The importance of warmth

As a pediatrician, I actually was taught that you could tell if children were warm enough by touching their skin. If they felt warm then they were wearing enough clothes, and if they felt cool or their skin was mottled (bluish-pink), then they needed more clothes. It was simple. I was also a parent that had her 2 year-old child playing outside in the rain wearing only a diaper. I actually thought he was okay because his skin felt warm!

Warmth is probably one of the greatest gifts we can give our children. Not only the warmth of our love but also keeping their physical body warm. Children are developing their bodies especially during the first 7 years of their lives. An infant and a young child will always feel warm unless they are on the verge of hypothermia because they have an accelerated metabolic rate. If we don't provide them with the layers of cotton, silk, and wool to insulate their bodies, then they must use some of their potential "growth" energy to heat their bodies. This same energy would be better utilized in further developing their brain, heart, liver, lungs etc. In addition, being cold decreases immunity. We are all more susceptible to the germs and viruses that are always around us when we are wet and cold. When our body has to expend extra energy to keep warm then less energy is available to "fight" off infections.

So the question becomes, how do we get our children to wear jackets? One can develop the habit of always having children put on a hat and coat when they go outside during cool weather. One can also try telling children that they will actually run faster and have much more energy to play if they wear a coat. If they don't wear a coat then their body has to expend a lot of energy just warming them up, and they will have less energy to build muscles and less energy to play.

Finally, the type of clothing our children wear also makes a big difference. Polyester pajamas don't breathe and children will often wake up sweating. Even polyester jackets will not insulate a child from the cold as well as layers of cotton, silk, or wool. When children sweat while wearing polyester that sweat is trapped against their body and they eventually become chilled.

So why do children rarely complain that they are cold? Children often are not connected with their body before the age of 7 to even acknowledge or communicate that they are cold. They live in the moment and are so excited and stimulated by all that they see that they don't have the capacity to sense the coldness of their body. This is why children often will play in a swimming pool or ocean until they are literally "blue" denying that they are cold or that they need to come out of the water. So as parents, we have to help our children develop their sense of warmth. By helping them develop this sense of warmth, we are actually strengthening their immunity and laying the foundation for a healthy body and healthy organs in their adult life.

Allergies, Autism & the Leaky Gut Syndrome

THE LEAKY GUT SYNDROME: Allergies, Autoimmune Diseases, and Autistic Spectrum Disorders

I have learned a great deal from the Naturopathic and Osteopathic students who have visited my clinic. They have taught me most of what I know about the Leaky Gut Syndrome. In this syndrome, the lining of the colon and small intestine becomes inflamed and allows partially digested proteins to be absorbed into the body. The immune system reacts to these foreign proteins triggering allergy symptoms, autoimmune diseases, speech delays, and behavioral abnormalities. There are several good books on the topic of the Leaky Gut Syndrome such as Renew Your Life: Improved Digestion and Detoxification written by Brenda Watson, N.D., Children With Starving Brains by Jaquelyn McCandless, M.D, The Body Ecology Diet: Recovering Your Health and Rebuilding Your Immunity by Donna Gates and Linda Schatz, and Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Natasha Campbell-McBride, M.D.

There are many things about the American diet and Western medical practices which weaken the immune system and result in the Leaky Gut Syndrome. To begin with, exposure to antibiotics, especially in the first two years of life, destroys good intestinal bacteria and thereby promotes the overgrowth of yeast in both the large and small intestines. Yeast in the intestinal tract acts as a parasite and in essence steals many vitamins and minerals before they can be absorbed through the intestinal wall.

In addition, the American diet with its overabundance of and reliance on simple carbohydrates such as candy, breads, and pastas, depletes the body of zinc, magnesium, chromium, and several B vitamins. These simple carbohydrates rapidly convert to sugar and trigger the pancreas to secrete too much insulin. Because insulin requires trace minerals and B vitamins as co-factors in sugar metabolism, the more the body consumes sugar, the more the body's B vitamins and trace minerals are depleted. The immune system as well as the metabolic system and brain can not function well when zinc and B vitamins are deficient.

This typical American diet, often consisting of fast foods such as hamburgers, french fries, sodas, and milkshakes, also lacks fiber and enzymes. Plant enzymes, which naturally occur in raw fruits and vegetables, help break down fats, proteins, and carbohydrates in the food we eat and allow this food to be more readily absorbed in the small intestine. Without a daily diet of raw vegetables and fruit, the body is stressed and overburdened by having to produce these enzymes in the pancreas. The pancreas now is overworked. In addition to secreting insulin for glucose metabolism, it must also secrete digestive enzymes to break down fats, proteins, and carbohydrates in the small intestine. As a result, metabolism becomes sluggish. Now, partially digested proteins and undigested fats and carbohydrates end up in the large intestine, where they ferment and create abdominal discomfort and odorous gas.

Because of a lack of fiber in the diet and the failure to drink enough water between meals, constipation occurs. The increased pressure it takes to push stool out of the colon often causes fecal material to travel backwards up into the small intestine by forcing the valve between the small and large intestine to open. Now yeast, parasites, and unhealthy bacteria set up residence in the small intestine as well and directly block the absorption of minerals, vitamins, amino acids (proteins), and fats. In addition, we often do not eat foods that would provide a consistent source of good intestinal bacteria, such as fermented vegetables and quality unsweetened yogurts.

With the good bacteria gone, yeast overgrows and burrows into the intestinal wall, causing inflammation. Now, instead of partially digested proteins being excreted in the stool, these proteins get reabsorbed back into the lymphatic and blood streams through this leaky intestinal wall. Partially digested proteins, including pollens that are swallowed, act like foreign proteins and trigger the bodyÕs immune response (IgG antibodies) resulting in chronic allergies, asthma, eczema, and autoimmune diseases. Once children or adults have developed a leaky intestinal lining, their bodies will react to numerous proteins in food and the environment.

Some of the most difficult proteins to digest include casein from milk products and gluten from wheat, barley, and oats. Breakdown products from gluten are believed to cross the blood brain barrier and cross react with receptor sites for speech, causing language delay and the type of speech patterns noted in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. The milk protein, casein, if reabsorbed back into the body is thought to trigger eczema and create allergy-related conditions of sinusitis and serous otitis.

