I sat on a small kindergarten sized chair and watched the children play. Then little Matthew came up to me and asked me about my feet. Could I walk? Why did I have those things on my legs? Why did I need help standing up? Why was I sitting in the chair that HE wanted to play with? He had a seemingly endless number of questions.

These are moments when I really do miss being with young children. They are so open. They don’t hedge around anything; they just say it like it is. If they have a question, they ask. They don’t worry about whether it’s going to embarrass the other person, they just ask. And they do things, too. Whether it’s jumping off the swings, pouring sand down their pants, or letting their teacher know that, “My mom is lots prettier than you are,” they are adventurous, curious, and honest.

Young children have very interesting points of view, too, and they are quite willing to talk about complex topics such as religion, death, and procreation. I have learned from kindergarten children that Jesus was the only person who knew how to tie his shoes when he was born. I also learned that only God can count to infinity. One child announced to us all that his baby sister “got hatched out just four months ago”.

There are always those moments, too,that we call our “teaching opportunities”. Much more important, in my mind, than learning how to read or count, these are the moments when teachers are called on to be creative. A child gets angry and hurts another child, unintentionally. A parent in the class has a miscarriage or a grandparent dies. A new baby has arrived in another family. Rowdy play results in broken toys or torn play cloths. As a teacher, I often told stories at these moments. Stories are magical and healing and intensely comforting. I loved telling stories, even the very short ones that helped the children to settle down at the snack table. To tell a story to a child when there has been a death in their family or when a new baby arrived was a privilege that I took very seriously. I would talk with the parents first and often the parents would join us for this special story. We would even decorate a candle and light it before the story began.

Every good teacher knows, however, that it is never just the students who are learning. In all my years in the kindergarten, I know that the children taught me far more than I ever taught them. And my visit to the kindergarten playground the other day was no exception! Here little Matthew was asking questions, waiting for me to share my wisdom with him. I was ready. I figure I’m old enough now to have vast stores of wisdom just waiting to be imparted to the younger generation. I told him that I wear braces on my legs because my feet often just forget which direction they are supposed to be pointing and then they make me walk funny.

Matthew looked at me for a moment and then looked at his own feet. “I’ll show you how,” he said, very seriously. “Just put your feet like this, see?” he continued, gesturing downward to show me that his feet were pointed forward. “Make sure they are going this way and then you just walk. Like this. Watch me.” And he very carefully and deliberately walked back and forth across the playground, explaining to me all the way how I could do it, too. “Do it like this, Mrs. Reinhart, and then your feet will take you anywhere you want them to.”

Being a retired Kindergarten teacher is a little like being a grandmother. You can visit and reap all the wonderful benefits of being with the children and let the teacher handle all the challenges. And the children are still teaching me more than I could ever teach them.

“That’s right, Mrs. Reinhart! Just like this, just do it like this and you’ll be able to go anywhere you want!”

Thanks, Matthew!

And in the middle of a patch of golden flowers, all shaped like golden stars, there was a little child who was sound asleep. She had been sleeping for a very long time and might be sleeping still, if it hadn’t been for the music that the child heard while she was sleeping. At first, it was such sleepy music that the child just turned over in her flower bed and slept on. The music brought dreams to the little child.

In one of the dreams, the child saw flowers growing in a garden. There were so many flowers and they were so beautiful that the child wished she could live there. In another dream, the child saw a beautiful woman with kind and gentle eyes and a handsome man who was quiet and strong. They looked as though they were waiting for someone or something.

Then the music changed again and became lively, like a dance! Now the child could hear the music clearly and she woke up. She looked around and saw the Willow Tree and the sleepy blue river. And she saw, sitting quite close to her, an old man. He was playing a flute. And the music from the flute danced through the air and the notes landed softly upon the earth. Wherever a note landed, a beautiful flower grew.

The child watched for some time and then she crept up to the old man and said, “Could you teach me how to make the flowers grow?” “Yes,” said the old man, “for I am the gardener and that is why I am here. You are to work with me and learn how to take care of the flowers.”

