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55-539: The school practices an interdisciplinary approach based on the Waldorf curriculum , including a strong emphasis on art, music and intercultural understanding; students begin studying two foreign languages ( Spanish and German ) beginning in first grade. It also provides a strong community service program. Graduates of the school have been noted for their independence, sensitivity and creativity. The school's publications include: The school's annual public events include

110-431: A Waldorf child listens to and summarizes oral language. Then, using imaginative pictures of sounds (e.g. a snake shape for the letter "s"), the children gradually learn the abstract letter forms and move on to phonetics, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. The literary themes of the first through fourth grades are: fairy tales , fables and saints stories, Hebrew Testament , and Norse mythology . The fifth grade includes

165-487: A book. Fables had a further long tradition through the Middle Ages and became part of European high literature. Fables had a further long tradition through the Middle Ages and became part of European high literature. The Roman writer Avianus (active around 400 AD) wrote Latin fables mostly based on Babrius , using very little material from Aesop. Fables attributed to Aesop circulated widely in collections bearing

220-431: A particular moral. In some stories the gods have animal aspects, while in others the characters are archetypal talking animals similar to those found in other cultures. Hundreds of fables were composed in ancient India during the first millennium BCE , often as stories within frame stories . Indian fables have a mixed cast of humans and animals. The dialogues are often longer than in fables of Aesop and often comical as

275-501: A rich story-telling tradition. As they have for thousands of years, people of all ages in Africa continue to interact with nature, including plants, animals and earthly structures such as rivers, plains, and mountains. Children and, to some extent, adults are mesmerized by good story-tellers when they become animated in their quest to tell a good fable. The Anansi oral story originates from the tribes of Ghana . "All Stories Are Anansi's"

330-476: A specialized music teacher begin in Grade 1 and continue through Grade 8. In High school, choir and various instrumental ensembles are continued, until the end of secondary school. Music is integrated into the teaching of academic subjects such as arithmetic, geography, history and science. Recorders , usually pentatonic , is introduced in first grade, the familiar diatonic recorder in third or fourth grade, when

385-490: A survey of Classical Hindu , Persian , Egyptian , and Greek mythology, as well as the beginnings of Greek history. In the middle school years, literary themes are drawn from history. Sixth grade includes Roman history , seventh grade, the history of the Medieval period, Renaissance , and Reformation , as well as the voyages of world discovery, and eighth grade focuses on the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, including

440-638: A teacher she referred to as “Tomcat.” Staff of Green Meadow Waldorf School identified Tomcat as John Alexandra, a former teacher employed between 1965 and 1979, Threefold Board member from 1975 through 1983 and who continued to appear on campus occasionally until 2013. The school hired a professional firm, T&M Protection Resources, to investigate the matter and the results were reported on July 11, 2014 in The Journal News . 41°04′55″N 74°03′41″W  /  41.08194°N 74.06139°W  / 41.08194; -74.06139 Curriculum of

495-514: A textbook. The teacher will draw one colored chalk drawing on the board to introduce the theme or subject. The structure of the lesson will include activities that "call upon the child's powers of listening, of body movement, of thinking, and of feeling." These activities could include mental math, hand-clapping games and jumping rope, folk dances, poetry recitation, singing, and writing and drawing in unlined "main lesson books". Teachers are free to include whatever activities they feel will work best for

550-400: Is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse , that features animals , legendary creatures , plants , inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying . A fable differs from a parable in that

605-461: Is a movement art, usually performed to poetry or music, created by Steiner and "meant to help children develop harmoniously with mind, body and soul". Eurythmy is a required subject in Waldorf schools in all years. Physical Education, or Movement Education as it is called in many Waldorf schools around the world, begins in the early grades with rhythmical activities, then proceeds to various games,

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660-439: Is developed and an exemplary method that focuses on in-depth investigation of key examples. Dahlin describes the process as "aesthetically rich knowledge formation" which "allows the children’s judgement to mature without 'jumping to conclusions'" and "teaches openmindedness, flexibility, truthfulness, and exactitude in dealing with phenomena of nature." According to a 2009 European PISA study, Waldorf pupils' ability in science