What can be done to heal the body and strengthen the immune system? Here is what I have learned so far:

1) To restore normal intestinal bacteria:

a) Take a good probiotic (usually the best are in powder form and refrigerated). A good probiotic contains resident strains of intestinal bacteria such as Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacerium bifidum, and Bifidobacterium longum (infants need Bifodobacterium infantis). Probiotics should be taken for 4 months after any antibiotic use. In my practice, I recommend PB 8 for older children and adults. Children take 1 capsule at bedtime while adults take 2 capsules at bedtime for four months. The capsules can be placed in applesauce so they are easier to swallow. For infants, I recommend Life Start by Natrens.

b) Consume fermented foods and drinks containing good intestinal bacteria (e.g. fermented cabbage and lactic acid-fermented beverages). Look in the book Nourishing Traditions written by Sally Fallon, for recipes. When looking for fermented vegetables at health food stores, check to see that vinegar is not listed among the ingredients.

c) Make your own yogurt and kefir. I make yogurt or kefir by adding 1/2 cup of yogurt starter (can use1/2 cup of Strauss organic whole milk yogurt) or 1/2 cup of a live kefir culture (check the website for sources of DomÕs kefir) to 16 oz raw organic whole milk from a certified dairy. Now pour the mixture into pint-sized jars and cover with a paper towel or cheese cloth. I place the jars with the kefir mixture on my counter for 24 hours and then refrigerate. You now have kefir. I heat the yogurt mixture gently to room temperature and then place jar(s) of the yogurt mixture into a cooler that contains another jar full of boiling hot water, which serves as the heat source. Close the cooler and recheck after 6 to 8 hours. You now have yogurt.

d) Eat plenty of organic raw nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables. They serve as a source of fiber for the good intestinal bacteria which canÕt survive without them. Fiber also bulks up the stool and stimulates the bowel to contract which ensures regularity. Flax seeds are a great source of fiber, both soluble and insoluble. It is recommended that 14 grams of fiber (an apple contains about 4 grams of fiber) be consumed for every 1000 calories of food eaten each day. Another great source of fiber is to juice 5 large carrots, 5 stalks of celery, 1 big green cucumber, 1-2 red beets, and 1-2 red apples in a juicer. Now mix some of the juice with the pulp and mix in a blender. This smoothie can be eaten with a spoon and is loaded with fiber .

e) Drastically reduce sugar in your diet and avoid concentrated fruit juices, white bread, candy, and sodas. Sodas, besides containing lots of sugar, contain phosphoric acid which leaches calcium from the bones and contributes to the development of osteoporosis and loss of cartilage.

f) Increase alkaline-forming foods such as organic fruits, vegetables, herbs, and almonds. Make these foods 80% of your daily diet.

g) Drink an herbal tea which is highly alkaline or tea made from fresh lemon juice. These teas help to discourage yeast growth . In my practice I also recommend drinking Liver Tea from Uriel Pharmacy and/or taking Amara Drops from Weleda Pharmacy which both contain bitter herbs like dandelion and yarrow. Both support digestion and liver function. Chinese medicine also recommends teas made from bitter tasting herbs. Bitter herbs, in general, also stimulate bile secretion which helps with fat absorption in the small intestine and serves as a way for the liver to excrete toxins from the body.

h) Consume plenty of fresh garlic (see my detox mineral soup recipe) since garlic discourages growth of yeast. There also are anti-yeast formulations of herbs that come in capsules. These capsules often contain grapefruit seed extract, garlic, uva ursi, neem leaf, olive leaf, oregano leaf, berberine, and calcium undecylenate from the castor bean. These capsules are often taken orally before breakfast and before bedtime for a period of 15 to 30 days. Another approach is to take natural plant enzymes for three weeks at bedtime, on an empty stomach. These enzymes will help the body break down the cell wall of yeast and destroy parasites in the intestine.

i) Make organic chicken bone broth by putting a whole organic chicken in a large stainless steel soup pot filled with good quality water and 1 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar. Remove the chicken after 8 to 12 hours and consume but continue simmering the bones and the broth for another 12 to 16 hours. Now strain the broth of bones and put in the refrigerator. Remove the soft chicken fat that forms a thin layer on the top of the broth. Now the broth is ready to heat and serve in other soup recipes or on rice. This bone broth helps to heal the intestinal lining as well as providing a lot of minerals. Dr. Campbell-McBride recommends consuming 1/4 to 1/2 cup of bone broth before every meal. See Nourishing Traditions Cookbook by Sally Fallon, and Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Natasha Campbell-McBride for recipes.

2) To reduce casein and gluten protein sensitivies:

a) First, stop all milk products for two weeks then add back milk products on day 15 and see if congestion increases, eczema worsens, or snoring increases. Naturopathic physicians have taught me that it takes at least two months to clear the casein protein from the bloodstream and the lymphatics, but symptoms will worsen when milk products are re-introduced on day 15. Repeat this same process with all products that contain gluten (e.g., wheat, oats, barley, and rye). Children and adults may need to stay off casein and gluten products for the next four to six months while the intestinal wall heals and the beneficial intestinal bacteria are restored. A great website to help with the casein/gluten-free diet is www.Tacanow.org. Be careful of store bought Ògluten freeÓ products that may contain other ingredients that are hard on the intestinal lining. When re-introducing milk products, homemade yogurt or kefir made from raw organic milk is the easiest to digest.

Sleep Article I

THE IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP

Susan R. Johnson MD, FAAP, 2/3/2000

I still struggle getting my almost 7 year old son asleep by 8:00. It seems there is a magic window. If we eat by 5:00 and I start slowing down his activities by 6:oo then there is a good chance that he will fall to sleep soon after reading stories at 7:30. If I don't have dinner ready until 6:00 or 7:00 and slow down doesn't begin until 8:00 or 8:30 then my son seems to get a second wind that keeps him awake and active til 10:00 or 10:30 at night. The next day is difficult for him. It is hard for him to get up, eat breakfast, and get to school on time. He is tired and more irritable the entire day. What is happening?

If you go to see an anthroposophical physician with these complaints, then chances are your child will end up with a remedy for the liver. Often Hepatodoron (made from the leaves of the vine, Vitus vinifera, and the wild strawberry, Fragaria vesca) is given. It seems that the liver is involved in our ability to have a good nights sleep. It regulates our energy level for the next day and relates to our overall feelings of contentment or depression. The liver follows the cycle of the sun. Around 6:00 in the evening it wants to go to sleep and starts to store up the sugars (glycogen) to be used for the next day. It doesn't want to process any big meals (especially ones high in protein or fat after 3 pm).