So the child went with the gardener and he taught her how to take care of the flowers. He showed her how to pull up the weeds and how to dig around each plant so that the sun and rain could come and nourish them. The child worked very hard and soon grew to love the gardener and the flower garden. In one corner of the garden there were flowers that were very delicate, the orchids and hibiscus. These were the child’s favorite flowers and she took special care of them all.

Every night the gardener would play his flute for her. The music made her sleepy and brought her dreams. One night, she dreamt again of the beautiful woman and the handsome, kind man. They still seemed to be waiting for someone or something. And by their little house grew beautiful orchids and hibiscus flowers. The child woke from her dream and suddenly she knew that the woman and the man were waiting for her!

So the child went to the gardener and told him of her dream. “I am so happy here and I wouldn’t ever want to leave you,” she said to him, “but they are waiting for me. I am sure of that! Can you help me to find my way?” And the gardener smiled, “Since you have worked so hard for me,” he said, “I will take you to the shore of the great sea. I will walk with you.”

So the gardener took her hand and they walked together out of the meadow. They walked through a forest and along the base of a tall mountain. At last they reached the shore of the great sea and the little golden boat was waiting to take the child across the sea to the land beyond. As it was night and the child had journeyed so far, they decided to spend that last night on the sandy shore. The child curled up and closed her eyes. The gardener took out his flute and began to play. The music made her sleepy and brought her dreams. In her dreams, she saw the beautiful woman and the handsome, kind man. They were smiling because they knew the child was on her way! The child slept through the night and in the morning when she awoke, the gardener was still playing his flute. Now the music was lively again and the music from the flute danced through the air and landed gently upon the sandy shore. Where the notes landed, little starfish appeared. Some of the notes flew up in the sky and where those notes flew, stars appeared. Then the music flew right to the child and the notes landed gently in the child’s heart. “That is music that you will hear in your heart every time someone calls your name,” said the gardener.

Then he helped the child into the golden boat and spoke a word into the sail. The boat took off and sped across the sea. It was a long journey and the child fell asleep. She slept for a long time and might be sleeping still except that the boat finally came to the end of its journey and bumped into the shore. The child fell right out of the boat and splashed into the water. When she came to herself again, she could no longer see the boat or the sea or the stars in the sky. What she did see was a beautiful and kind woman and a handsome, gentle man. And they said to her, “Welcome dear child! We have been waiting and waiting for you!” And the child, as she grew, helped the flowers to grow because she had the gardener’s music in her heart.

Lately, I’ve been getting a number of articles sent to me that talk about the proliferation of marketing that targets young children, the lack of play time in our society, and our dependence on entertainment - television, movies, computers, and computer games.

The world is changing so fast now that none of us can really and truly comprehend these changes. At my son’s college (Beloit College in Wisconsin), Professor Art Robson comes up with the Freshman “Mindset List” each year, just to help the parents and faculty to realize how different our children’s lives are now from when we grew up. I thought it might be helpful for us to take a moment to realize just how dramatically the world has changed for our children, so I have attempted to create my own list:

The children in our kindergarten were born in 1999 or later.

They have never known life without a remote control.

DVD players, VCR’s, Game boys, Computers, and Television are part of most households.

They have never known life without the Internet!

A mouse is usually connected to a computer, not running around the kitchen.

Many were born after 9/11 and so our country has always had a “patriot act” and has been fighting terrorism around the world. Airport security has always been very tight. George Bush has always been president.

News is available on television round the clock.

Children have play dates.

Health food is bought at a special store, not grown.

They have always known digital cameras and small video cameras.

They have never known life without cell phones.

Movies have always been available to be seen at home.

It is almost expected that even young children go to the movie theater to see movies.

What do you remember about when you were growing up?

I am 48 years old. I remember:

Not having a television until I was 8 or 9 years old - then we had one channel - black and white.

We played all day in the fields around our house with the neighbor children.

We ate radish sandwiches with the radishes we pulled from our garden.

We knocked on our friend’s front door, then opened it up and shouted, “Yoo-hoo”.

We spent hours playing “Mother, May I”, “Red Rover”, and other traditional games with the many children in our neighborhood, without an adult directing us.

The first movie I saw in a theater was when I was 10 years old - The Gnome-Mobile.

