A Different Way Of Knowing
by Pearse O'Shiel M.A. in Ed.

Our experience of time is generally associated with rhythm. The daily rhythm of day and night or the yearly rhythm of the seasons are familiar to us and in the process of human development there are rhythms associated with the various changes that take place over time. Rudolf Steiner described how the seven-year phases of development have particular significance for the development of human consciousness and how the world is meaningful to us in ways that are qualitatively distinct from phase to phase. Thus children in the first seven years of life live in an experience of the world that is entire and authentic but that is qualitatively and therefore, in a certain way, wholly different from that of a mature adult. Young children live in an experience of the world where the distinction between themselves (subject) and the world (object) is not yet present in the same way or to the same extent as it is in the adult. To find the language that adequately describes this relationship is difficult but it is not too much to say that the child experiences herself and the world as one. There is a direct and largely unreflective relationship in which the world is meaningful in so far as the child can engage directly with it - can take hold of the world. Meaning is a matter of what the world feels like, tastes like, smells like etc. Thus development in the first seven years is concerned primarily with the physical senses and thus with the physical development of the child. Our task as carers and educators is to provide opportunities for children to be physically active - to have opportunities for plenty of 'doing'.

Imitation
The direct and largely unreflective nature of the child's relationship to what is going on around them means that they are drawn into activity by the activity itself, i.e. through imitation, and in a Steiner Kindergarten we work on the basis of the child's natural compulsion to imitate. Thus we can say that, for the young child, education is the environment and all that happens around them and with them is their 'instruction'. Children learn to speak and to walk through imitation and, while it may seem naive or simplistic to say that children learn through imitation, there is nothing simple about the task that confronts the adult for whom meaning is a matter, not of direct experience but of reflective and analytical thought. To do things with children that have meaning for them and to do them well is neither simple nor easy. It is hugely challenging for an adult, whose natural tendency is to explain the world in conceptual terms, to work in a way that responds effectively to the child's quest for meaning in a world which they experience directly and immediately as themselves, as subject - in which the child and the world are one.

Wholeness
Thus children carry, for us, an experience of the world in which wholeness or oneness is still intact. It is an experience that we, as adults, often seek to regain through religious or spiritual practice - this sense of authentic belonging. It is a way of 'understanding' the world that is particularly valuable for a culture such as ours which has lost much of its connection to the physical world. For our technological culture the physical world is often something to be manipulated and processed and given little chance to speak to us out of its wholeness. We need to value childhood for what it is and for what it can contribute, in its wisdom, to the whole of our culture and, as in any process of development we need to give it its full span of time. The first phase of childhood is entire and authentic in itself and it is not merely a kind of 'waiting room' for school. The real work of childhood is to be 'doing' and in play we have a form of 'doing' that provides much of the basis for the development of the highest cognitive activity of adult life. The Steinerian view would see a process of metamorphosis or qualitative transformation from one phase of development to another where faculties and capacities that are developed in one phase appear later in another form. Thus the cognitive capacities that we value so highly in our contemporary culture appear, in early childhood, as the outer creative and dynamic use of language and in the complex events of play. The notion of transformation from phase to phase means that we have full trust in the wisdom that gives childhood its particular quality where certain faculties are still, in a manner of speaking, sleeping in the child. They are more likely to unfold at the right time, given a proper and appropriate foundation. In the story of Briar Rose, the forest of thorns is not hacked down by the Prince using force but it opens itself to him because he arrives at the right moment. It is not his strength that wins through but the fact that he appears at the right time. In human development (of which fairy stories are narrative illustrations) timing is everything and forced or accelerated development will always extract a price.

Language
For Steiner education early childhood extends to the seventh year and in the Kindergarten we work with children up to seven years of age. It is a time when the state of the child's consciousness is clearly indicated in the relationship to language which is still largely unconscious. The child speaks and uses language expertly but in a way that indicates little consciousness of, for example, the fact that words are made up of different sounds. The greatest resource we can provide for our children is a rich store of spoken language and there is growing evidence that the level of spoken language is an important indicator of future academic success. The most effective preparation for reading and writing is not early analytical literacy skills but the spoken language itself. In teaching children to read and write at 4.5 or 5 years of age we are out of step with practice in most European countries where formal school entry is at least a year later. Thus in a Kindergarten we find lots of singing, poems, rhymes, opportunities for the use of language in the celebration of festivals and, of course, play. We seek, in the Kindergarten to provide the space and time for children to do the real work of childhood which is to participate, through imitation, in the activities of the day and the task of the Kindergarten teacher is to prepare and carry through a programme that enables and supports such activity.

Irish Steiner Kindergarten Association (ISKA)
ISKA was formed almost ten years ago as a forum for the professional development of its members. Membership was restricted to those currently working with young children in a Steiner Kindergarten and, in this way, the work of the association was focussed and consisted largely of regular meetings of childcare professionals addressing issues of direct interest to them in their work. At this time there was very little interest from outside in the work of the association and, while Steiner education was widely recognised internationally, there was slow but steady growth of the association in Ireland. In recent years the interest in Steiner Early Childhood Education has increased hugely and has left us, with two part-time officers funded through the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme, struggling to respond to the requests for workshops, courses and more general input from providers and community groups throughout the country. We find ourselves working with non-member individuals and groups as often as with members and we are happy to do so. As an association we aim to support members but we have an equal interest to support others who wish to adopt or adapt aspects of our holistic approach. The association is relatively small and does not wish to develop a beaurocratic life of its own. It is more likely to focus, in these next few years, on how it can facilitate and promote quality childcare from the perspective outlined above, where childhood itself is to be valued and where advocacy of childhood will remain a central concern.

ISKA has an office in Co. Clare and it runs a national training programme based in Clare. Pearse O'Shiel is the National Development Officer and he can be contacted at (061) 927944 and pearse@irishsteiner.org.