and interpersonal competency seriously as a norm, they must see adults using it naturally and consistently (at least trying). This is the only sure way to convey a culture of healthy communication from adults to the next generations coming up.

Transmitting healthy culture from one generation to the next

One purpose of education will always be the transmission of healthy culture from one generation to the next.

When we add the value of “drawing out the whole-person,” we begin to unleash to potential of K-12 schools for healthy social renewal. We also begin to reduce practice of an exhausted idea of education: Filling younger minds with everything older minds know.

Best Practices in the Land of Childhood

The future is already here; it’s just not very well distributed yet ~ William Gibson, author, Neuromancer

Let’s unpack the above: Seven generations in the future, we won’t be living the way we are living now. What you see around you now will be different. What’s coming is not always obvious. Yet, there’s always a few people today, throw-forwards, who are doing now, what larger numbers will be doing in future times.

Where do now social forms take root and grow? Where local communities-Tribes want something better than “business as usual,” “normal,” “average” and “status quo.”

The best-known example of this is early 1980s nerds building computers and networks. The 1990s documentary, “Triumph of the Nerds,” examples Gibson’s prediction clearly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds

Less-known are the Best Practices in the Land of Childhood and K-12 education. These have been accumulating in Classic Waldorf schools for 100 years.

The pieces of how to invite our children to join Team Human values, lie scattered around us. Some local assembly is definitely required.

New schools can be like heirloom seed-banks. Future generations draw on their wisdom and resources to build education better suited to future conditions. Will they? I hope so.

I hope this book appeals to anyone wishing K-12 schooling in line with:

- Souls living thru the human experience,

- Towards benefitting from the majority of childhood phases prior to puberty,

- Progressing into Adult Nation, uncovering your unique destiny and making your contributions.

Why I took the Waldorf teacher training

I suspect one big reason many people take the Waldorf teacher training is to expand beyond the boundaries of their own rigid thinking styles. My Waldorf teacher trainings were a smorgasbord of opportunity for me to get outside the box of my limited personal style and challenge what I thought I was weak and strong in.

At its best, the Waldorf Teacher Training offers leaps of personal “Aha!”s, personal growing; as well as grounding in what’s workable for the next seven generations.

Why can’t we jettison ALL politics and simply wing-it?

Q: Why do we want or need ANY education philosophy? Can’t we just wing it?

A: Two reasons. One, when values-based philosophy is not honored or is discarded, superficial jargon and slogans fill the void. This is why K-12 1980–2005 was very “fashion driven.” What we want is schools driven by valid insights into, and passion for, a clear vision of the whole person, the natural sequence of invisible milestones in the journey thru the Land of Childhood.

WHY do jargon and slogans fill the void? Superficial slogans are easier to market and broadcast.

Yet, flat, 2D ideas cannot give adults roots in the ground nor wings to fly, so adults can convey these capacities to children.

2D superficial sloganeering summarizes much of the rhetoric which spewed from Washington DC and most state capitals in the period 1960–2020. Very few lawmakers were former K-12 teachers.

Your school philosophy is the “head” of your school. Prospective parents will approach you “head first” with their intellects. You can use facets of elegant, uplifting philosophy to attract and engage them. This is how it’s done.

The missing platform planks in Progressive orgs 1972–2017

The second reason it’s unworkable to wing-it connects with the general failure and un-sustainability of Progressive-Green groups, 1972–2020. Increasingly since 2005, thru2020, Progressive orgs have primarily only been sustainable online, not locally, not face-to-face. MoveOn is the biggest example of this pattern. At least twice it tried to create local, sustainable, bricks and mortar chapters. Nothing.

The new Progressive democratic-socialist political groups so successful in 2018 may be more sustainable. I hope so.

Up thru 2020 — except for progressive groups doing door to door canvassing — in terms of Progressive orgs’ group process, “the Emperor was not wearing any clothes.” Shared values are what primarily bring people together. Food is only second. Generally you need both to create and sustain a regular schedule of meetings for local folks to meet each other and shake hands over shared values. You might agree with me, groups and individual candidates publicly voicing life-serving, truly human values were few and far between.

It’s not only the spread of Classic Waldorf schools which has stalled since 1995 or 2005; it’s each and every Progressive org I can point to. Only in mid-2018, have the Democratic Socialists of America bucked this trend. This appears to be for two reasons: Guess what? They do doing door to door canvassing; and, they have a clear values platform of benefits for the 99%.

