In many schools, art is taught as a stand-alone subject, with one lesson a week, or two if children are lucky. Our curriculum is interwoven, with particular emphasis during the 7–14-year-old stage on teaching through imagination, creating inner pictures, and beauty and art. In Steiner Waldorf education, there is a deep connection to educating through the ancient ideals of truth, beauty and goodness.
The Class Teacher is responsible for creating a beautiful environment around the children, in which they can experience the world as good and true. Our classrooms are painted using a gentle 'lazure' technique, with plants and a dedicated nature table that reflects the changing seasons, adorned with coloured cloths, precious stones, delicately felted figures and a candle.At the front of the classroom is the blackboard, where creating beautiful images is an essential part of a Class Teacher's job. In the younger classes, the children can dream into the beautiful worlds their teachers draw for them. Even the tiniest addition to a picture overnight, such as a toadstool appearing under a tree or some stars in the sky, can elicit the most wonder-filled responses when the children arrive the next morning. Often, children will speculate with excited anticipation about what the image represents and what they are about to learn in the new main lesson block.Creating blackboard drawings is an ongoing process for the teacher. Our striving for artistic growth provides an important model for the children in our care. The blackboard drawing, when created as an illustration for a main lesson block, is different from the blackboard drawing created during lessons to demonstrate a point or to guide the children in building up their own drawings.To anyone entering a Waldorf Steiner classroom for the first time, a traditional blackboard may seem somewhat outdated. Where are the interactive whiteboards? Why put up with all the chalk dust? Chalks are vibrant and colourful. They can be blended, they can cover large areas using the long edge, and they can be applied with varying intensity. You can create sharp, clean lines or rub the colours together in a soft, misty effect. Not so with whiteboard markers, with their harsh colours and lack of tonal contrast. This is why we have blackboards in our classrooms. Not because we are stuck in the past, but because we value beauty as part of the classroom environment. Working with chalk means that we form colours, rather than colour forms.Our teachers and staff often pop into colleagues' classrooms to see what they have created for their classes![Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="32" gal_title="Blackboards"]