I thought this entry (and blessing) from Lisa Boisvert-Mackenzie was worth sharing with more of you, as if gives such a wonderful picture of what you are doing with your child!
Lisa Boisvert Mackenzie home schools with Waldorf education. She is the editor of the online magazine, The Wonder of Childhood and offers Celebrate the Rhythm of Life, a program to support parents, childcare providers and teachers to find rhythm in caring for children through the day, the week and the year. Lisa serves as a board member of LifeWays North America.
Hello Dear Mamas,
I'm wondering if any of you are just beginning home schooling this year with first grade or just beginning with Waldorf schooling at home? I wonder if we need to send you over the rainbow bridge in a ceremony to bless your new endeavor!
I've been musing over the transition out of early childhood into the grade school. I've reached the conclusion quite firmly within, through my observation of children and especially my own children that it is the nine year change that brings the transition out of early childhood and sure it occurs slowly over the years, perhaps beginning to take form with the change of teeth.
Yet the first days of first grade herald in a new relationship, a new world view for the child who is slowly emerging out of the cocoon of being at one with the world. The parent becomes the teacher and the parent can use these first days to link the child to the wisdom of human kind, the wisdom that has come down from us through the ages and into which the adult is inviting the child to glimpse, still through fairy tales and now with some form beginning to take place with the introduction of the straight line and the curve.
So our task in these first days of bringing lessons is to also in bringing a new attitude of one who is conveying knowledge and wisdom that is greater than we are and has come through the ages to this moment to our child who is now being initiated into some of the abilities that distinguish us from the animal world, of writing, and eventually of reading, now that the child has mastered walking and talking and has begun to think with the "I" as separate from "you." It is our moment as the parent to put on this mantle of wise enchanter and bring these mysteries to life for our child.
This wisdom is transmitted from human to human, it is the adult, the teacher parent who opens the gate to this world. We are the "authors" or authority for our children. We transmit this knowledge of what it means to be human in the world today. Oh what a task before us all!
Blessings on your new beginnings!
Lisa
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