To accelerate the process, please note the two platform “planks” missing from virtually every Progressive platform I encounter. Since the early 2000s or 1990s, when REgressives gained control of state and national politics, the two missing planks are:

- An explicit ecumenical spirituality plank. This speaks more clearly of “tolerance,” “inclusion” and “lack of judgement” better than any other plank I know of, and

- A plank of training their own staff and other orgs in Best Practice methods of interpersonal competency, BofWE, NVC, dyads, triads and milling exercises.

For me, these coupled with massive vestment in door to door canvassing are what work — not TV ads.

Q: Why bring politics into discussion of K-12 schools?

A: Waldorf-Team Human K-12 schools are what’s progressive in K-12. Schools are political by nature. If you ignore this, you end up with stale and ossified group process, little feeling of safety or trust to risk trying new ideas and new behaviors.

A bricks and mortar school with no supporting community (Tribe) of stakeholders with a vision they wish to implement, is a “school” in name only.

Schools with no supporting Tribe of stakeholders tend to be baby-sitting institutions. These are typically run for the ease of school district administrators; with, local working class parents as willing, silent, un-indicted co-conspirators.

K-12 schools can offer powerful benefits to their local community, such as adult ed and ESL at night. Isn’t delivering big benefits for both local kids and local adults the future direction of valued local schools? If you say, “This isn’t politics; it’s only education,” then you support the last 50 years of K-12 schools, up to 1995, where schools and districts danced like puppets on the end of strings pulled by state legislatures. This game was played for “vote getting” not for the next seven generations of well-educated, critical thinking voters.

Since the 1880s, especially in federal and state governments, K-12 ed policy has been steered towards whichever slogans-jargon has the most money-influence behind it. Hence, the last 150 years of national-state K-12 education policy as fads, fashions, competing jargon and slogans, driven by wealthy interests.

• Later, we’re going to compare the whole-school to the body of the whole-person. Your school philosophy is the “head” of your school.
• Why can’t we jettison all spirituality and simply wing-it?

Q: Why does a K-12 school need to acknowledge both its political spiritual natures? Can’t we simply remain atheistic-agnostic, corporate consumerists, as we have been, since about 1920, when corporations began taking over, privatizing, every form of Commons?

A: Yes, this would be easier. We could go with the flow of REgressive agendas and policies:

- Atheism-agnosticism,

- lack of investment and protection of public Commons,

- lack of public attention and discussion of truly human values,

- cooperate with corporate drives exploiting childhood and children as mere profit centers.

Go with flow is simpler; yet, it drives away and discourages your most desirable prospective parent supporters; and, your most desirable prospective teachers.

Your most desirable parents and desirable teachers are looking for something On Beyond Regressive Culture.

dg-On Beyond Regressive Culture

These parents and teachers wish to protect and nurture graduates who can be self-supporting AND innovate new culture.

Why do we need social renewal, new culture? Because your most valuable parent prospects are Cultural Creatives; and, they have an inner life. They want to know whether or not your school is compatible and worthwhile for a long-term relationship.

The ideal adult for Classic Waldorf or Team Human K-12 schools is actively looking for a Tribe who takes a stand and has a voice on healthy human and family values. If they were weren’t, they would settle for the nearest school, regardless of quality.

One piece of evidence for this was the 30-year success 1984–2014 of the University of Santa Monica’s two-year Spiritual Psychology program, Awakening the Inner Counselor. It has inspired many similar smaller programs at other schools.

Worldwide rising tide of educated women

I believe a bigger push for healthy integration of psychology-spirituality will come from women’s voices, worldwide.

My perception is since 1985 or earlier, educated women intuit possibilities for peace, wholeness and Oneness, corporate male types are blind to and wish not to see.

Why? The male paradigm is competition. The female model is connection, cooperation, collaboration.

The way men have organized things since the 1830s or maybe 1750, is exhausted; the male-competition model is well into the cannibal phase, the dog-eat-dog phase, same as the zombie phase.

My sense is women are finding their voices, however hesitantly, on:

- New healthy communities, new Tribes, can’t be based on male-competition models,

- To expand the spread of interpersonal competency practices, rhetoric of truly human values is essential,

- Discussing truly human values, sooner or later, inevitably overlaps with each person’s view of how they connect with their own Divinity.

Conventional males dislike this as it shifts cultural-economic influence away from male paradigms and power brokers to women and women’s orgs.

Where did I come to learn this? Between 1986–2001 I had the pleasure and privilege to visit about 25 Waldorf schools, independent and charter. I observed and did demo lessons. I never got a stable job out of this; still, I saw and learned a lot. Among many wonders, I saw aspects of what healthy female-led whole-brained culture looks, feels and behaves like. Occasionally men also led at these school communities. There is no prohibition on “who gets it.”