715-410: Is followed by as careful as possible reconstructing or recollecting the observed phenomena without them being physically present, followed by—on the following day—the conceptualization of that which was observed. Attentive dwelling on the observations of the senses enhances the potential of immediate experience to break through the armour of preformed conceptions or ready-made thoughts. The recollection of

770-514: The Esopus or Esopus teutsch ). It became one the great bestsellers of the last decades of the fifteenth century. Several authors adapted or versified fables from this corpus, such as the German poet and playwright Burkard Waldis, whose versified Esopus of 1548 was influential. Even the artist and polymath Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) composed some fables in his native Florentine dialect. During

825-670: The First Epistle to Timothy , the Second Epistle to Timothy , the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter . A person who writes fables is referred to as a fabulist . The fable is one of the most enduring forms of folk literature , spread abroad, modern researchers agree, less by literary anthologies than by oral transmission. Fables can be found in the literature of almost every country. The varying corpus denoted Aesopica or Aesop's Fables includes most of

880-651: The Old World . Ben E. Perry (compiler of the " Perry Index " of Aesop's fables) has argued controversially that some of the Buddhist Jataka tales and some of the fables in the Panchatantra may have been influenced by similar Greek and Near Eastern ones. Earlier Indian epics such as Vyasa's Mahabharata and Valmiki 's Ramayana also contained fables within the main story, often as side stories or back-story . The most famous folk stories from

935-528: The son of Lorenzo de' Medici (now kept in the New York Public Library). Early on, Aesopic fables were also disseminated in print, usually with Planudes's Life of Aesop as a preface. The German humanist Heinrich Steinhöwel published a bilingual (Latin and German) edition of the fables in Ulm in 1476. This publication gave rise to many re-editions of the sole German prose translation (known as

990-827: The 17th century, the French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) saw the soul of the fable in the moral—a rule of behavior. Starting with the Aesopian pattern, La Fontaine set out to satirize the court, the church, the rising bourgeoisie , indeed the entire human scene of his time. La Fontaine's model was subsequently emulated by England's John Gay (1685–1732); Poland's Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801); Italy's Lorenzo Pignotti (1739–1812) and Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi (1754–1827); Serbia's Dositej Obradović (1745–1801); Spain's Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa (1750–1791); France's Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794); and Russia's Ivan Krylov (1769–1844). In modern times, while

1045-805: The Near East were the One Thousand and One Nights , also known as the Arabian Nights . The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian assortment of fables. The earliest recorded work, ascribed to Vishnu Sharma, dates to around 300 BCE. The tales are likely much older than the compilation, having been passed down orally prior to the book's compilation. The word "Panchatantra" is a blend of the words "pancha" (which means "five" in Sanskrit) and "tantra" (which means "weave"). It implies weaving together multiple threads of narrative and moral lessons together to form

1100-817: The Tin Box " in The Beast in Me and Other Animals (1948) and "The Last Clock: A Fable for the Time, Such As It Is, of Man" in Lanterns and Lances (1961). Władysław Reymont 's The Revolt (1922), a metaphor for the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 , described a revolt by animals that take over their farm in order to introduce "equality". George Orwell 's Animal Farm (1945) similarly satirized Stalinist Communism in particular, and totalitarianism in general, in

1155-422: The Waldorf schools In the curriculum of the Waldorf schools , much of the education in academic subjects takes place in blocks , usually of 3–5 weeks duration. Each pupil generally writes and illustrates a self-created textbook representing the material learned in the block. These blocks are supported by on-going classes in subjects such as music, art and crafts, and foreign languages that continue throughout

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1210-400: The Waldorf students also outperformed the public school students. Although the study noted the Waldorf students' enthusiasm for science, the science curriculum itself was viewed as "somewhat old-fashioned and out of date, as well as including some doubtful scientific material." Educational researchers Phillip and Glenys Woods (2008), who also reviewed this study, criticize the conclusions about