When our children (and us) stay up late at night we affect the liver's metabolism. It can no longer simply store sugar. Our body, by being awake and active, needs sugar in the blood stream and so we force the liver to reverse its process and breakdown glycogen to provide this sugar. We get a second wind, a burst of sugar in our blood stream, and yet we are really depleting our energy for the next day. Our liver can't store up the glycogen it needs for the next day and so the next day we have a liver that is depleted of glycogen. Our body THEN requires us to release stress hormones from our adrenal glands to keep us functioning. These hormones act to provide more sugar in the blood, but they also accelerate our heart rate, increase our blood pressure, and suppress our immunity (we get colds more easily). You can tell when stress hormones are acting since one also develops cold hands and cold feet during the day from the vasoconstriction of the blood vessels to the hands and feet.

The combination of stress hormones and too little glycogen in the liver makes us develop a craving for sugar. When we eat something really sweet (like candy or cookies), especially on an empty stomach, the excess load of sugar overstimulates our pancreas to produce too much of another hormone, insulin. Too much insulin causes our cells to take up or absorb too much sugar so that there isn't much sugar left in our blood. We become hypoglycemic with a low blood sugar. We feel tired, irritable and lightheaded and, for children, their body movements become more impulsive and overactive (less purposefull). Being hypoglycemic makes us crave sugar again and the whole process repeats itself throughout the entire day.

Some children and adults are more sensitive to these changes than others. Their pancreas may release more insulin in response to sugar. Some children and adults release more stress hormones in response to sleep deprivation, but this physiologic response occurs in all of us. For children that are already very active and have difficulties paying attention in school, going to bed early and cutting down on sugar really can help the child and family function better.

They say that any sleep you get before midnight is restorative and counts for double, and therefore it is far better to go to bed early (7:00 to 8:00 for a young school-age child and 9:00 to 10:00 for an adult) and wake up early to get your work done. Maybe this is the truth in that saying by Benjamin Franklin: Early to bed, early to rise, makes (one) healthy, wealthy, and wise.

The Role of Handwork in the Waldorf Curriculum

      In the Middle Ages, a third craft arose to take its place alongside weaving and braiding.  Although the origins of knitting are obscure, old woodcuts and medieval illuminations place its ascendance in Europe at about the same time that the game of chess and the mathematical approach of algebra became known to Westerners.  Indeed, among the earliest knitted textiles discovered in Europe are two Islamic-inspired knitted cushions, whose patterns one of whose patterns suggests castles on a chessboard.¹  It is significant that the most intellectual of games and the most cognitive approach to numerical problems accompanied the development or knitting.  It was as though a new degree of adeptness in the hand had to go side by side with newly-discovered capacities in the head. 

      Recent neurological research tends to confirm that mobility and dexterity in the fine motor muscles, especially in the hand, may stimulate cellular development in the brain, and so strengthen the physical foundation of thinking.  The work done over the past seventy-five years in hundreds of Waldorf schools worldwide, in which first graders learn to knit before they learn to write or manipulate numbers, has also proven successful in this regard.  The learning disabilities specialist Jean A. Ayres states that “Praxis, or the ability to program a motor act, shows a close relation to reading skills, even though reading would appear to be only distantly related to goal-directed movement of the body.”  Citing the research of Strauss and Werner, she notes that “Children with finger agnosia [awkwardness and lack of control] made more errors on a test of arithmetical ability than did children without finger agnosia.”² 

      Waldorf schools were, of course, not the first schools to bring knitting to children, but they were unique in the way in which knitting was linked to children’s developmental stages, and integrated with the rest of the curriculum.  The heyday of knitting in schools had actually occurred somewhat before the first Waldorf school was founded, when soldiers suffering in the harsh trenches of World War I needed scarves and gloves and clothing that was warm and protective.  Anne McDonald shares the first person experiences of an anxious English schoolgirl: 

Knitting’s the best thing to steady your nerves. The boys in our room that used to sit and fumble their ink-wells, or tap their pencils, or tinker with their rulers, or maybe flip bits of art-gum at you when somebody was reciting, are so busy with their knitting that they never fidget or behave. And the girls — my, how their knitting counts up! Pauline and Esther each knit a sweater a week and keep up with their lessons as well as ever while Guy’s the champion boy-knitter of the school. He has finished three sweater and four pairs of wristlets, and is knitting a helmet now. Helmets are hard, too, but we’ve got half a dozen boys well started on them.³ 

For the often overstimulated, nervous or hyperactive children at the century’s end, the rhythmical activity of knitting can provide a way for them to be soothed, aware of and engaged with their social peers and productive at the same time. Although American Waldorf students are not called upon to support military efforts with their handwork, they, too, can engage their will in supporting something grand in scale.  A representative project of this nature was the “Pac-Coat,” a garment assembled by eighth graders in the Green Meadow Waldorf School under the enthusiastic supervision of their teacher, Christa Montano.  Sewn by hand and machine by groups of three students (who volunteered for the project, and thus gave up the time in which they would have sewn articles of clothing for themselves), pac-coats were large garments meant to be donated to New York’s homeless population.  They were large and warm, and so designed that they could be used as sleeping bags at night, or rolled up into a backpack in the warmer months.  The coats took many weeks of work to complete, and the students who made them were invited to present them to a Manhattan homeless center, where they experienced first-hand the plight of New York’s disenfranchised population. 

      What occurs when a child sets about to knit?  Needles are held in both hands, with each hand assigned its respective activity.  Laterality is immediately established, as well as the eye’s control over the hand.  From the outset, the child is asserting a degree of control over his will.  The right needle must enter a rather tightly-wound loop of yarn on the left needle, weave it through and pull it away, in the process tying a knot.  Only a steady, controlled hand can accomplish such a feat, so the power of concentration is awakened — indeed, there is no other activity performed by seven or eight year-olds that can evoke such a degree of attentiveness as knitting.  This training in concentration helps, to use a phrase of the teacher Dennis Klocek, to “teach the will to think.”  It will go far in supporting the child’s problem-solving capacities in later years.  Children who not have the opportunity to “follow the line” of yarn through its interwoven knitted knots may have difficulties when they are asked in later years to follow a line of thought.  As Jane Healy notes:   

For example, a well-known psychology teacher at a major university in Florida said, “It’s a source of amazement to me how many students can’t link ideas together; they can’t follow one idea logically with another...”⁴ 

      To knit properly, the child must count the number of stitches and the number of rows.  By using different colors and different row lengths (as in the pattern of an four-legged animal) the teacher encourages not only attentiveness to numbers, but also flexibility in thinking.  As children learn more arithmetic, teachers can devise patterns that call for two rows of blue followed by four rows of yellow followed by six rows of blue, etc.  In this way numerical skills are reinforced in a challenging, yet enjoyable manner.  Nor should we underestimate the self-esteem and joy that arises in the child as the result of a skill that has been learned. 