One consistent deficit I saw, school to school, was a lack of evolving rhetoric, appealing and engaging to parents and to the school’s ideal prospective parents. I saw and heard too much Waldorf school rhetoric at parent meetings and in parent education looking back to 1919 and oblivious to the audience’s desire to engage more deeply with each other.

On top of much recycled, stale Waldorf rhetoric, parent education classes and meetings ignored and did not honor the American spirit embodied in Best Practice in group process, arranging for simple exercises where parents and adults exercise patience and tolerance to learn from each other.

As in failing traditional churches, with fixed seating, 1965–2020 and on-going, adult group leaders — mostly male — overlooked, ignored and appeared ignorant of what else adults could be doing together, since they came all the way out to be together in person, face-to-face.

This is why Eugene Schwartz and a very few others, have been in high demand to speak at schools and to parents. Eugene often steps away from bottled, pre-digested Waldorf rhetoric. He often uses his own direct, personal experience with students, parents and schools to expand his own thinking and feeling both above, below and beyond where many Waldorf establishment thinkers left off evolving, about 1980.

Perhaps you can find in this text topics of interest to local allies and prospective parents in your community.

Socially and culturally, “business as usual” ended about 1985. Our social-cultural norms and behaviors are out of date, dated, old-fashioned, no longer aligned with the spirit of the Earth and the spirit of younger generations. We are playing catch-up.

Except for a few ecumenical spiritual communities, Classic Waldorf communities are among the most numerous and fertile seedbeds for social-cultural renewal we have.

In Europe, the aftermath of World War I, could have been the wake-up call for peaceful transition to more class equality and protection of public commons (what we now call class equality, ecology and environmentalism). Rudolf Steiner saw this opportunity. That’s what his Three-fold Social Order document was about.

But the 1930s was too soon, too hopeful. Too few of the working class had enuf higher education to rise up to be the saviors Marx envisioned.

In the USA, the aftermath of the 1929 Stock Market Crash (banks doing casino-style gambling, still on-going in 2020), was a wake-up call for peaceful transition to more class equality and protection of public commons. This was the New Deal.

Since the Reagan-Thatcher counter-revolution of the Oligarchs, the Reagan era, New Deal gains on protecting class equality and the Commons, have been rolled back steadily.

If we wish to get beyond a world run by and for the 1%, we have to look at what keeps the old, exhausted dysfunction in place. One lynchpin is old-fashioned K-12 ed. Another is old-fashioned live, event group processes (teaching-lecturing). “Business as usual” is spinning out of control like a clothes washing machine with an very unbalanced load.

History is “turning the page” on Western civilization. Something new is coming. It will be more Team Human-ish. What do you think?

Q: Bruce, are you a Red Diaper Baby? Is Team Human a stealth form of Socialism?

A: I’m aware the above paragraphs could be a line in the sand some readers wish not to cross. That’s fine. Up to you. No, I never participated in public marches or protests where either side was violent; I never joined protests against Vietnam or nuclear power; I never studied Socialism beyond John Nichols’ book below.

If you, Dear Reader, have a better vision for K-12 education, I am open to hearing it.

My Progressive Historian allegiances run this way:

- Professor Jon Weiner https://jonwiener.com,

- Mitch Jeserich https://kpfa.org/program/letters-and-politics/ and

- John Nichols The “S” Word, A Short History of an American Tradition … Socialism (2011). — https://www.versobooks.com/books/2062-the-s-word

Five minute video, John summarizing his book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Piu5NddBBio

Q: Why is any politics at all relevant to Team Human schools?

A: If your school is only its bricks and mortar, has no dedicated, committed Tribe of stakeholders, I believe such schools will be be increasingly unsustainable.

From the history of USA public schools, in the 1900s, we learned schools with weak supporting communities, over 25 years or so, tend to devolve into mere baby-sitting institutions. When this happens, the school is then run for the ease of school administrators, with local working parents as willing, silent co-conspirators, “children should be seen and not heard.”

In 2001 I did a couple weeks of observation for a Masters-level paper on one of the first Green Dot high public high school charters in Los Angeles, CA. It was heartening to see parents, teachers and students galvanized into cooperation, collaboration and purpose. These folks knew zero about Waldorf.

I saw even aging factory-style public elementary schools revitalized by an infusion of organized parent support and volunteerism, precipitated by the advent of a new charter. I substituted at several old factory-style public schools, gently galvanized into responding to local parent needs and local community by adopting new Charters. These were early district charters, old individual schools, whose teachers wrote new charters for their site, not part of a charter franchise or consortium.

At the simplest level, teachers and kids are better-behaved, when your parents are walking thru the school and serving as Lunch Lady. When kids see teachers and parents working side by side, they behave better. Accountability.