Before that we went to the drive-in. The adults watched the movie and the kids played at the playground.

The first Batman TV show with Adam West and Burt Ward was very controversial even for 10 to 12 year olds because of the “violence”.

TV couples had twin beds in their bedroom.

I knew nothing of the news until President Kennedy was assassinated and a man walked on the moon.

I also know that my parents:

Never had indoor plumbing while growing up.

My grandmother baked her own bread, churned all her own butter, made pickles, canned food, and made beer. And she prepared the rabbits and frogs that the boys caught for dinner.

My grandparents moved from Missouri to Colorado with 8 children, in horse drawn wagons.

My grandfather harvested farm crops with a horse drawn combine.

My mother walked to her one room schoolhouse and took time off to help with harvesting.

They had a washing machine that had to be cranked by hand, and then the clothes put through the ringer, and hung up on the clothesline. (My husband grew up with this as well!)

The kitchen garden was not a luxury but was depended on to provide the vegetables for the whole year.

My mother played with paper dolls cut out from old catalogs and with the many farm kittens.

My father got into more mischief than I want to imagine - he had three brothers!

The Ice Man came down the block with ice for the icebox.

Grampa or one of the boys shoveled coal into the furnace.

Chores came first, out of necessity, before schoolwork. My mother’s family worked a large wheat farm in northeastern Colorado and my father’s family had a fruit orchard in Ohio.

There were just 66 years between the first airplane flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk and Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon.

The Internet did not become readily available to all of us until around 1995. Until then, the government held most of the control over the internet. AOL and CompuServe began in 1995. Not many homes had computers before that time. Eleven years ago, it was a rarity. Now it is considered a necessity.

When I started teaching in 1979, at a BOCES school that served the most disabled children (academically, physically, and behaviorally), we had only one child on Ritalin. It was so controversial among the teachers to be almost scandalous. One source I found estimated that 15 to 20 percent of all school children were on Ritalin in 1996.

Please bear in mind that I would not want to go back in time to when we didn’t have any of the modern conveniences - I love my washing machine, my digital camera, and being able to send email. But it is important for us to stop from time to time and acknowledge how different the world is now and that it is changing exponentially at a rate that we cannot comprehend. How we respond to this will make the difference to our children and our future:

“…we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.”

Ursula K. LeGuin The Farthest Shore

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Being Mindful of the Present Moment - part 2

Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience.
It isn't more complicated than that.
It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.
Sylvia Boorstein

The other morning, I must have asked my daughter to hurry up at least 10 times before we finally made it out to the car to go to school. In frustration, I said to her, “I wish you could get ready quicker. I don’t like to rush.” She replied in a twelve-year-old huff, “Right, Mom. You do it all the time.” Like the good Waldorf teacher and experienced Mom that I am, I responded with patience and grace, “YEAH - WELL I STILL DON’T LIKE IT”. Okay, well…some part of me said quietly that I could have handled that one differently.

It seems that our lives are constantly in one rush or another. Perhaps as our world is changing at such speed, we are unconsciously trying to keep up. Whatever it is, it has become harder and harder to find ways to slow down and live in the present moment.

Michael Mendizza speaks about the “Power of Now”. This he describes as the “state” of relationship with the world, moment by moment. What we retain from an experience and how we learn depends on the state we are in when we experience it.

My son, John, is interning as a kindergarten assistant as a small school (not Waldorf) in urban Albany, NY. One night he called, very excited, and couldn’t wait to tell me his experiences of the week. He said, “Mom, I’ve started knitting again at the faculty meetings and I decided that I would also take my knitting into the kindergarten. It was incredible! The children came to see what I was doing and to feel the knitting, but most of all, they were just more settled. I think that since I was able to create a space around me where I could focus and do my work, they were also more able to create their own space for play!” You got it, kid!! This is very much what we mean when we say that we “work out of imitation” in the kindergarten. It’s not so much the activity that they are imitating, but the “state” we are in with our work. We create the opportunity for the children to see us having a relationship to the world, moment by moment, NOW! If we are hurried and strained or at loose ends, they will also be hurried, strained and at loose ends. If we are calm and focused, they are also more apt to be calm and focused. And which is the more optimum “state” for learning?