      Years before the first Waldorf school was founded, Rudolf Steiner and some of his associates had provided educational courses for the workers of the Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Factory in Stuttgart.  One of the aims of the courses was to provide each worker with a sense of how the work he did on the assembly line fit into the “big picture” of the whole factory, how that factory fit into the bigger picture of the conveyance of cigarettes from place to place, and how that movement of goods fit into the currents of international commerce.  Waldorf schools arose so that the factory workers’ children could experience the same feeling of being part of a process, which is in turn one of a multiplicity of processes that “make the world go round.”  When describing some of the qualities that were essential in a Waldorf school, Steiner stressed an active interest in working with one’s hands:  

      What matters is that [the Waldorf school’s] teaching should not become mere theoretical knowledge, or a world outlook based on certain ideas, but it should become a way of life, involving the entire human being.

         Waldorf Education is meant to be pragmatic. . .  

       Whoever has to deal with theoretical work ought to stand in practical life even more firmly than people who happen to be tailors, cobblers or engineers.  In my opinion, any passing on of theoretical knowledge is acceptable only if the person concerned is also well versed in all practical matters of life, for otherwise his ideas will remain alienated from life...⁵ 

      Thus it is wonderful if a particular Waldorf school’s setting makes it possible for the children to touch the sheep before they ever touch their yarn.  The child who understands that the sheep gives up its own coat so that we can be clothed and adorned has already made a step towards becoming an “educated consumer.”  Meeting the sheep also gives a child some sense of how profoundly “natural materials” are transformed as they pass through human hands.  Children are amazed that the rough, oily, and tangled mass borne by the sheep, filled with briers and caked with mud and manure, will one day be the soft, colorful and uniform yarn with which they knit. It is a memorable experience for a child to witness the man shearing as he exerts his will, wrestling with a recalcitrant ewe even as he carefully spares her surprisingly tender skin from nicks and cuts.   Without preaching an ecological sermon, the one who shears reveals that nothing comes to us from nature without great effort and care. 

      Over the course of the following days, the children may get to wash and card the wool — “So that’s how it gets so clean!” — and watch it being spun into yarn.  A walk through the woods and fields with their teacher to collect barks, onion skins, flowers, etc. to use in a variety of dyes may be followed by participation in at least one of the steps in the dyeing process.  At long last, the children receive the wooden dowels which they carefully sand until they are smooth and pointed: their first knitting needles.  Now they are ready to learn the steps of “casting on,” and finally knitting itself. 

      An article in praise of knitting by Susanna Rodell in The New York Times Magazine⁶ elicited a number of responses from readers. Two letters in particular  point to the effect that handwork has at once upon the will and the life of habit: 

My mother has forgotten a lot of things, but not how to knit. She and my sister and I knit four-inch squares and sew them together to make crib blankets. This project gives Mother purpose, comforts my sister and me during our nursing-home visits, provides an activity we all can share and helps a woman born in 1903 and her middle-aged daughter bless with their handwork babies who will live most of their lives in the 21^st century... 

Knitting has got me through good times and bad. It has helped me learn the lessons of “doing it right,” “correcting your mistakes,” and patience. My Christmas gift to the young people in my extended family this year was needles, yarn and a knitting lesson...⁷ 

      After they have worked with wool in such a “hands-on” manner for two or three years, the children’s perspectives are widened as they study how wool has been derived and utilized throughout the world and in the course of history.  The child’s “will-first” experience has lain a healthy foundation for this second, more classroom-oriented approach.  If it is possible for children to have samples of different kinds of wool with which they may knit — or simply touch — they can compare such qualities as softness, weight, fiber strength and warmth.  They can experience how different is the “feel” of lamb’s wool and sheep’s wool, and learn why the wool of some animals is garnered by shearing, while the wool of the angora rabbit or the Alaskan musk ox — the most precious wool in the world — is gently pulled off the animals’ coats in the spring. 

      Once the child’s sense for wool’s varied qualities in relation to geographical space is established, she is ready to learn about wool’s role in history, i.e., its relation to time.  When was wool, rather than sheepskin, first utilized for clothing?  Why did the Roman army issue woolen capes only to officers?  How did the wool trade bolster the reign of Elizabeth I of England, and thus alter the power structure of sixteenth-century Europe?  As the children mature, the yarn with which they have worked — the wool that they first encountered through their will — becomes the foundation of ever-wider inquiries into history, geography and economics.   

      The Waldorf teacher proceeds in a similar fashion with cotton and silk.  The study of cotton takes the class to southern climes and to agrarian cultures such as Egypt, well-provided with expansive territory and readily-available labor, as opposed to “wool-based” cultures such as Greece, which evolved in rocky, less populous terrain.  Two of the most important developments in the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War, had a great deal to do with the way in which wool and cotton were produced and consumed. Nor are these studies merely academic exercises.  By eighth grade, students are able to use patterns and work with sewing machines: having knit and sewn by hand all those years, they can sense what a revolution was wrought when machinery accelerated humanity’s mastery over fabric. 

      With the study of silk, the class’s attention is drawn to the legendary discovery of the silk worm by a Chinese empress concerned about their attack on her mulberry trees.  The role of the Chinese royalty in the development of silk, and the secrecy with which its origins were guarded from the rest of the world, is a tale as exciting and fantastic as the fairy tales heard by the children in first grade.  In zoology and/or botany classes, students learn of the growth pattern of the silk worm as it moves through on “instar” stage after another, ceaselessly eating and ceaselessly growing.  At this point in its life the worm is dependent on the human beings who tend it; like parents of a newborn baby, they must get up frequently throughout the night to “nurse” the worms and “change” them from soiled screens to clean ones. 

