Taikura Rudolf Steiner School

Class Seven: "What I Will Carry Into The World"

Puberty arrives and 'the balance' is temporarily misplaced. With puberty, changes can occur quickly; the 'child' is less in evidence physically and though the adults may differ in opinion, the students turning thirteen no longer experience themselves as children. They again ask “Who are you to tell me this?” They may resent school and parental rules, would like to be independent, but do not yet have the ability to strike out on their own. They wish to experience a new and larger world and express this in requests to explore the night life of the city, to frequent those places where their contemporaries 'hang out'. They often demand to change schools at this time, expressing a wish to escape the safety of the known world and to step into something that is 'bigger and better.'

The task:

To look beyond the immediate horizon and begin a voyage of discovery that mirrors the students' own development. To present threshold pictures of bravery and sacrifice in daring to go beyond the known and to reflect upon the consequence of this. The great voyages of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries can be studied through biographies and the immense hardship of the journeys and the effect these explorers had on the worlds they discovered could be investigated. The arrival of the Renaissance, hard on the heels of this era, is in turn studied, especially the lives of Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. The pupils will try their hands at copying these great masters and experience the beauty of form and colour that was their particular gift to the world.

Lessons that support this time include astronomy and its developmental history. The lives of the astronomers and their discoveries are charted, maths moves into algebra and 'cracking the code', lessons in how to find answers when not all the information is to hand. The English lesson 'Wish, Wonder, Surprise' encourages the pupils to look beyond their own desires and view the greater needs of the world. The last drama presentation of the Lower School is offered in this year, a major presentation that presents a threshold the entire class must cross.