1265-649: The animals try to outwit one another by trickery and deceit. In Indian fables, humanity is not presented as superior to the animals. Prime examples of the fable in India are the Panchatantra and the Jataka tales . These included Vishnu Sarma 's Panchatantra , the Hitopadesha , Vikram and The Vampire , and Syntipas ' Seven Wise Masters , which were collections of fables that were later influential throughout

1320-520: The best-known western fables, which are attributed to the legendary Aesop , supposed to have been a slave in ancient Greece around 550 BCE. When Babrius set down fables from the Aesopica in verse for a Hellenistic Prince "Alexander", he expressly stated at the head of Book II that this type of "myth" that Aesop had introduced to the "sons of the Hellenes" had been an invention of "Syrians" from

1375-481: The children also take up a string instrument: either violin, viola or cello. Waldorf pupils are generally required to take private music lessons when a class orchestra is formed, usually at age 9-10. By age 11-12, the children may switch to woodwind or brass instruments as part of the class orchestra or a separate band. Orchestral instruction continues through the end of a child's Waldorf experience, though in many schools it becomes elective at some point. Eurythmy

1430-475: The children in the class. In high school, students are taught by subject specialists rather than a class teacher. However, the "main lesson" structure remains. The entire curriculum, which is often discussed as an ascending spiral - or "spiral curriculum" - has been described in the following way: The presentation of different subjects may be as follows: In Waldorf education writing and reading are introduced at age six or seven; Beginning with oral storytelling,

1485-568: The circus arts, the Greek pentathlon, and on to more competitive athletics and team sports as the student moves towards high school. Bothmer Gymnastics was created by Fritz von Bothmer between 1922 and 1938 out of his work as the physical education teacher at the first Waldorf School established in Stuttgart, Germany. Bothmer Gymnastics™ offers a distinctive, planar approach to age-appropriate balance and coordination exercises. Fables Fable

1540-618: The end of the fifteenth century. The most common version of this tale-like biography is attributed to the Byzantine scholar Maximus Planudes (1260–1310), who also gathered and edited fables for posterity. In the Renaissance, Aesopic fables were hugely popular. They were published in luxurious illuminated manuscripts, such as the so-called "Medici Aesop" made around 1480 in Florence based on the corpus established by Planudes, probably for

1595-458: The end of third grade. Language teaching in the first three years aims to give the children a sense of greater belonging and understanding of other cultures. In the elementary years, drawing is practised daily and painting weekly; in addition, children are taught modelling and sculpture with beeswax or clay. Also taught is an approach to drawing geometric and dynamic forms created by the early Waldorf pedagogue Hermann von Baravalle and known in

1650-408: The fable has been trivialized in children's books, it has also been fully adapted to modern adult literature. Felix Salten 's Bambi (1923) is a Bildungsroman —a story of a protagonist 's coming-of-age—cast in the form of a fable. James Thurber used the ancient fable style in his books Fables for Our Time (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956), and in his stories " The Princess and

1705-507: The fable was the first of the progymnasmata —training exercises in prose composition and public speaking—wherein students would be asked to learn fables, expand upon them, invent their own, and finally use them as persuasive examples in longer forensic or deliberative speeches. The need of instructors to teach, and students to learn, a wide range of fables as material for their declamations resulted in their being gathered together in collections, like those of Aesop. African oral culture has

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1760-463: The families of excluded children; in the decision, Judge Thorsen wrote that “petitioners’ children are hereby permitted to return to their respective schools forthwith and otherwise assemble in public places,” allowing Green Meadow Waldorf School to welcome 45 unvaccinated students back to class. In July 2013, alumna and novelist Kate Christensen published “ Blue Plate Special ”, an autobiography in which she describes how she had been sexually abused by

1815-558: The following: Green Meadow is part of the Threefold Educational Foundation anthroposophical community in Chestnut Ridge. The Foundation owns the land and acts as an umbrella for Green Meadow Walfdorf School and several other nearby organizations. This community includes: During a 2019 measles epidemic, Rockland County excluded unvaccinated students from schools. A lawsuit was filed on behalf of

1870-562: The guise of animal fable. In the 21st century, the Neapolitan writer Sabatino Scia is the author of more than two hundred fables that he describes as "western protest fables". The characters are not only animals, but also things, beings, and elements from nature. Scia's aim is the same as in the traditional fable, playing the role of revealer of human society. In Latin America, the brothers Juan and Victor Ataucuri Garcia have contributed to