      In eighth grade, Waldorf students learn about the Industrial Revolution and the powerful effect that the invention of such machines as the “Spinning Jenny” had on English society in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  Even as they are studying this profound historical transformation, these eighth graders, who have been knitting and sewing by hand for seven years, are now learning how to operate sewing machines in their Handwork classes.  Where they once created an entire project from one skein of yarn, now they learn--in a more modern fashion--to “piece together” their shirts and jackets using commercial patterns.  Just as the students once “recapitulated” the history of the alphabet from story to letter, now they may re-experience the transition from a manual to a machine-based culture. 

      In an age when children are too often encouraged to become passive consumers who, (as Oscar Wilde once said about a cynic), “know the price of everything and the value of nothing,” learning to knit and engaging in other areas of handwork can be a powerful way of bringing meaning into the child’s life.  For the child who has gone through such a set of experiences, an item of clothing will not be merely a status symbol or a disposable mark of fashion; it will be a piece of embodied will activity, meant to be valued and cared for.   

      As the twentieth century drew to an end, swollen with pride at its technological progress, an interesting counter-current was noted in the trendy “Styles” section of the Sunday New York Times: 

      When the Craft Yarn Council of America sponsored a “Knit Out” in Union Square in October, 7,000 people showed up. Charlotte Quiggle, the former program chairwoman of the Big Apple Knitters Guild, who helped put on the event, said the instructors in the teaching area literally had to push people back. “I don’t want to say knitting is in vogue,” she said, “but it’s sort of the ‘it’ craft right now.”. . . .

      “I think people are tired of looking like they’re cloned,” said Ms. Malandrino, who contracts 50 knitters here and in Europe to make her designs. Buying a unique hand-knit sweater is an act of defiance against companies like the Gape and Banana Republic, who some feel have essentially reduced the fashion of the masses to seasonal uniforms. . . .

      The last time knitting enjoyed a boom was hearly 20 years ago, when earthy bohemian clothing was in style the first time around. Before that, knitting was just another household skill, like cooking and sewing. Not all women knitted, but most knew how. In the 1990’s, it has become a means of balancing our hectic lives.⁸ 

      And there are other benefits.  The author Raven Metzner, who graduated from a Waldorf school, writes: 

A simple thing — I was at my girlfriend’s house and a button came off my shirt and I sewed it back on. She flipped out. “You can sew?” and I said, “I can sew, I can knit, I can do woodworking.” Not that those accomplishments are so wonderful, but they give you the confidence that you can take on anything.⁹ 

      It seems fitting to conclude these thoughts with a quote from Goethe’s Faust, a work often studied by twelfth graders in the Waldorf high school.  The words are those of Mephistopheles, as he instructs a naive student in the ways of logic and pedantry: 

...My friend, I shall be pedagogic,

And say you ought to start with Logic...

...Days will be spent to let you know

That what you once did at one blow,

Like eating and drinking so easy and free,

Can only be done with One, Two, Three.

Yet the web of thought has no such creases

And is more like a weaver’s masterpieces:

One step, a thousand threads arise,

Hither and thither shoots each shuttle,

The threads flow on, unseen and subtle,

Each blow effects a thousand ties.

The philosopher comes with analysis

And proves it had to be like this:

The first was so, the second so,

And hence the third and fourth was so,

And were not the first and second here,

Then the third and fourth could never appear.

That is what all the students believe,

But they have never learned to weave.¹⁰

Toronto Star Article:

Schools plan curriculum overhaul

Louise Brown

Ontario's government is conducting a sweeping review of curriculum from Grades 1 to 8 to fix what educators charge is an overcrowded jumble of disconnected facts that fail to prepare the province's 1.4 million students for the future.

Based on tough input gathered this fall from teachers and school boards, Queen's Park says it will start clearing the clutter by the fall of 2011 with leaner guidelines, fewer checklists of facts and more time for deeper learning.

It is the first overhaul designed to weed out some of the staggering 3,400 "expectations" built into the new curriculum designed 10 years ago when Grade 13 was abolished.

A special advisory group is expected to propose a new blueprint by February, based on such input as a tough-talking missive from the Toronto District School Board that called the curriculum "a series of overly robust subject-based documents which are disconnected, overwhelming and full of content reflective of 20th century knowledge. "The curriculum does not engage students within their own realities, nor does it integrate the skills society hopes to see in a 21st-century learner," said the recent submission by a group of principals, teachers, superintendents and trustees.

Karen Grose, the board's system superintendent, said it no longer makes sense to try to cram piles of facts into young minds.

"Our kids live in a world where they are immersed in content through things like Twitter and Google, so we don't want them memorizing facts they can access easily, but we want them to think about how to apply that knowledge, and how it affects how they live as citizens and workers," said Grose.

"We're not saying we don't want kids to study the War of 1812, but let's lift that subject to the `big idea' of war in the current global context," she said.

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said the review was sparked by years of complaints she has heard that the curriculum is overcrowded with material teachers scramble to cover.

"School shouldn't be just about `covering' content, but about giving students the time to practice what they've learned and gaining a deeper understanding," said Wynne.

"The quality of curriculum isn't tied to the number of `expectations' you cover," Wynne said. "It's about making sure kids have time to get a handle on the skills we know they need."

Thinning out the curriculum does not mean dumping it down, said Toronto trustee Cathy Dandy, one of the authors of the TDSB's submission.

By spending less time teaching the small details of individual wars, said Dandy, it frees up more time to "weave it into a larger discussion of war and peace and conflict and even bullying.

"We're not at all recommending we get rid of rigorous learning – but we want time to make sense of the volume of knowledge that is out there."

Many teachers already are doing their own streamlining, Grose said.

"It's not all these tiny little pieces," said Grose, "but more about the big idea.

Supporting the Development of Movement in Children Under Three

Renate Long-Breipohl

Two streams are especially important in early childhood, the one which leads to the development of imagination and thinking, and the other stream which is related to the development of movement and will; the stream of connecting with the past, the pre-birth experiences, and the stream into the future, moving forward into earthly life. In working with movement, especially with older children, there is a wonderful merging of both aspects: imagination and will.

The following considerations relate to the steps that children need to have completed in order to happily and confidently participate in guided movement programs such as the morning circle.

