The Spirit of Childhood

The Spirit of Childhood: The Waldorf Curriculum Grade One

Waldorf teacher-trainer and master teacher, Douglas Gabriel introduces teachers and parents to Rudolf Steiner’s Waldorf School curriculum in an all-encompassing curriculum book that can be used for the first grade and beyond. Spirit of Childhood presents an overview of the curriculum from different disciplines such as history, mythology, child development, and religion.

Spirit of Childhood presents an overview of the curriculum from different disciplines such as history, mythology, child development, and religion. Many quotations from Steiner’s pedagogical works support these presentations, and a comprehensive example of the first grade language arts curriculum is presented that is integrated with the seasonal changes of the school year. Helpful block plans, outlines, and curriculum descriptions give the reader a picture of an entire first grade year that a Waldorf student might experience. Besides a full presentation of grade one materials, there are also plays for grades two, three, four, and five, which were written together by the author and his students. These examples show what might be accomplished by the interactive creativity of teacher and student.

In Section Three, the author discusses the differences between the often compared “Montessori” curriculum and the “Steiner” curriculum as applied in the 600 Waldorf schools found in 24 different countries. An analysis of these two curricula accompanies an informal biography of Maria Montessori that addresses her membership in the Theosophical Society, of which Rudolf Steiner was also a member for many years.

A brief biography and time-line of the life of Amos Comenius, the great didactic genius, is also included because Rudolf Steiner said of him, “Today it is very useful for men to permeate themselves with Comenius’s ideas.” Comenius’s educational work, The World in Pictures was said to be Goethe’s favorite book, after the Holy Bible. Here for the first time, the influence of the Rosicrucians is found openly in the field of education and the reader can follow the life of the “last living Rosicrucian,” who as often called the “Shepherd of men’s minds.”

Section Four finishes the book with two key educational lectures of Rudolf Steiner’s that establish a flexible modality of perceiving the growing child out of a new psychology of childhood. These important lectures give the reader a new view of the human as a being of body, soul, and spirit, and illuminates the nature of the spirit of childhood.

About the Author

Tyla Gabriel, ND is a board certified naturopath as well as an internationally known entrepreneur in education and business. She holds a graduate degree in Humanities from Florida State University, where she began her life-long studies in religion, mythology and philosophy, eventually leading her to the path of Anthroposophy. As a philosopher and theologian, her writings and teachings on the pivotal role of the Divine Feminine Trinity have broken ground that is tantamount to a new revelation of the divine that necessitates a complete revisiting of our approach to the world and ourselves. The Gospel of Sophia is the testament of an aspirant of Sophia who has been given self-initiation with the assistance of the Divine Feminine Trinity as guide and teacher. From the first revelation of Sophia through Pelee, to the Etheric Christ experience several years later, Gabriel has followed the luminous path of study and communion with Sophia-Christos to become an initiate of Sophia. The teachings about the Being of Sophia are the result of living Imaginations given to her by spiritual beings that inspired her over many years, guiding her to active Intuitions that unveil the hidden nature of the Great Goddess.