1925-417: The historical origins, cultural background, and philosophical roots and consequences of scientific discoveries. Educational scholar Bo Dahlin describes the Waldorf approach to science education as follows: Teaching about any natural phenomenon [begins] with pure observations, for instance of an experiment such as the refraction of light in passing a prism, consciously holding back any theorizing about it. This

1980-932: The history of the country in which the school is located. Formal instruction in numeracy begins at age 6/7 with the four primary operations of arithmetic. Fractions are introduced at age 9/10, decimal numbers and proportions at age 10/11, percentages and rates of interest at age 11/12, algebra at age 12/13. At the secondary level, topics include algebra, geometry , conics , trigonometry , probability , combinatorics and calculus . Descriptive geometry and projective geometry are introduced at age 15/16 and 16/17, respectively. Life sciences begin from age 6 or 7 with stories of "the living world." Observation and description of "the living world" begins at age 9 or 10. The curriculum includes lesson blocks on farming (age 9 or 10), animals (age 10 or 11), plants (age 11 or 12), as well as geology , human biology and astronomy (age 12 or 13). At secondary school, Waldorf schools study

2035-614: The idea that animals evolved from humans, that human spirits are physically incarnated into "soul qualities that manifested themselves into various animal forms", that the current geological formations on Earth have evolved through so-called "Lemurian" and "Atlantiean" epochs, and that the four kingdoms of nature are "mineral, plant, animal, and man". All of these are directly contradicted by mainstream scientific knowledge and have no basis in any form of conventional scientific study. History begins with "mythical and archetypal narrative" (age 6–9 years). At age 10 history lessons begin to draw upon

2090-530: The latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind. Conversely, an animal tale specifically includes talking animals as characters. Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament , " μῦθος " (" mythos ") was rendered by the translators as "fable" in

2145-460: The local environment in connection with the local geography. Beginning at age 11, history is introduced as a formal subject. Throughout elementary school, history is primarily taught through biography, allowing for a human context for historical events. Generally, two foreign languages are taught from age six on. Foreign language instruction in the first two years is purely oral; reading and writing of foreign languages are generally introduced toward

2200-473: The major revolutionary movements. After recording their own stories and illustrations in personal books, children learn to read from the words they wrote themselves. From fourth grade on, creative writing focuses on descriptive writing, poetry, and, in middle school, themes such as wish, wonder, and surprise. In secondary school, courses examine the development of drama, poetry, and the novel. The secondary curriculum generally includes intensive courses focusing on

2255-453: The name of Uncle Remus . His stories of the animal characters Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear are modern examples of African-American story-telling, this though should not transcend critiques and controversies as to whether or not Uncle Remus was a racist or apologist for slavery. The Disney movie Song of the South introduced many of the stories to the public and others not familiar with

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2310-556: The name of Aesop. While Phaedrus's Latinizations became classic (transmitted through the Middle Ages, though attributed to a certain Romulus , now considered legendary), the writing of fables in Greek did not stop; in the 2nd century AD, Babrius wrote beast fables in Greek in the manner of Aesop, which would also become influential in the Middle Ages (and sometimes transmitted as Aesop's work). In ancient Greek and Roman education,

2365-418: The observations made earlier stimulates penetration of what was experienced by active thinking. The pedagogy is influenced by Goethe 's phenomenological approach, whereby Nature is conceived as a meaningful whole from which human beings are not alienated. It emphasizes letting the "phenomena themselves speak", using both a genetic method that starts with personal knowledge, out of which conceptual understanding

2420-492: The resurgence of the fable. But they do so with a novel idea: use the fable as a means of dissemination of traditional literature of that place. In the book "Fábulas Peruanas" Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine , published in 2003, they have collected myths, legends, and beliefs of Andean and Amazonian Peru, to write as fables. The result has been an extraordinary work rich in regional nuances. Here we discover