In the process of working with issues of movement, the question of what is needed for a healthy development of movement has condensed for me into one single main aspect: uprightness. Rudolf Steiner has placed great emphasis on uprightness as the archetypal human gesture, and my own work with children has confirmed this for me.

In the last decade important publications have appeared related to the theme of movement and young children. A range of different support programs is offered around the world for prevention and treatment of delays in the development of movement. Some of them are used in Steiner early childhood programs in Australia. I especially would like to mention the work of Sally Goddard Blythe and the Institute for Neurophysiologic Psychology (INPP) and her discovery of the connection between “retained reflexes” and learning difficulties of children. This research has gained international recognition and has also influenced the “Extra Lesson” work in Australia. I would like to add to this some more recent research into the development of movement, which has become available in Germany in 2005 and has lead to a different approach in movement therapy.

Uprightness: The spiritual picture

Two spiritual processes are at work behind the development of movement in the first three years of life:

• the process of spiritual growth forces working from the head downward in the formation and fine tuning of the skeletal-muscular system and the inner organs, and

• the process of learning to walk, speak and think in which the I works together with the will forces from below upwards.

The spiritual origin of movement is the I, who works in the forces behind movement, as described by Rudolf Steiner in his lectures to teachers (Steiner, Study of Man, Lecture 12). The intention to move which originates in the “I” may become conscious in the human being or remain totally unconscious as is the case when young children learn to stand upright and begin to take their first steps.

The working together of the two streams, the will stream from below and the formative forces from the head down, brings about three important milestones in child development.

First milestone: the acquisition of uprightness

As the child randomly moves arms and legs and at the same time perceives her movement with her senses, the child becomes more and more conscious of her body and able to direct movement. This process moves through the body from the head downward. As the child tirelessly attempts to first bring the head out of the horizontal plane into the vertical position, then the torso and then the whole body, she works with her will and ego forces, which rise up from the lower part of the body.

Second milestone: the change of teeth in the seventh year

Here Steiner describes the co-working of both streams in the form of a “battle” through which a new stage of development is achieved. The battle happens between what he calls the “musical” forces rising from the body and the formative growth forces descending from the head, and serves the process of pushing out the second teeth. The musical forces

then recede back into the body. The etheric head forces are freed, which enables the child to achieve new, more advanced abilities in imagination and thinking.

Third milestone: puberty

Musical forces from below rise up again and meet with formative forces coming from the head in a kind of big clash in the region of the larynx. In this process the changes of puberty occur, and again there is a significant step in the development of thinking (see Steiner, Balance in Teaching; Klocek, Chapter 3). Steiner was able to spiritually perceive that growth and development arise out of the working of two opposite streams or forces. In other developmental pictures we are directed only to one stream, that from the head down (the cranio-caudal stream), to the process in which the formative forces take hold of the entire body and work on refining the skeletal-muscular system and the inner organs. Steiner also was the first to see the unique significance of human uprightness in the physical and spiritual development of the human being and in the process of spiritual collective evolution.

Regarding the development of the individual human being, it takes two and a half years to develop uprightness fully, not only one year. It takes all that time for the I together with the spiritual hierarchies to fine tune the skeletal/muscular system, the speech organs and the human brain as physical foundation for the development of the human soul forces of willing, feeling and thinking.

Standing upright at around twelve to eighteen months is only the first step. The entire process is not completed until the hands have reached a certain independence from the lower body and are able to act in accordance with sense perception for exploring the world, and the head is able to be held in balance and becomes independent of the movement of the limbs so that the child can experience thoughts. Uprightness and balance belong together; it is the greatest achievement of the child, if he is able to stand still. Dr. Michaela Glöckler once summarized this milestone with the following words: What are we wishing for in terms of movement achievement by the age of three? The answer: that the child stands with full uprightness in the world, expressing through his posture and gesture: “This I am” (Glöckler, 2002). Up to this time, according to Steiner, the child is a “hermit” and not yet open to other human beings’ will and intentions.

At the age of two-and-a-half the spiritual beings and the higher I start to withdraw after having established the child’s orientation in space, his ability to speak and to think. At the same time the child becomes able to separate his impressions of the outer world from his perception of self. In consequence the child reaches a more detached way of perceiving what is around him. This results in more acute observations as to what adults are doing and in a new interest in experiences that adults are offering.

Now the opportunity arises for adults to take on the role of “helpers” in guiding the child further into life activities. This is the time when a more formal movement program or circle time can be introduced.

Uprightness: The physiological picture and therapeutic approaches

According to the model of cranio-caudal development, the child grows “from the head down.” The increasing differentiation of the structure of the brain enables the child to develop new movement patterns and skills. Involuntary or uncontrolled movement gradually becomes directional. Yet often this does not happen properly. Research into the sequence of developmental movement patterns has been conducted with the aim of identifying the causes for the increasing number of children with delayed or incomplete movement development. These developmental irregularities are linked back to problems with the hierarchical sequence of processes in the brain and to an inability to integrate sensory and motor activity.

Sally Goddard’s research into the phenomenon of “retained reflexes” and her therapeutic approach are based on the hypothesis that all children go through the same sequential pattern of “primitive reflexes.” While these reflexes have an important role at a certain point of development, they do become a hindrance for further development if they are retained beyond their time. Goddard designed a developmental movement program with the aim of overcoming these retained reflexes. In this movement program the sequence of reflexes is

repeated in the order in which they are normally occurring and in which they are meant to disappear under normal circumstances. These so-called “floor exercises” are used in Extra Lesson work and to some extent in the kindergarten work as well.*

Through her work with children Goddard has made some interesting discoveries about the vital role of the sense of balance and the vestibular system in the prevention and therapy of learning difficulties. As balance is situated in the lowest parts of the brain, it is fundamental for the development of free deliberate movement. Therefore in her therapeutic program Goddard emphasizes the stimulation of the vestibular system. She was able to produce evidence that musical therapeutic programs clearly benefit children with movement disturbances and resulting learning difficulties (Goddard Blythe, The Well Balanced Child).

In 2004 a former co-worker of Goddard, Wibke Bein-Wierzbinski, published a dissertation proving the therapeutic success of a movement program which does not repeat the sequence of primary reflexes, but is based on specific movements which she claims play a key role in movement development. She questions programs based on the theory of repeating all stages of primitive reflexes and suggests that a child may have overcome the primitive reflexes initially, but then at a later time and possibly under stress may have returned to primitive reflex patterns. She suggests that all primitive reflexes may be present in an inactive state within the human being and that they can “flare up” under certain circumstances.