I don’t like to hurry. Or do I? There’s a nice little adrenalin rush that comes when you are stressed and hurried. You can suddenly feel a little more energetic and awake than you were. Are we becoming addicted to that feeling as we can become addicted to having our cup of coffee in the morning?

What can I do to slow my life down and create a space where my family and I are not hurried?

I have a few things on my to-do list:

Make sure I actually drink my full cup of tea instead of hurrying around, putting the tea mug down and forgetting about it. (I’ve been teased about this for years)

Get things ready for school for myself and Emma, the night before so there is not so much to do in the morning.

Eat real meals, including breakfast. Sit down with my family, light a candle, and take time to be with my family while we eat slowly.

Go to bed earlier.

Spend less time on the computer and telephone. (I don’t watch much TV anyway!)

Savor my daily household chores. (This isn’t an easy one for me. Cooking I can savor, washing dishes is fine, but cleaning the bathroom?) When I begin to appreciate the doing - in the NOW - of even the less pleasant chores, maybe my daughter will begin to appreciate this, too.

Take time for my own artistic work. Make sure that I am a creator and not just a consumer. This is not difficult for me, but everyone can be creators and it is such a gift to show the children that they can be creators, too.

And listen to others with genuine interest.

My teacher/mentor in this area is an old school friend who is now severely disabled. I spend an hour each week with him and during our visit, time stands still. We talk and tease and sometimes just sit together. His speech is labored, quiet, and slow. When I first started visiting him, I would strain to see the person I once knew and to understand what he was saying. After a time, I finally learned (he is a very patient teacher) to relax and just be present to him. When I could accomplish this, I found it was much easier to understand him and suddenly I was seeing little things that would remind me of the person I had known since we were both in 6^th grade! Now my goal is to try to learn to listen to others in the same way.

It is possible to learn to be mindful of the present moment. Even if the world is changing at incredible speed, we can learn to slow down and be present to each other and the world, moment by moment, NOW!

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.

Zen Buddhist Quote

One day, the pine marten heard people coming. There were a lot of people coming right through his forest! It was St. Nikolas and all his helpers. The pine marten hid in a bush close by the path. As the people came by, the he started to growl and snarl and snap his teeth. Some of the people closest to him began to walk faster. But one man stopped and looked down at the little pine marten. The pine marten suddenly was afraid and wanted to run away, but he found that he was caught in the brambles of the bush. St. Nikolas, for that is who had stopped to look at him, bent down and gently picked up the pine marten and put him in his pocket. The little fellow began to scrabble and scratch, but it was no use. He was stuck in St. Nikolas’ pocket all through the journey across the forest and all the way to the sea. He stayed in St. Nikolas’ pocket when everyone boarded the ship and when they sailed all the way across the sea.

When they finally arrived at the other shore, St. Nikolas’ helpers carried bags of food: flour, apples, nuts, and honey cakes. They went together to a town where the people were very poor and hungry. St. Nikolas and his helpers left food on each doorstep. Then St. Nikolas took the little pine marten out of his pocket. St. Nikolas looked closely at the pine marten, “No more growling,” said St. Nikolas, “no more snarling and no more snapping. I have work for you to do.” And he sent the pine marten in each house with coins to drop into the stockings that were hanging by the fire. The little pine marten worked very hard, carrying the coins in his mouth and slipping into the houses. He worked all night long and when morning came and he was finished with his work, he was very tired. He was happy to go back inside St. Nikolas’ pocket!

The little pine marten was so sleepy that he didn’t even know when they got back on their ship and sailed across the sea for home. He didn’t wake up, even when they came to the forest. But when they came quite close to where St. Nikolas had found him, St. Nikolas took him out of his pocket and told him that he could go free.

But the little pine marten wanted to stay with St. Nikolas. And so, he went back into St. Nikolas’ pocket and continued on the journey to St. Nikolas’ home. From that time on, he lived in the woods close to St. Nikolas’ house. And whenever St. Nikolas needed his help, he was right there.

Terri Reinhart                 12/06