2475-435: The role that storytelling played in the life of cultures and groups without training in speaking, reading, writing, or the cultures to which they had been relocated to from world practices of capturing Africans and other indigenous populations to provide slave labor to colonized countries. India has a rich tradition of fables, many derived from traditional stories and related to local natural elements. Indian fables often teach

2530-544: The schools as "form drawing". Art instruction continues through the high school. Handwork (including knitting , crochet , sewing and embroidery ) is taught from age 6 on, with projects which may include cushions, socks, gloves and dolls. Woodworking normally begins during 5th or 6th grade. The secondary school crafts curriculum includes some combination of woodworking , basketry , weaving and book-binding . In elementary school, children sing daily with their class teacher. Generally, bi-weekly general music lessons with

2585-400: The science curriculum because it means the authors have posed an "unresolved conflict" whereby inaccurate science can lead to better science understanding. A study conducted by California State University at Sacramento researchers outlined numerous theories and ideas prevalent throughout Waldorf curricula that were patently pseudoscientific and steeped in magical thinking . These included

2640-409: The so-called "Romulus". In the later Middle Ages, Aesop's fables were newly gathered and edited with a prefatory biography of Aesop. This biography, usually simply titled Life of Aesop ( Vita Aesopi ), is more invented than factual, and itself a sort of moralistic fable; known in several versions, this Aesop Romance , as scholars term it today, enjoyed nearly as much fame as the fables themselves by

2695-500: The third was an international TIMMS test. The TIMMS test covered the scientific understanding of magnetism . The researchers found that Waldorf school students scored higher than both the public school students (and the national average) on the TIMMS test while scoring the same as the public school students on the logical reasoning tests. However, when the logical reasoning tests measured students' understanding of part-to-whole relations,

2750-597: The time of " Ninos " (personifying Nineveh to Greeks) and Belos ("ruler"). Epicharmus of Kos and Phormis are reported as having been among the first to invent comic fables. Many familiar fables of Aesop include " The Crow and the Pitcher ", " The Tortoise and the Hare " and " The Lion and the Mouse ". In the first century AD, Phaedrus (died 50 AD) produced Latin translations in iambic verse of fables then circulating under

2805-692: The title of Romulus (as though an author named Romulus had translated and rewritten them, though today most scholars regard this Romulus to be a legendary figure). Many of these Latin version were in fact Phaedrus's 1st-century versified Latinizations. Collections titled Romulus inspired a flurry of medieval authors to newly translate (sometimes into local vernaculars), versify and rewrite fables. Among them, Adémar de Chabannes (11th century), Alexander Neckam (12th century, Novus Aesopus and shorter Novus Avianus ), Gualterus Anglicus (12th century) and Marie de France (12th-13th century) wrote fables adapted from models generally understood to be Aesop, Avianus or

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2860-607: The works of Shakespeare , Dante 's Inferno , the Parsifal saga, Goethe 's Faust , and the American transcendentalists . The middle school curriculum examines the local history, building from studies of traditional life in the immediate environment in fourth grade up through successively larger areas (the locality, country, continent). The high school history curriculum includes courses on early civilizations, medieval culture, and modern history, as well as specialized courses in

2915-409: The year. In a Waldorf elementary school, the curriculum is presented through extended " main lessons " which focus on one subject in depth. This approach differs from other instructional approaches that allot equal time to every subject . In a Waldorf elementary school, the approximately two-hour-long main lesson "ties one topic to as many disciplines as possible". The main lesson is not taught from

2970-461: Was "far above average" in the data set used. A 2007 German study found that an above-average number of Waldorf students become teachers, doctors, engineers, scholars of the humanities, and scientists. A 2003 evaluation by education scholars David Jelinek and Li-Ling Sun compared a group of American Waldorf school students to American public school students on three different test variables. Two tests measured verbal and non-verbal logical reasoning and

3025-470: Was translated by Harold Courlander and Albert Kofi Prempeh and tells the story of a god-like creature Anansi who wishes to own all stories in the world. The character Anansi is often depicted as a spider and is known for its cunning nature to obtain what it wants, typically seen outwitting other animal characters. Joel Chandler Harris wrote African-American fables in the Southern context of slavery under

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