Bein-Wierzbinski proposes that the repetition of the sequence of primitive reflexes should be avoided in therapeutic programs, and that only certain key developmental movements, leading towards uprightness, should be practiced and reinforced in a developmental therapy. She found that there is a critical age at around four to six months for these key movements. If they are mastered correctly, they will set the child on a track of subsequent normal development. Bein-Wierzbinski suggests that these particular movements should be practiced and strengthened through therapy.

They are described as follows:

• Firstly a full stretch as occurring naturally between four to six months of age, with the back straight, legs straight, arms straight, head up. The head tilt backwards and the pulled up legs as in the Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex should be avoided.

• Secondly a movement with the opposite quality to the full body stretch: bringing the foot to the mouth with the help of the hands. The entire body is curved.

Both movements together form something like an expansion—contraction movement sequence. Bein-Wierzbinski was able to show that if these two movements are performed correctly and frequently, then the process of becoming upright proceeds normally.

In her therapeutic program she focuses on the spine as the area of development of uprightness. She found that if movement is no longer initiated from the upper body and head but from the area of the lower spine and hips, then the head is able to move or stay still independently of the rest of the body. The whole picture of limitations in movement activity through retained reflexes does not occur. Therefore in her therapeutic approach she uses exercises of leg movements guided by the rotation of the hip rather than the turning of head and shoulder. This will cause a shift of the gravitational point from the upper part into the lower part of the body.

There are now movement therapists in Germany, who are working from Steiner’s indications and have started to work with “Rota Therapie.” Ingrid Ruhrmann focuses in her movement program for children with retained reflexes on a simple set of movements based on variations of turning sideways and rolling over as they naturally occur in movement sequences such as crawling, rotation, sitting, rotation to change direction, crawling in new direction, rotation, sitting, and so on.

In addition she uses Anthroposophical therapies

* Originally Audrey McAllen’s program did not include these floor exercises. Neither did she recommend beginning the Extra Lesson program in the first seven years of life. She states that this remedial/therapeutic work should only be done with children older than seven years to allow the etheric forces the full period of early childhood to complete the development of the physical body.

to strengthen the etheric and astral forces of the child through water applications, nutrition and rhythm. She teaches mothers how to use Rota Therapy at home in a playful way. It is heart-warming that the child before three years can be held on mother’s lap during the therapy and thus be in a protected space. Ruhrmann was able to confirm that basic hip rotational movements will stimulate normal development into uprightness.

Existing reflex patterns are ignored in Rota Therapy; the aim is to strengthen the deliberate movement at that crucial point from which movement development will proceed normally.

Supporting movement in young children

If one wishes to enable the child to feel comfortable and free in the upright position, one needs to be able to recognize when development is not following the normal order of steps or when steps are omitted.

Healthy movement at age two-and-a-half should include:

• Upright posture, the child is able to stand still (balance)

• Free head rotation without causing either arms or legs to move

• The head does not tip to the front nor is the neck extended towards the back.

• The arms swing freely while walking

• Movement is intentional

• The hands can be brought together in the sagittal plane at will

• The hands move freely in the horizontal plane, above and below the horizontal midline (butterfly)

• The speed and force of movement can be varied at will and adapted to different situations

• The centre of gravity and the rotation point of the spine is in the hip area

• The face is relaxed while moving, which means that the child does not spend extra effort in maintaining posture and balance (Ruhrmann, 2006).

Uprightness must be regarded as the foundation for all further differentiation and refinement of movements, such as those brought in morning circles. If uprightness and balance are not yet achieved, the child will not be able to fully live into the action/movement patterns of the circle, and will have difficulties imitating the gestures of the teacher and confidently moving within all spatial dimensions.

The steps to uprightness are the young child’s work

The child needs time and the appropriate space to practice these. Adults should step back and watch the little ones’ progress with love and minimal intervention.

Emmi Pikler’s documentation of the development of movement of the children in her care at the Loczy orphanage in Hungary (see Pikler, Give Me Time) has shown how the child explores and practices a wide range of movements: rotations, pushing forward of backward, lifting and turning. Through this process the child experiences her own capacities in mastering her body and develops confidence and a sense of freedom.

Regarding the connection between the development of the dexterity of the hands and speech development, Wilma Ellersiek has shown through her hand gesture games how we can support movement development of the very young child, starting on a one-to-one basis (see Ellersiek, Giving Love—Bringing Joy).

The life forces are stimulated in hands and feet through gentle hand touching games accompanied by rhythmical speech or song. Gestures such as the opening and closing of the hand, holding and releasing are practiced.

From Sally Goddard’s work the need of stimulation for the vestibular system has become apparent and this should flow into our work with young children. Mothers have always intuitively stimulated the baby’s vestibular system through gentle rocking. Later the child is rocked on the lap to the rhythms of nursery rhymes. Once the child has achieved the upright position, the child delights in being rocked more vigorously backward and forward, sideways or up and down in a see-saw motion. Swinging up and down or being held by the hands and whirled around will have a stimulating effect as well. From the third year of life the healthy child will find pleasure in rolling in the grass, jumping and sliding, sitting on a swing, or turning and spinning in the upright position. Many of the traditional outdoor movement games contain vestibular stimulation.

I would like to make the point that in the work with children under three there is no need for a formal movement program as we practice it in the work with children aged three to six in Steiner kindergartens or pre-schools. Whenever one experiences circles in play groups for toddlers, the circle seems to be more directed towards the mothers’ experience and learning while the child is “taken along.”

In a group situation with children under three, whether in child care or in toddler play groups, the play area is the space for free movement and the child’s play time is the movement program.The space, however, needs to be prepared with the possibilities for climbing, for exploring different heights and ways to get up and down. It is a space for practicing differentiated, child-initiated movement. The involvement of the adults in their domestic or craft work will provide an opportunity for children to observe the movements and gestures of the grown ups. The child absorbs these gestures deeply. Some of these may be imitated and reappear in the child’s free play.

The adult accompanies the child’s “movement work” with warmth, love, and reverence and as much as possible without interference. Steiner’s warning not to impose the adult’s will on the young child, as this may damage the child’s further development, needs to be taken seriously.

