Our teacher Innocent Adiko has safely arrived in Nairobi to start two packed weeks of Ruldolf Steiner teacher training at the Mbagathi Waldorf school. Around sixty five teachers from all over Africa are gathering and the main teachers are flying in from South Africa. The main focus these two weeks for the kindergarten teachers will be Morning Ring.
“Morning ring serves as a main lesson in kindergarten. This is where we bring together rhymes, songs, verses and gestures, crafted together in a story line and movement connected to the surrounding activities and the seasons. The children move together, listening, reciting, keeping sequences, learning body geography, integrating reflexes and developing spatial awareness. The cycle of the year, in all its beauty, in all its changes, from lush and green to dry and dusty, each time with its particular character form the background of theme on which all our work in the kindergarten is based. Children gain knowledge about the changing year and the earth on which they live in an age-appropriate form. As teachers, our morning ring play an important part in the journey our children have so recently begun, Lets design our morning circles around THEM body soul and spirit.”
FOUNDATION STUDIES by Casmir Msigwa
The human being is a being of the physical reality as well as spiritual reality. He/she is Body, Soul and Spirit. The three-fold nature in us speaks of who we are, orients us on how we should be guided and treated in the process of our becoming.
For the teacher to teach in a more appropriate way he/she needs to understand well the nature of the human being. Besides, a human being goes through different phases in the process of his/her physical, emotion, social and intellectual development. Thus, teachers must thoroughly understand these processes of growth and development of the growing child.
Foundation studies provide basic knowledge which opens up to both teachers and students towards deeper qualities of the human being. Foundation studies help the teachers to avoid teaching facts only which bring in children a state of coldness in understanding whatever they are taught. Contrary, with the help of the knowledge from foundation studies, teachers will have the ability to present materials in a more warm and lively manner, creating meaning in the life of the pupils. Through foundation studies the teacher trainee gets to understand the deeper side of the child, deeper side of life. Foundation studies provide broader knowledge on the human being and so allowing teachers to work with children according to their natural exposition.