We turn now back to the beginning, to the spiritual mystery of movement. It is the I who moves the limbs and thus imprints each child’s individuality onto the body movements.

It is one of the most difficult challenges to learn to perceive this imprint of the individuality. The following questions arise:

• How can we learn to understand the individual signature of movement?

• What is the spiritual intention or destiny that expresses itself in individual variations of developmental movement patterns?

• Why are reflexes retained or re-enlivened in a child?

• Why do some people have to live all their lives with retained reflexes?

• What is the lesson to be learned through physical challenges?

• If the physical hindrance evokes a greater effort of will in the child, will this effort later bear fruit?

Holding such questions within and pondering about them, will help to see the child with intensified human interest and compassion. They are the big moral questions of education and of therapeutic intervention. May we never forget to ask these moral questions. Through professional training one can learn to identify patterns in the development of movement. Through inner spiritual work one can become sensitive to the hidden forces behind movement and tune into what wants to evolve as the child’s destiny. As Rudolf Steiner says, “To be a teacher and educator one must work with what is taking place in the depths of human nature” (Steiner, Study of Man, 67).

Conclusion

How does one educate the young child under three? Rudolf Steiner’s answer to this question is very clear. The child educates himself under the guidance of spiritual beings. The adults around the child contribute through their own self-education. The fruits of self-education become visible for the child in the quality of our gestures and these gestures are imitated by the child and work in physical growth and development.

Beyond this the child also unconsciously absorbs movements and rhythms of the earth and the cosmos and these one can see beautifully in the levity and dance-like quality of the movements of the young child. To contemplate how we could work in accordance with planetary forces in movement programs would be a further step towards a spiritually based education of the young child. A quotation by Rudolf Steiner may just hint at the dimensions of this issue.

Our purpose is to imitate, to absorb the movement of the world into ourselves through our limbs. What do we do then? We dance. . . All true dancing has arisen from imitating in the limbs the movement carried out by the planets, by other heavenly bodies or by the earth itself. . . The head rests and the soul, being related to the head, must participate in the movements while at rest. It begins to reflect from within the dancing movement of the limbs. When the limbs execute irregular movements, the soul begins to mumble. When the limbs perform regular movements, it begins to whisper. When the limbs carry out the harmonious cosmic movements of the universe, it even begins to sing. Thus the outward dancing movement is changed into song and into music within (Steiner, Study of Man, 144).

Renate Long-Breipohl is coordinator of early childhood courses at Parsifal College in Sydney, Australia, and teaches and lectures internationally. Her two lectures on “The Developing Adult” from the 2008 international conference on the theme Meeting the Needs of the Child Today will soon be published by WECAN (along with lectures by Michaela Glöckler and Johanna Steegmans).

References

Ellersiek, Wilma. Giving Love—Bringing Joy. Spring Valley, NY: WECAN, 2003.

Goddard Blythe, Sally. The Well Balanced Child: Movement and Early Learning. Stroud, UK: Hawthorn Press, 2004.

Glöckler, Michaela. Personal conversation, July, 2002.

Klocek, Dennis. Knowledge, Teaching and the Death of the Mysterious. Fair Oaks, CA: Rudolf Steiner College Press, 2000.

Ruhrmann, Ingrid. “Examples for Remedial Support.” In M. Gloeckler, Education—Health for Life. Dornach: Kolisko Conferences Publication, 2006.

Steiner, Rudolf. Study of Man. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1966.

———. Balance in Teaching. Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks, 2007.

Pikler, Emmi. Give Me Time. Translation by Alexandra Sargent of an excerpt from Lass Mir Zeit (Munich: Plaum Verlag, 1988).

Web resources

Bein-Wierzbinski research: www.paepki.de

Rota Therapy: www.rota-therapie.de

THE ABCS OF KIDS TV: PART 3 OF 3

Spawn of Sesame Street

In Canada, children aged 2 to 11 watch roughly 14 hours of television a week, or two hours a day. For some, that's more time than they spend with their parents.

James Nadler, an assistant professor in the Radio and Television Arts program at Ryerson, says early childhood development is part of the 13-week children's television production course.

"(The course) looks at early childhood development and how to tie it into what kids take out of shows, what you should be putting into shows, and the various stages children go through in terms of watching and growth and understanding, as well as more general issues about body image and obesity," Nadler says.

But one thing in children's TV he finds disconcerting is shows popping up for "pre-verbal kids ... that didn't used to be the case."

Just recently, the Walt Disney Company had to begin offering refunds for $15.99 Baby Einstein DVDs that claimed to boost little ones' brain power.

For Marni Binder, in the School of Early Childhood Education at Ryerson, TV can interfere with the most important thing in children's lives: play.

"There is a place (for shows like Sesame Street)," she says, "but there needs to be another balance. The whole idea of playing is being lost."

Any letters or numbers they learn from the tube are rote, she says.

"Kids are hands-on and tactile and have to engage with real people; they socially construct their world through their play," she says. "That's how language develops," not by mimicking what they've seen on television.

"I would rather the child actually be given paper and crayons and markers and paints," Binder says. "They need to be stimulated, they need to be engaged – people talking to them, the need to be touching things, they need to be allowed to move. Sitting in front of the TV, the only thing that's really moving potentially is their eyeballs."

And Binder cautions against using the TV as a babysitter, however tempting that may be.

Television "should be balanced with sitting down and looking at a beautiful and quality picture book and reading with a child," she says.

Toronto Star

Tough love 'is good for children'

The think tank Demos says a balance of warmth and discipline improved social skills more than a laissez-faire, authoritarian or disengaged upbringing.

It says children aged five with "tough love" parents were twice as likely to show good character capabilities.

Report author Jen Lexmond said: "It is confidence, warmth and consistent discipline that matter most."

Life chances

According to the report, qualities such as application, self-regulation and empathy were more likely to be developed in children whose parents employed a "tough love" approach.

It found that these qualities made "a vital contribution to life chances, mobility and opportunity".

The report said these characteristics were profoundly shaped in pre-school years.

Additionally, children whose parents were married were twice as likely to show such traits than children from lone parent or step-parented families, the report said.

But it added that when parental style and confidence were factored in, the difference in child character development between richer and poorer families disappeared.

Ms Lexmond added: "Far from a 'soft' skill, character is integral to our future success and wellbeing."

Article: The Slow Childhood Movement grows, as in a Social Trends article in the Toronto Star: